Post by Rick Majors on Jan 12, 2021 21:29:24 GMT -5
2021 is here. This should be my last year as a full-time wrestler. I’m going to be 50 this year. I can’t realistically expect to compete on a regular basis when I’m half a century old. There are wrestlers who are half my age that have years of experience. Some of them are already champions. I can’t stay in this much longer. This is the beginning of the end.
Sure, I hold a championship in PCW, so it may look from the outside that I’m still having success, but like half the roster holds titles here, so…
Actually, I shouldn’t be so dismissive of what it takes to hold a championship in this company. The other two men with belts, the two guys I’m going to face at Trauma, are true competitors. They're two wrestlers I have had seriously struggled against. Stormm and Loki, both proud members of “the old guard,” are two guys that I’ve never really been able to beat. They hold championships for a reason, and not just because they rarely defend their belts…
Again, sorry, I shouldn’t be so dismissive. I shouldn’t insult these two men. PCW was built on their backs. While I was slumming it in the Underground, Stormm was winning the World Title and Loki was president. He followed up that presidential reign by booting Kyle Shane from the company while Stormm retired Jason Willard. They fought in the kind of intensely competitive matches that I could only dream of being victorious in. They have resumes that nearly anyone would envy. Me? Not so much.
And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had
Death is death. It’s the ending of the story. You can’t run back and try to change things. You can’t even realistically have any regrets, because there’s nothing you can do about them when you’re dead anyway. That kind of finality is freeing.
Compare that to right now. I am forever filled with regrets. Some are big, like regretting how distant I am from my mother or wishing I’d been a better person in my marriage. Some are very small, like regretting how many chips I ate last night, or how I wish I’d gone to sleep earlier. And some are medium sized. These are the regrets that haunt me the most. And that’s because they seem like simple fixes. They're not, but they seem that way. It feels like if I had just done a few things differently, I wouldn’t be in this situation. But I didn’t. So I am.
One of those regrets is never defeating Loki one-on-one. In both of our matches, someone interfered. First, it was Murdoc in the Icemann Invitational Tournament, then it was Holden Ross attacking me from behind when I thought I had it won. I wish I could go back and change those moments. But I can't. You can't fix the past. When you're dead, you don't think about that option because you know there's nothing you can do. The anxiety is gone.
But so is everything else.
Even if I manage to win on Friday night, it’s not the same. This is basically a glorified exhibition match. While I’ll be working my ass off, Loki and Stormm have bigger challengers ahead to look towards. They won’t want to risk injury in a match where nothing is on the line. Plus, even if I win, it’s a triple threat match. It’s not one on one. So, this is just another regret I’ll carry with me. And I’m running out of time to fix it.
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it's a very, very
Mad world, mad world
We’ve done this before in PCW, the match with all the company’s champions facing one another. And, much like every other time, most would assume the World Champion would have the advantage here. After all, they’re the World Champion. They hold the title that everyone in the business wants to take. They have the biggest target on their back, and they’ve been able to deal with it. Stormm in particular has worn that target for a very, very long time.
Maybe it's an exhibition match, but I don’t belong here. Not in this match, probably not even in this company. I’m not a multiple time world champion like these guys. I’ve only received one World Title match in my entire PCW career, and I was only there because of my association with Seromine. Of course, I lost. It was never really in doubt.
As old as I am, I’m still not as experienced as both of these guys. I shouldn’t be on this stage. It’s the tenth anniversary of Trauma’s return. Ten years….it was almost ten years ago that Loki and Stormm squared off in a steel cage match for the PCW World Title…
(Stormm rolls over to make the pin.) Al Laiman: This is it! (ONE! TWO! THRE-NO! Once again, LoKi kicks out.) Jerry Andrews: Oh my God! I thought Stormm had it right there! I thought he had it! (Stormm raises up to his feet and brings LoKi with him. Without a delay, he hooks LoKi and nails him with the Force of Nature.) Jerry Andrews: Force of Nature! (Stormm, instead of staying in a pinning position, repositions himself again, and nails ANOTHER Force of Nature. This time, he stays in a pinning position and Referee Little makes the count. ONE! TWO! THREE!) DING! DING! DING! Mark Long: The winner of the match...and NEW PCW World Champion...STORMM! (“I Will Not Bow” by Breaking Benjamin begins to play and the cage begins to recede back into the rafters. Jerry Andrews: What an amazing, back-and-forth match-up between these two! The official match time between these two carried well over twenty-five minutes! These two laid it all out there. And as much as I don't like him, but a congratulations has to be offered to Stormm. |
What was I doing ten years ago? I was out of the business completely. I should have stayed there.
I’ll never be like them. I’ll never be in their league. I don’t deserve to be in the main event on the tenth anniversary of Trauma. They do, that’s for sure. It should be Stormm vs Loki one-on-one with the winner going on to face Grimm or Gerard Angelo or someone else deserving at Mass Destruction. That’s the sort of match the PCW audience deserves to see. Not me. No wonder they won't put maximum effort in. Why should they? This is an insult to them. I’m an old, sad man who can barely hold onto the third ranked title in the company. They're dominant champions. No wonder no one respects me. No wonder they seem insulted to share the ring with me. It’s obvious that they don’t want this match either. They have more important plans and dreams. They have futures. I’m just a sad little steppingstone for them.
But the world is unfair. We should all know that by now. This world doesn’t give us what we deserve based on merit, not all the time. And that unfairness is why I’m in this match. I’ve survived long enough to hold onto a title and now I’m being thrusted into the main event that no one wants.
Pardon the pun, but I’m not a major piece of this company. I’m not Stormm or Loki or Grimm or Gerard Angelo. I’m certainly not considered the future of this company, I’m definitely not the present, and I’m just a tiny speck in its long, illustrious past.
No matter what happens on Trauma, the future won’t change. Stormm look towards the main event of Mass Destruction, if he's not already looking there anyway. And Loki will step up against a new challenger. And I will continue to be aimless. The best I can hope for is maybe getting my neck broken by Holden Ross. Perhaps then people would care about what happens during my matches.
Why am I even bothering?
Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy birthday, happy birthday
And I feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
Noone knew me, noone knew me
Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me
The World Champion has all the pull in the company, that’s how this business works. Not only do they get to be in the main event most nights, they also get to arrive at the arena in the biggest limo, they’re given the best locker room, and they get all the marquee TV interviews. But that’s not it. They also get the best ring entrance with the coolest spotlights and the greatest pyro. Look at Stormm. He looks like a superstar, not a man who walked in off the street and stumbled into a match.
But the World Champion gets more than that. They also have influence over the rest of the wrestlers. When you hold the World Title, you have the respect of everyone in the company. They listen to you. They care about what you have to say. Sometimes, you can even affect which matches happen and which ones don’t. And you’ve earned that right.
And yet, despite all his accolades, Stormm, one of the longest-reigning world champions in company history, has to slum it down in the bush leagues with Rick “50 Years of Fail” Majors.
This must be a pretty sad ten year anniversary celebration for him.
Ten years. A lot can change in ten years. But that’s almost how long it’s been since Kelly was discharged from the hospital. As I drove to the hospital in mid-2011, I knew that things would be different. After all, she wasn’t going to come home with me in my car. She would be in an ambulance. At that time, she still had incredible difficulty moving her legs and would be in a wheelchair for quite some time.
I knew it would be different, but I didn’t foresee how different. The wheelchair wasn’t the issue. The rehab certainly wasn’t the issue. It had very little to do with her medical situation at all. More than anything, it was because the two of us were home together all the time. That hadn’t happened very often.
When I wrestled in the NLCW, I was hardly home. I wrestled everywhere. I truly toured the world. In fact, I toured so much that Kelly started asking me to slow down. She wanted me to retire, come home, and start a family. I was getting up there in years, even back in 2008, and my injuries were starting to add up. If I had left for good back then, I’d still be in frequent pain, but maybe I’d be able to sleep at night. And that’s what I thought I was doing in late 2008 when I walked away from the NLCW. I came home. The next part of my life was going to begin.
But I didn’t stay home for long. No, I soon started doing “ambassador” work for the NLCW. Then I became a road agent for their developmental brand. At the time, I thought I was doing it because I missed wrestling. I later came to realize that it was because I didn’t want to be at home. It didn't feel good to be at home. At least wrestling felt comfortable.
I was on a tour to promote a career retrospective DVD when Kelly had the accident. I rushed home and stayed by her bedside. But I couldn’t take it. I didn’t want to be there. Well, I DID want to be there… I knew I SHOULD be there…. but I didn’t stay for long. Not as long as I should. I couldn't. No, I went back to wrestling. I ended my retirement. I was there when the NLCW, a company I truly loved, faltered and closed its doors. I was its final champion.
With the company gone and Kelly leaving the hospital, I went back to her side. I tried to be there for her. I honestly did. But it was no use. We simply weren’t compatible with one another anymore. Maybe we never were.
When you’re young, you can overlook a lot of things about a person. You’re going out and having fun. You’re hanging out with friends and going to parties and everything is new and fresh. When I met Kelly in 2006, I was 35 years old. By the time we got divorced, I was 44. A lot of things changed in those nine years. The biggest change was that we grew up. And we grew apart.
While you can ignore things when you’re young and active and enjoying life, it’s not the same when you’re in your home alone with a person seven days a week. Things you never really noticed before start to bother you. The things you once thought were cute and quirky very quickly become annoying. Sometimes we’d start screaming at one another over the dumbest little things. Other times, we barely spoke for days.
Soon, it stopped feeling like a relationship all together. We were ghosts, silently passing one another in the hallway. We ate alone. We watched TV alone. We slept in separate beds. We told each other that we did it because we each had our own injuries to work through, but we both knew that was a lie. Even after Kelly could walk on her own and live without the rehab and the medication, we didn’t return to our old lives. We couldn’t. The relationship was too damaged. And maybe it was never really a relationship to begin with.
So I returned to wrestling again, joining PCW in 2012. We stayed married until 2014, when she filed for a separation. But we hadn’t really been a couple in many, many years. Signing that paperwork just made it real. Within a year, our marriage was officially over, but it had been dead for a long time.
And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it's a very, very
Mad world, mad world
But I didn’t know any of that back in 2011. At the time, I believed that I was done with wrestling for good. I’d gotten out. I’d survived. And so did she. She was leaving the hospital. They were going to be together. I foolishly believed that our problems were behind us. As I drove to the hospital that day ten years ago, I honestly thought things were going to be better.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
When I drive to the arena for Trauma on Friday, I know things could be different. There have been all kinds of rumours swirling around the industry. PCW is at a turning point. The march to Mass Destruction is much more unstable this year. Who knows where we’re going?
I know it could be different, but I can’t foresee how different. No one can.
Ten years is a long time.
Trauma has been on the air, week in and week out, for a decade. That’s quite the milestone. It’s certainly something worth celebrating. But what will happen next? The NLCW made it just five years, half of what PCW has accomplished, but it changed my life forever. It was there that I set records and won world championships. The NLCW was how I met my wife. It’s a part of me forever.
PCW? I have been here for almost nine of the ten years we’re going to celebrate, much longer than I was in the NLCW. But I have not set any records. I have not won any world championships. I have certainly not found love. I haven't even made any friends, unless you count the bearded demon who tried to kill me that time.
What have I done? I tried to kill myself. I tried to get Grimm to kill me. I’ve been kidnapped by Alexa Black. I kidnapped Brenna Gordon. I joined a cult. I lost my identity. That’s not exactly a resume you want to share around.
But, that said, whatever happens to PCW, I’m going to be there until the end. Yes, the company existed before I showed up and, yes, my time here hasn’t exactly been a highlight reel, but I’m not leaving. PCW is a part of me forever as well. Plus, staying loyal until the end, no matter how bad things are, is one of the few things I can do.
I couldn’t hold my relationship with Kelly together, but I tried. Or at least I tried to try. I didn’t cheat. I didn’t leave. I stayed there until she gave me the papers and walked out the door.
I couldn’t save the NLCW, but I tried. I didn’t jump ship, despite the offers. I didn’t leave. I stayed there until the lights turned out before I walked out the door.
Whether PCW is here for one more show, ten more shows, or ten more years, I’ll be here. I shouldn’t be. I‘m old. 2021 should be my last year as a full-time wrestler. But I know I won’t be able to stay away. It's what I do. I stick around. And I try.
Whenever the tombstone is carved, people will remember that I wasn’t a hall of famer, I wasn’t Stormm or Loki, but I tried.
Sometimes things fall apart. Sometimes they don’t work. Sometimes you fail. And that’s okay. If you don’t try, you’ll never succeed. And I’ve tried. I’ve tried every day of my life. You can say a lot of bad things about me, but you can’t say I don’t try. That’s really all I can do.
I’m looking forward to the match with Loki and Stormm. I’m looking forward to Trauma’s tenth anniversary. No matter what happens.
Enlarging your own world
Mad world