Post by Kyle Shane on Jan 15, 2018 20:00:28 GMT -5
You know. I've had almost a month to reflect on things that are missing.
Ha, yeah, my belt, some smug 38-year old fuckwad and his sleazy friend are going to be the first to point that out; likely cheesing their mugs in the shot and acting like they're a centerpoint of focus.
But it's not a stolen championship belt on some mysterious journey that catches my eye through all of this. It's the match made for ostensibly one of the biggest PCW Trauma's in history, that adds all of these disparate elements into a pressure cooker and aims to make a stew. That puts three, possibly more combustible, fractitious stables into an enclosed space and wants to see what happens, who's agenda will win out.
It's about what's there, in the ring, when Notorious, the Followers of Seromine, and Brenna and I all meet in the ring.
And it's about what's missing.
The void that these screeching jackoffs try so vainly to fill.
Or to distract from the point that there's even a hole there they're trying to cover up - an obvious, gaping omission in their skill set. Hardly any one of us is going into this match completed, but what we have here, shared between Gabriel, Seromine, Johnny Don't Call Me By A Porn Star Name, and Justin Still Has A Porn Star Name.
They are parts of a hole.
Lacking in key, detrimental areas that will fuck them over at every turn. Hidden vanities and over-inflated egos, prideful comb-overs on the thinning pate of a dearth of real skill, or just plain out and out subservience. Inability to cope with the reality of their station or their lot in life. Just being whiny. Fact is you could combine all four of them together and barely come away with a functional, well adjusted, skilled adult who is also good at his job. Having faced them all and geared up for what I thought was the biggest test of my life in fighting Seromine I can tell you: that only he even approached competence in the ring, if it is consistently undercut by the fact that he can't win a match to save his life without Destiny or his followers. Oh, I'm sorry, was he aiming to prove me wrong? Destiny got more screen time at Collision Course than the damn fatal fourway match did in the opening ten minutes.
But for all of that and the fact that Seromine had to hide under a shapely crutch to do his job, he performed magnificently at Collision Course. He and his wife roughed me up pretty bad, together, and all told it did give me the match I knew I was in for, the fight against one of the best and toughest in the camp.
It's just a shame that the parade of shenanigans had to happen to spoil the crowning glory because Pure Class Wrestling just can't let a moment breathe.
Seromine and his flock had to circle the wagons and threaten my life to prove they weren't a defanged, defeated beast. Not that I'm not thankful, but Brenna Gordon picked right then to come down, get face to face with Seromine, and kindle some bad, old history. And, of course, Notorious ran down to the ring, jumped me and made off with the belt, leaving me with, like, five fucking seconds where I, the new World's Wrestling Champion, could hold my belt up and smile in acknowledgement that I had worked my ass off to get here this entire year and I deserved that spotlight. Moment, trampled over.
Parts of a hole.
But all these parts of these A-holes doing entirely too much to further their own agenda haven't stripped me of my pride as champion in the moment, or soured what should have been my God damned Achievement Unlocked. Fact is that whether I'm holding onto the belt or not I've stamped my claim as the best thing going. Or was it a coincidence that at the Iceys I was touted Most Loved and most innovative (Again) while men like Notorious got, what. Oooh, we like your entrance or that time you stood in the ring and made it look like a talk show. Like you're both some kind of original.
The fact is that when I talk about people missing vital pieces, you are both the first ones that come to mind and half of you knows it. Johnny V, lost his smile when he, stupidly, called out Grimm, and made a big to-do about needing to get a quality win to get people talking about his stalled career, and he got his mouth washed out. Now, Johnny isn't feeling that Vivacious vibe, he's scaled back from his asshole lounge lizard shtick and become a new man, and with fire in his heart dedicated himself to being... the exact same. A clone of Stormm, bless his heart.
I can guarantee you this, for someone acting like they're Notorious and everyone knows them, I could go to any fed you could name and find a bland white boy like Johnny Matthews right now. Same slicked hair, same tepid moveset, same banal interest in being cheeky and controversial. Just a mediocre middle aged white man. And I don't care how many people shout along with your moves when you do them, at the end of the day, they're still cheering for me.
Thing with Stormm was, in our first meeting, I showed him respect. Deference, even. I wasn't overly cocky, because I was still smarting about losing the Deadly Rumble. But I was pissed off, and I didn't want to let it stand, and I spoke candidly about how I was going to take the next match and it's stakes for a title shot and I was going to propel myself forward, not look back. And he... Acted like he didn't even know who I was. I mean, I get it, I'm not like whoever he had back in his day, so I'm not surprised he looked right past me. His mistake. I kicked his fucking head in.
And then Johnny Matthews, vamping wildly and pretending to be some amigo, invited Kyle Shane onto his Club V.
And then acted surprised when I actually showed up.
And then when I listed my accomplishments, including a run on the very Underground Championship he would go on to name as his top priority and attack Dominator for, he would laugh it off as being irrelevant because it's a garbage title, which makes him hypocritical as hell in hindsight, but the thrust of this really got going when Stormm came to the ring, enraged and spitting fire that some rookie had beat him for HIS Number One Contendership. He was the future World Champion in waiting, dammit! And Kyle Shane was some nobody in his Fallout New Vegas cosplay. The very fact that Stormm mentioned my cosplay gave him the air of one of those outdated assholes that thinks nerds are all weak armed little babies with pocket protectors who have never held a titty in their hands.
None of my achievements MATTERED, he said. He had won the North American title twice! He had won the Icemann Tournament in 2006!... Stormm, were you aware in the moment or should I deflate your balloon now, by telling you, you're waving around a vintage from when I was 16 fucking years old.
That segment, and those lines, to me, about why nothing I did mattered because you'd done them before, Stormm, that was what I wanted, most of all to talk about because they indicate, more than anything, your fatal hole. More than anyone in this match. You're still acting and pretending like what you did then matters, that we should care. Like you should be afforded some bonus for coming back from hiatus when you were suing the company instead, achieving what you did 12 years ago and acting like that translates into relevance. It doesn't. We can argue all day long about what the Beatles did for music in their day but I won't pretend that what they did then, is relevant to music now.
And you and Johnny Vag don't understand this.
That's why it shocks you to see me where I'm at and why it grinded your gears so much that you had to take what I had.
That's why you ran with your outdated tactics and performed your bush league beatdown and title theft chicanery - Speaking frankly, was this tactic considered new and fresh in 2006 when you won some trophy, or was it always this boring?
You're mad you didn't get a World Title shot - well, consider the fact that you lost not one but TWO chances for it. We both could have won the Deadly Rumble, but did not. You COULD have beaten me and sidestepped the middle man, forcing me to take the North American championship, but you could not. Now both your salty, crusted asses are mad you're on the outside looking in. Had you, I dunno I'm just blue-skying, defeated me, this wouldn't matter... but you couldn't see me as enough of a threat to the mighty Stormm. You couldn't see me, at all. And I know what you're doing, because I see you, or more clearly I see THROUGH you, transparently. You want this to be how you get your name in title consideration. And now Johnny, jetting the belt off to some undisclosed location and running his mouth, has exposed even worse your prideful vanities because he did much the same thing to Dominator. Lose a vital, important match, get locked out of a conversation, and resort to attacking a champion from behind and holding up the belt to paint himself as a challenger.
Yes, but that's NOT WINNING.
You don't win title shots by sheer force of assholeishness, you win them through the very skills you lack.
You, sir, didn't just beat me down from behind, you didn't just take the belt away, you had to fucking SPRAYPAINT the letter "N" on it. For God sake. Overkill knows no limits with you a-holes. Nor have you heard of subtlety.
And again, none of this is new, Justin. That's my issue with the both of you, you act so bleeding-edge new wave cool, assholes that people love, Kings of Controversy (parenthetically, a much less shitty name than Notorious, but if I see you call yourselves the Kings of Controversy I will well and truly know you're out of ideas) but every single part and parcel of your act is so stale and wasted that I just feel tired thinking about it. That's why I legitimately don't even care that you took my belt, I'm just grinning because you gave me an excuse to be both brutal and petty, and yet still completely in the right. Now I won't have any moral quibble about kicking you so hard with ANOTHER VATS that your jaw breaks under my heel.
What did you think this was going to be? Were you going to be the bully kids on the playground throwing the belt back and forth and playing keep away from the scrawny nerd, what, did you think I was going to cry?
See, I am Kyle motherfucking Shane. I made my name off playing the game. I don't let other people manipulate me into what they wanna do. I am always player one, partner.
And the question remains is that when you keep losing, what else are you going to take? When Bren assists me in putting both of you smarmy, self-imposing forty year olds down for your afternoon nap and you lose yet another main event around here... what brainless, boring idea will you trot out next? Who will you beat down? Who's belt, award, plaque or tchotchke are you going to swipe so you can paint your little letter on it and pretend like holding it close to your chest for a few minutes makes people think you are still relevant?
Or maybe I'll just headshot your entire scheme, buy a 20 dollar plastic belt from Target, and wear it down to the ring and still exude more championship caliber and credibility than you could accrue in a decade.
I know I've spent a good amount of time on the Notorious Nitwits and people go all cross eyed when I talk at length anyway. But the whole, asinine play that my life's become since Collision Course needed to be addressed so we could move on.
My point is that you anally-conjoined plebes think you're too cool for school. And if there was one faction I've been wanting to bring crashing down, it was yours. Seromine's flock already got checked off, and I've spent the last six months cataloging their deficiencies, but I had yet to well and truly fuck you Not-So-Notorious clowns up. I look your way and I don't see the threat to the glass ceiling that your reputation might have called for... all I can see is the holes. The gaps in your logic and the unfilled cavities in your arsenal.
In a way, you and that North American title deserve each other. I hope you're ready for Gabriel to come after it like you'd stolen the Ark of the Covenant.
Another surreal coda to my win at Collision Course and what should have been a banner night at the Icey's. Gabriel interrupted the broadcast every time my name came up to voice a mealy mouthed protest over the loudspeaker. There's another boy lacking something between the ears. And yet, it's true to form. When Seromine lost, conclusively to Nathan Saniti and failed to make the North American title with him, he was proven conclusively, decisively mortal. And he went away, going dark and letting the rest of the Branch Dravidians talk him up. Decrying what had happened as injustice, "theft", or heresy. And so it was, Seromine took the last month off to lick his wounds while Gabriel spewed his usual rhetoric. Talk about stepping on moments... to Gabriel, my being awarded for what I did was blasphemy, because I am a sinner.
In his manic shrieking over the PA system, i saw a shaken man, kinda like those who believe in divine creation being shown incontrovertible fossil records and evidence of evolution. Because for all of the bullshit Seromine talks to be correct, one or both of them would have had to have won at Collision Course. Gabriel wasn't going to be the one to do it. He tried every single thing he could to get out of that match, even getting counted out. He saw his own weakness when he looked in his heart and he knew he was going to end up failing Seromine. So he had to lean his belief on Seromine standing tall and coming out dominant, smiting the wicked, arrogant punk who had trashed their faith.
Yeah. About that.
It's the biggest void of them all. Their entire belief system was proven to be a lie in one night, because it didn't matter who did the praying, it didn't give them enough strength to overcome the odds. And now, Gabriel can only question his leader, can only whinge at Seromine's feet and ask him if this is some macabre test or trial, if God is putting them through the labors of Job and taking everything. Or, crazy idea, if there is nobody listening, and they're just a bunch of shitheads in robes twisting quotes into their own context. Empty, pointless words that try to sweep under the rug the fact that they're not backing anything up, they're not tenets of a personal belief system or motivation for inner strength, they're just justifications for a dictator to get people to beat his enemies up for him.
Because Seromine ultimately comes from the same cloth as Notorious in that he always has to save face. He couldn't accept the fact that he lost his belt any more than Stormm can accept that the geeky cosplay kid whipped his ass badly.
Seromine can circle the followers, rope in the wifey, get the creeps in animal masks out there wielding clubs and bibles. But in this match, this chaotic, insane fight, he's going to need every single bit of it. All of them are. They're going to need those covers. They're going to need those cheap tactics. They're going to have to compensate for every hole in their game plan, which numbers about as many as the airholes between the links of the cage.
They're going to need it. With Brenna Gordon, the girl who's Born of Myth at my side - hell, I can't think of anyone better to rain down the thunder side by side with. I can only hope that if I start to enjoy the carnage this cathartic exercise avails, she won't look at me in a different light when it's over.
Because I am bringing all of it.
All of this anger I've been hanging on to this past month, all of the frustration, every savage impulse.
I've looked into the hole I currently have, the hole in my chest where I'm removed my heart from the equation, and I grin widely at the abyss yawning back within.
It is going to swallow each and every God damn one of you.
Ha, yeah, my belt, some smug 38-year old fuckwad and his sleazy friend are going to be the first to point that out; likely cheesing their mugs in the shot and acting like they're a centerpoint of focus.
But it's not a stolen championship belt on some mysterious journey that catches my eye through all of this. It's the match made for ostensibly one of the biggest PCW Trauma's in history, that adds all of these disparate elements into a pressure cooker and aims to make a stew. That puts three, possibly more combustible, fractitious stables into an enclosed space and wants to see what happens, who's agenda will win out.
It's about what's there, in the ring, when Notorious, the Followers of Seromine, and Brenna and I all meet in the ring.
And it's about what's missing.
The void that these screeching jackoffs try so vainly to fill.
Or to distract from the point that there's even a hole there they're trying to cover up - an obvious, gaping omission in their skill set. Hardly any one of us is going into this match completed, but what we have here, shared between Gabriel, Seromine, Johnny Don't Call Me By A Porn Star Name, and Justin Still Has A Porn Star Name.
They are parts of a hole.
Lacking in key, detrimental areas that will fuck them over at every turn. Hidden vanities and over-inflated egos, prideful comb-overs on the thinning pate of a dearth of real skill, or just plain out and out subservience. Inability to cope with the reality of their station or their lot in life. Just being whiny. Fact is you could combine all four of them together and barely come away with a functional, well adjusted, skilled adult who is also good at his job. Having faced them all and geared up for what I thought was the biggest test of my life in fighting Seromine I can tell you: that only he even approached competence in the ring, if it is consistently undercut by the fact that he can't win a match to save his life without Destiny or his followers. Oh, I'm sorry, was he aiming to prove me wrong? Destiny got more screen time at Collision Course than the damn fatal fourway match did in the opening ten minutes.
But for all of that and the fact that Seromine had to hide under a shapely crutch to do his job, he performed magnificently at Collision Course. He and his wife roughed me up pretty bad, together, and all told it did give me the match I knew I was in for, the fight against one of the best and toughest in the camp.
It's just a shame that the parade of shenanigans had to happen to spoil the crowning glory because Pure Class Wrestling just can't let a moment breathe.
Seromine and his flock had to circle the wagons and threaten my life to prove they weren't a defanged, defeated beast. Not that I'm not thankful, but Brenna Gordon picked right then to come down, get face to face with Seromine, and kindle some bad, old history. And, of course, Notorious ran down to the ring, jumped me and made off with the belt, leaving me with, like, five fucking seconds where I, the new World's Wrestling Champion, could hold my belt up and smile in acknowledgement that I had worked my ass off to get here this entire year and I deserved that spotlight. Moment, trampled over.
Parts of a hole.
But all these parts of these A-holes doing entirely too much to further their own agenda haven't stripped me of my pride as champion in the moment, or soured what should have been my God damned Achievement Unlocked. Fact is that whether I'm holding onto the belt or not I've stamped my claim as the best thing going. Or was it a coincidence that at the Iceys I was touted Most Loved and most innovative (Again) while men like Notorious got, what. Oooh, we like your entrance or that time you stood in the ring and made it look like a talk show. Like you're both some kind of original.
The fact is that when I talk about people missing vital pieces, you are both the first ones that come to mind and half of you knows it. Johnny V, lost his smile when he, stupidly, called out Grimm, and made a big to-do about needing to get a quality win to get people talking about his stalled career, and he got his mouth washed out. Now, Johnny isn't feeling that Vivacious vibe, he's scaled back from his asshole lounge lizard shtick and become a new man, and with fire in his heart dedicated himself to being... the exact same. A clone of Stormm, bless his heart.
I can guarantee you this, for someone acting like they're Notorious and everyone knows them, I could go to any fed you could name and find a bland white boy like Johnny Matthews right now. Same slicked hair, same tepid moveset, same banal interest in being cheeky and controversial. Just a mediocre middle aged white man. And I don't care how many people shout along with your moves when you do them, at the end of the day, they're still cheering for me.
Thing with Stormm was, in our first meeting, I showed him respect. Deference, even. I wasn't overly cocky, because I was still smarting about losing the Deadly Rumble. But I was pissed off, and I didn't want to let it stand, and I spoke candidly about how I was going to take the next match and it's stakes for a title shot and I was going to propel myself forward, not look back. And he... Acted like he didn't even know who I was. I mean, I get it, I'm not like whoever he had back in his day, so I'm not surprised he looked right past me. His mistake. I kicked his fucking head in.
And then Johnny Matthews, vamping wildly and pretending to be some amigo, invited Kyle Shane onto his Club V.
And then acted surprised when I actually showed up.
And then when I listed my accomplishments, including a run on the very Underground Championship he would go on to name as his top priority and attack Dominator for, he would laugh it off as being irrelevant because it's a garbage title, which makes him hypocritical as hell in hindsight, but the thrust of this really got going when Stormm came to the ring, enraged and spitting fire that some rookie had beat him for HIS Number One Contendership. He was the future World Champion in waiting, dammit! And Kyle Shane was some nobody in his Fallout New Vegas cosplay. The very fact that Stormm mentioned my cosplay gave him the air of one of those outdated assholes that thinks nerds are all weak armed little babies with pocket protectors who have never held a titty in their hands.
None of my achievements MATTERED, he said. He had won the North American title twice! He had won the Icemann Tournament in 2006!... Stormm, were you aware in the moment or should I deflate your balloon now, by telling you, you're waving around a vintage from when I was 16 fucking years old.
That segment, and those lines, to me, about why nothing I did mattered because you'd done them before, Stormm, that was what I wanted, most of all to talk about because they indicate, more than anything, your fatal hole. More than anyone in this match. You're still acting and pretending like what you did then matters, that we should care. Like you should be afforded some bonus for coming back from hiatus when you were suing the company instead, achieving what you did 12 years ago and acting like that translates into relevance. It doesn't. We can argue all day long about what the Beatles did for music in their day but I won't pretend that what they did then, is relevant to music now.
And you and Johnny Vag don't understand this.
That's why it shocks you to see me where I'm at and why it grinded your gears so much that you had to take what I had.
That's why you ran with your outdated tactics and performed your bush league beatdown and title theft chicanery - Speaking frankly, was this tactic considered new and fresh in 2006 when you won some trophy, or was it always this boring?
You're mad you didn't get a World Title shot - well, consider the fact that you lost not one but TWO chances for it. We both could have won the Deadly Rumble, but did not. You COULD have beaten me and sidestepped the middle man, forcing me to take the North American championship, but you could not. Now both your salty, crusted asses are mad you're on the outside looking in. Had you, I dunno I'm just blue-skying, defeated me, this wouldn't matter... but you couldn't see me as enough of a threat to the mighty Stormm. You couldn't see me, at all. And I know what you're doing, because I see you, or more clearly I see THROUGH you, transparently. You want this to be how you get your name in title consideration. And now Johnny, jetting the belt off to some undisclosed location and running his mouth, has exposed even worse your prideful vanities because he did much the same thing to Dominator. Lose a vital, important match, get locked out of a conversation, and resort to attacking a champion from behind and holding up the belt to paint himself as a challenger.
Yes, but that's NOT WINNING.
You don't win title shots by sheer force of assholeishness, you win them through the very skills you lack.
You, sir, didn't just beat me down from behind, you didn't just take the belt away, you had to fucking SPRAYPAINT the letter "N" on it. For God sake. Overkill knows no limits with you a-holes. Nor have you heard of subtlety.
And again, none of this is new, Justin. That's my issue with the both of you, you act so bleeding-edge new wave cool, assholes that people love, Kings of Controversy (parenthetically, a much less shitty name than Notorious, but if I see you call yourselves the Kings of Controversy I will well and truly know you're out of ideas) but every single part and parcel of your act is so stale and wasted that I just feel tired thinking about it. That's why I legitimately don't even care that you took my belt, I'm just grinning because you gave me an excuse to be both brutal and petty, and yet still completely in the right. Now I won't have any moral quibble about kicking you so hard with ANOTHER VATS that your jaw breaks under my heel.
What did you think this was going to be? Were you going to be the bully kids on the playground throwing the belt back and forth and playing keep away from the scrawny nerd, what, did you think I was going to cry?
See, I am Kyle motherfucking Shane. I made my name off playing the game. I don't let other people manipulate me into what they wanna do. I am always player one, partner.
And the question remains is that when you keep losing, what else are you going to take? When Bren assists me in putting both of you smarmy, self-imposing forty year olds down for your afternoon nap and you lose yet another main event around here... what brainless, boring idea will you trot out next? Who will you beat down? Who's belt, award, plaque or tchotchke are you going to swipe so you can paint your little letter on it and pretend like holding it close to your chest for a few minutes makes people think you are still relevant?
Or maybe I'll just headshot your entire scheme, buy a 20 dollar plastic belt from Target, and wear it down to the ring and still exude more championship caliber and credibility than you could accrue in a decade.
I know I've spent a good amount of time on the Notorious Nitwits and people go all cross eyed when I talk at length anyway. But the whole, asinine play that my life's become since Collision Course needed to be addressed so we could move on.
My point is that you anally-conjoined plebes think you're too cool for school. And if there was one faction I've been wanting to bring crashing down, it was yours. Seromine's flock already got checked off, and I've spent the last six months cataloging their deficiencies, but I had yet to well and truly fuck you Not-So-Notorious clowns up. I look your way and I don't see the threat to the glass ceiling that your reputation might have called for... all I can see is the holes. The gaps in your logic and the unfilled cavities in your arsenal.
In a way, you and that North American title deserve each other. I hope you're ready for Gabriel to come after it like you'd stolen the Ark of the Covenant.
Another surreal coda to my win at Collision Course and what should have been a banner night at the Icey's. Gabriel interrupted the broadcast every time my name came up to voice a mealy mouthed protest over the loudspeaker. There's another boy lacking something between the ears. And yet, it's true to form. When Seromine lost, conclusively to Nathan Saniti and failed to make the North American title with him, he was proven conclusively, decisively mortal. And he went away, going dark and letting the rest of the Branch Dravidians talk him up. Decrying what had happened as injustice, "theft", or heresy. And so it was, Seromine took the last month off to lick his wounds while Gabriel spewed his usual rhetoric. Talk about stepping on moments... to Gabriel, my being awarded for what I did was blasphemy, because I am a sinner.
In his manic shrieking over the PA system, i saw a shaken man, kinda like those who believe in divine creation being shown incontrovertible fossil records and evidence of evolution. Because for all of the bullshit Seromine talks to be correct, one or both of them would have had to have won at Collision Course. Gabriel wasn't going to be the one to do it. He tried every single thing he could to get out of that match, even getting counted out. He saw his own weakness when he looked in his heart and he knew he was going to end up failing Seromine. So he had to lean his belief on Seromine standing tall and coming out dominant, smiting the wicked, arrogant punk who had trashed their faith.
Yeah. About that.
It's the biggest void of them all. Their entire belief system was proven to be a lie in one night, because it didn't matter who did the praying, it didn't give them enough strength to overcome the odds. And now, Gabriel can only question his leader, can only whinge at Seromine's feet and ask him if this is some macabre test or trial, if God is putting them through the labors of Job and taking everything. Or, crazy idea, if there is nobody listening, and they're just a bunch of shitheads in robes twisting quotes into their own context. Empty, pointless words that try to sweep under the rug the fact that they're not backing anything up, they're not tenets of a personal belief system or motivation for inner strength, they're just justifications for a dictator to get people to beat his enemies up for him.
Because Seromine ultimately comes from the same cloth as Notorious in that he always has to save face. He couldn't accept the fact that he lost his belt any more than Stormm can accept that the geeky cosplay kid whipped his ass badly.
Seromine can circle the followers, rope in the wifey, get the creeps in animal masks out there wielding clubs and bibles. But in this match, this chaotic, insane fight, he's going to need every single bit of it. All of them are. They're going to need those covers. They're going to need those cheap tactics. They're going to have to compensate for every hole in their game plan, which numbers about as many as the airholes between the links of the cage.
They're going to need it. With Brenna Gordon, the girl who's Born of Myth at my side - hell, I can't think of anyone better to rain down the thunder side by side with. I can only hope that if I start to enjoy the carnage this cathartic exercise avails, she won't look at me in a different light when it's over.
Because I am bringing all of it.
All of this anger I've been hanging on to this past month, all of the frustration, every savage impulse.
I've looked into the hole I currently have, the hole in my chest where I'm removed my heart from the equation, and I grin widely at the abyss yawning back within.
It is going to swallow each and every God damn one of you.
