It's All In The Hips, Yeah!

[Darren Hughes]

First things first. 

Fuck that alligator. 

I mean, we're friends now. He lives in my backyard. Wanted to name him Chubs, but apparently there's no less than six hundred and nineteen alligators registered within the state of South Carolina named "Chubs".  

There was only one named Whitey Ford. Now there's two.  

I'm not mad about him pinning me either. If anyone really thinks letting an alligator crawl on top of me for three seconds is a sign I can't do my job here, I would really like to get them in a match where small joint manipulation is legal. Sometimes, folks, we do shit just for fun to get a laugh. It's awesome. Try it sometime.  

You know what else is awesome? Getting a second chance to right your wrongs.  

Let me back this on up to, I'd say...July 2012? Maybe June? I can't remember, and I don't feel like going back to look it up. I'm gonna do this purely off memory here. I think I remember the important parts. 

My career in the ring was a short three years. During that time, I worked for a lot of different places. And everywhere I went, I acheived success. I won titles, I upset juggernauts, and I turned heads. I once defeated a World Champion who had not lost a match in fourteen months, until he met Darren Hughes. Larry Gowan was his name, just in case anyone wants to fact-check me on this. I won a championship in every single company I wrestled for. Everywhere I went, I found fame and fortune, and I was a winner.  

Except one.  

Pure Class Wrestling.  

I lost more matches in PCW than I had everywhere else I had wrestled combined. No matter what I did, I found nothing but failure. And the more frustrated I was, the more I alienated myself from both the fans and the other wrestlers. I was a young dumbfuck back then. All I knew was, the formula that had led me to overwhelming success everywhere I had been up to this point, it wasn't working for me. It seemed like I was doomed to fail. And I did myself no favors by the way I reacted to it. Every week, I gave it my all, and every week I was dropping matches to Tyrone "Crazy Boy" Smith, Ace Anderson, The Asshole, Eira...if the fuckin' alligator was there back then, I probably would have lost to it too. By the way, I lost to the human Whitey Ford too. A couple times, actually.  

Finally, one day I just had enough. I gave it all up and walked away. Like a little bitch I just ragequit everything. After going through two knee replacements just to stay in the game, I lost the biggest fight I have ever been in: the fight with myself.  

After that, I disappeared. I died, or so they say. I can't tell you anything about that, but what I CAN tell you is that I'm standing here right now. I'm back, and I don't intend to be your stepping stone this time. I don't intend to stall out because I don't fit in.  

This time, I'm going to put the pedal to the metal.  

This time, you're going to get the Darren Hughes that destroyed everyone's preconceptions about who he was and how far he could go. 

This time, you get the Darren Hughes that exposed undefeated world champions.  

This time, you get the Darren Hughes that got a cinder block broken over his knee and came back six months later to win a strap in a ladder match - a match I detest with every fiber of my being.  

I'm not going to say I will become the PCW World Champion. That's just fuckin' cocky and overconfident of me. But I might. I just might go the distance and take that belt. That's how motivated I am. That's how straight up pissed off I am, at myself for my past failures.  

So for me to say I'm just gonna beat the brakes off Kyle Shane is preposterous. That might be the biggest word I know. But while he is more than likely comfortable with his place in life, I've got a tiny bit more motivation than he does. Kyle Shane's place on the card is safe no matter what happens. Meanwhile, every match is make or break for me. Every single match I wrestle in from this day forward has the potential to end my career, or it has the potential to elevate me into the stratosphere.  

I have to be honest. I remember Grimm. I remember Cory. Kyle Shane, I don't know you. As of right now, the only thing I know about you is that you've won a shit ton of shit over the years. But over the course of the next two weeks, I am going to study you. I'm gonna study you to the point I know your boot size just from watching you walk to the ring. I'm going to learn every single one of your tells. I'm going to research how to catch the Dead Eye, and how to make sure you can't get away from me if I want to put you in a kneebar afterwards. I'm going to watch every frame of your motion when you go for those ariel maneuvers, and I'm going to know exactly when you flex your quads before you jump off the top rope. I'm going to learn everything about you.  

You are more than welcome to try and do the same. But when you go into the PCW library and you check out all the Darren Hughes matches you can find, not a damn one of them is going to help you. You can watch me dropkick a vending machine all you want, but if you think I'm going to throw the same dropkick twice I feel really sorry for your midsection. You can sneer at me and go "yeah, learning jiu-jitsu really did you a lot of good, the only thing you ever trapped in guard was the International title when you stole it from Whitey Ford at ringside." But this time, I ain't here to steal titles. I'm here to earn them. Just like you.  

Kyle, I don't want your spot. I don't want to knock you out of the Iceman Invitational just out of spite. I don't want to "prove a point" or whatever. I don't plan on using excessive force. I plan on doing exactly what has to be done to win. No more, no less. Clean breaks, sportsmanship, and respect are the name of the game. You give me that, and I will give it right back to you. You wanna have a shitty deal, we can go out to the floor and have a shitty fucking deal. But I don't need to backread your history in PCW to know you are the opposite of a shitty fucking deal.  

You are the best match I could have asked for as a return to this company. At Trauma 250, I got to sit back and watch you talk about working your way back up to the top. What you fail to realize, Mr. Shane, is that you aren't working your way back to a spot on the card. You already have that place. You've earned it. I'M the one fighting for my life in two weeks. I am the one with something to prove, not you. You've already had a taste of every level of success within PCW. I'm just trying to get my record up to .500.  

And this time, I WILL find what I couldn't back then. 

Either I'm going to win this motherfucker, or someone's gonna have to kill me.  

I've waited seven years to say this again... 

Duck and cover. 

P.S. I'm pissed off at the alligator because he ate my weed.