Personal Issues

[styg]

Modified: ‎29 December ‎2014, 23:34:17



I didn't walk out of Final Frontier as the Pride Champion, but I still proved something important: I am better than Tony Carmine. The guy cheated *constantly* and still barely got the win. I may not be the one with the title around my waist or the winner's share of the purse in my bank account but the world still saw me defeat him in terms of pure competition.

Time to take that and move forward. Sebastian Grey. Sebastian, I know we don't, like, *know* each other or anything, but I still kind of want to call you Seabass. I just... like the word, I guess. I'm having to force myself to type your name out properly.

Anyway. What a wrestler you are. Miracle Cup and two reigns as Platinum Champion in your rookie year. And not just throwaway reigns like all of Dom Harter's world title reigns either. The series between you and Tj Jones was incredible. The fourway with you two against Brandon Banks and Aaron Weston was a match of the year candidate from any company anywhere in the world. All in one year! Four years I've been wrestling, give or take, and I still haven't even had *one* world title reign.

And then what? Sebastian loses his title and fails to get it back. It's the first real setback in his career. He loses his smile. No, listen, I'm the last person who's got any right to take shots at you for that. We all need some time out sometimes. I seem to need one every two matches. But the thing is, nobody misses me. You? The wrestling world waits to see you return with bated breath, and I was among them. I really was. You are inspirational. I want to see you succeed. I'm sure you think I'm being sarcastic, but I promise I'm not.

The problem is, it's hard to want you to succeed when it turns out *I'm* - somehow - your return opponent. Yep, the man who turned the world upside down in 2013 faces fucking *Evangelista* of all people? Not Jimmy Page or Sean Sands or Cordelia Stevenson? Yeah, I don't know how that works either. Probably not quite the big homecoming to wrestling you expected, Sebastian. I'm sorry. And I'm sorry that it's going to be a loss for you. I'm not ready to just be some filler name used as a crash test dummy for other people to hit all their signatures on. You might think need this win, Sebastian, but you don't know need. You've had your losses here and there - please understand I'm just talking about wrestling here. I know in other parts of your life you've lost more than most people have and I don't mean to be disrespectful of that. But in wrestling? You've never lost like you think you have yet. Me, now me, you look up 'Loser' in the dictionary and there's the shadow of my face, like a pencil sketch or a Polaroid just starting to develop or something. It's only a matter of time, and I need to do this while I still can. I know this is an old cliche, but this has to be my time.

Once this match is out of the way, I'll cheer you on just as hard as anyone. I hope you march to the main event and rip the FGA World Championship from Jimmy Page's unwashed hands. But this coming Saturday, I need to teach you a little bit more about losing wrestling matches. I'm sorry.

If it helps, you'll still probably be challenging Jimmy before me. You're coming in with buzz and eyes on you. Everyone knows you belong in the main event. Me? Even with a win over Sebastian Grey, I've got a lot to do before I earn another title shot.

=========================================================================

Broad Green, that was where things changed.

In all of Leanne Evangelista's travels around the world, from Cali to Kanto, she'd seen a lot of cities, a lot of regions, a lot of countries which liked to claim that they, only they... eks why zed. "The Home of Blah". "Only in Wherever". "You Know You're From Blingedy-Bloo When..."

But Liverpool - the city she was born in, the city she was raised in, the city that was still her home no matter where else she moved to, and the city she'd sort of always assumed she'd die in - really was unique. In no other city she'd ever been to, no city in the world, did girls walk around town with rollers in their hair as a status symbol. Pyjamas and hair rollers, the Merseyside idea of haute couture. That and eyebrows shaved off and painted back on as black rectangles. The pyjamas, though, she saw in Manchester, and the eyebrows seemed to be a thing all over the world, on and off. Hair rollers as a fashion accessory? That one was strictly Scouse, as far as she could tell. She'd never, ever seen it further away than St Helens except in airports and train stations, and the accents coming from the mouths a few inches below the rollers invariably gave away the Liverpool connection.

On the train back west to Lime Street from Manchester or St Helens, they usually got on at Broad Green first. That seemed to be the cutoff station for the girls with rollers in their hair. Roby was too posh, and Huyton too distinctly its own town from Liverpool for the style to properly settle there. When she saw the girls with rollers get on, as fucking dumb as Leanne thought that fashion was, she knew she'd crossed that magic invisible barrier marking the difference between the so-called "Liverpool area" and the real place, the place that made the insides of her bones tingle, the place that shaped her fitful half-dreams in sleepless nights in Seville or San Diego or Saitama or where-the-hell-ever.

She'd found herself travelling back home a lot lately, both in dreams and literally. She didn't really have anything to do in Liverpool, but more and more often she felt its call, and the more she walked its streets the stronger the call got. She made excuses for herself by deciding that the theatre or ballet showings in Liverpool were easier to work around her schedule, or that she wanted to see her cousin Rose, with whom she had almost nothing in common. Rose was exactly the kind of woman, even at 23, to go around the city in pyjamas and painted-on eyebrows and hair rollers. They were meeting for coffee almost once a week now, despite having barely seen each other in years until recently, and they never did find much to talk about but they never really cared because the coffee mornings never lasted long enough to run out of small talk. And then when Rose went off to see her to kids, Leanne would wander into the city centre on foot and go into shops. Not necessarily to buy, nor even necessarily to browse; it was just important to her, somehow, to know that these places existed. When she'd first moved back to the UK from Canada she'd been absolutely shocked at how alien her home city felt to her after just a couple of years, and she never wanted to feel that again.

Maybe it was like in Russ's comic books. Maybe Liverpool was her power source, and leaving it drained her. Maybe ...maybe... THAT was why she'd taken her break from her international schedule. She hadn't wrestled in either EXODUS or FGA since the beginning of January. In fact, she hadn't even been on a plane since the beginning of January. The furthest she'd travelled from Manchester was Cardiff, less than 200 miles away.

"Personal issues" was all that was said about it, and issues was the right word.

The train bumped on the tracks and she glanced up past her own ghostly reflection to see where she was. About halfway between Prescot and Huyton, it turned out, not far from the junction where the line split to go to Earlestown.

She hadn't taken time out when Lily was kidnapped. She hadn't taken time out when her uncle died. She'd requested the odd show or two off here and there, sure, but never for this length of time. Not since she recovered from her mounting injuries and came back to wrestling over two years ago. So why did she need it now? Was it burnout? Was her body telling her it needed some resting time again? She seriously hoped not. Was it to do with suffering a few big losses in a row? She told herself it wasn't, but she wasn't sure how much she trusted herself.

She glanced at her watch. Still on time to meet Rose...

...wait.

She looked up. The train had pulled into a station. She tilted her head around trying to find the sign to double check that this was really Roby, and she saw that it was.

Had those same few thoughts really been going around her head for the last five minutes?

Apparently so.

The flying had been the excuse. She couldn't handle the flights. Jay and Laurel could both sleep on planes; Leanne couldn't. She couldn't rest, she couldn't relax, she couldn't concentrate. She couldn't do anything but feel her frustration and claustrophobia tick up and up for ten hours or twelve hours or sixteen hours. The worst weeks saw her flying to the east coast of the USA, wrestling a match for FGA on Saturday night, flying back to the UK and wrestling a match for FRONTIER on Sunday night, then flying back to America, to the west coast, to wrestle for EXODUS on Monday night, then another flight back to the UK on Tuesday with another match in Manchester on Thursday. That was a hell of a rough time, even if it wasn't often quite that bad and even if many of her friends had even more punishing schedules. But given how much she hated flying - she didn't have a fear of it, she just hated it - she felt like she never got the chance to rest at any point in that time, and others got at least something.

And it wasn't like she'd quit wrestling entirely, after all. Just wrestling overseas, she reminded herself. Working the UK was manageable. She just needed a bit of time to recentre and refocus before tackling the international schedule again. Maybe these staccato bursts of time out from travelling were simply the only way for her personally to deal with wrestling in multiple countries.

She didn't like the idea of that one bit, but she didn't like any of the alternatives any better.

The doors opened at Broad Green and two teenage girls in pyjamas and hair rollers stepped onto the train. That tingling feeling started deep in Leanne's bones, and a smile forced itself onto her face.

=========================================================================

Modified: 02 January ‎2015, 14:11:26



Yes, Mara. You can call me Leanne. We don't know each other as well as you seem to think, if you think that telling me I'm codependent or have low self esteem is somehow new information to me, but you can call me Leanne. Here's a few more nuggets for you: I'm on antidepressants and have been most of the last decade. I see a therapist once a fortnight. I used to cut myself when I was at school. Down not across, long sleeves right down to the wrist. Store those up, Mara, so you can tell me those things back at me in a future promo as if it's in any way insightful. I am not a strong person, emotionally. I've never claimed to be. I admitted the exact opposite not too long ago in fact. So I'm not sure what you telling me my insecurities hold me back is going to accomplish.

I've seen you on Twitter, trying to whisper sweet nothings to my best friend. You can make snide little comments about how she couldn't beat Fiona Collins, but you still want her on your side. It's transparent. You still don't have enough people taking your parlour tricks with the black lanterns seriously, and having someone like her on your side would legitimise it. Someone people know to be scared of, someone people have *seen* do horrific things. She's a monster? You have no idea. *I* don't have the full idea of what she's capable of, and I know her better than anyone.

Don't pretend you have any interest in me beyond the fact that I'm standing where you wish you could be. I'm trying to leave her shadow - and you're trying to take my place. Good luck with that. She only gives you the time of day because you amuse her. And you think you can make her into your own Christum Furor, your own Justin Brooks... your own Jonathan Collins? You don't know what you want. Trust me. I've had her at my side for years. It's not always easy. Sometimes it's very, very hard in fact. And while, like I admitted, I'm not a strong person, I've been strong enough to stay with her and keep her tethered down. That takes less strength than coping with what she's capable of being otherwise.

Are you strong enough to do that? Are you strong enough to direct her?

I don't think we need to worry about hoping so because I don't think you'll succeed. No matter who you pick, you'll never make someone into something that never even existed. You held you-know-who up on a pedestal with this picture of what you *thought* he was, and it turns out he's not that? He's not 'your' monster, and he never was.

For how differently you sell yourself, Mara, I've fought you a thousand times, and I'm sure I'll fight you a thousand times more.

=========================================================================

Leanne sat back from her computer and drummed her fingers on the desk. Then, after a moment, her hand moved across to the pen by her keyboard and started flipping it round and round in her fingers, popping the cap off and back on without consulting her brain. Her hand got bored of that too after a minute, and her fingernails starting tinking gently but rapidly against one of the many empty coffee cups on her desk. She didn't notice any of it until she got to her lighter, and she realised she was dying for a cigarette.

One of the first things Jay had made her do when he took her under his wing as his first protégé was force her to quit smoking. He told her she'd be grateful for it in the future, and she was. She could feel the difference in her cardio. But sometimes - like now - by God did she resent him for it, and hate herself for going along with it.

She realised she was chewing the pen cap when she tastes ink, and she spat it out. She refreshed Twitter, mainly in search of something to occupy her hand with, and saw another tweet from Mia. She read it, reread it, scowled, and more mouthed than muttered, "Fuck off."

Tony Carmine shit talking her she'd learned to deal with. Dom Harter shit talking her she'd learned to deal with. Mia Scott shit talking her? Mia Scott who was supposed to be one of her closest friends in the world? She'd have hit Mia if she was here right now.

In public - hell, even to her closest friends - she acted like Tony Carmine's insults didn't bother her. She liked to think she gave back to him as good as she got on Twitter, and she did love rubbing in his face the fact that he felt like he had to cheat to beat her. But if she was honest with herself, his words did hurt her. The way this guy she really ultimately barely even knew would send her unsolicited insults for the whole world to see, going into really nasty and degrading places, just because she'd been selected to challenge him for a championship... that was horrible, and when she told herself it was just part of the game, she found it even worse. Dom's insults hurt too, although not for the vitriol in his case. She knew that Dom, really, was an asshole to everyone because he was just an asshole and that was his way. Tony... Tony seemed to genuinely hate people, and not "hate people" in the general Dom Harter sense, but in the very specific sense of wishing personal harm to individual people.

In Dom's case the tweets hurt more because they were right. She couldn't beat Dom. Twice he'd beaten her, and twice she couldn't blame it on Sunshine Scandalous levels of rampant cheating. As good as the showings she'd put in were - making a habit of kicking out after his finishers, as she'd found herself gloating at him about - the truth was that he'd bested her twice and both times, while he'd bent the rules, she couldn't say for sure that he wouldn't have been able to beat her cleanly anyway.

But Mia. Mia shit talking her was a whole other level. Someone who was supposed to have her back taking shots when she was already getting it from both Tony and Dom at the same time... that hurt, that really hurt, even when Mia had added that it was just good-natured trash talk between friends and done that backwards lowercase-d-smiley. That didn't help. Leanne was never sure whether that tongue was deprecating Mia herself or the person she was addressing. And then fucking Lacey jumping on it like she was defending Mia from an axe-wielding maniac... she made a resolution to pop Lacey in the mouth for that next time she saw her.

With a dismissive grunt Leanne closed Twitter and fired up one of her favourite time wasters, The Sims. During the loading screen she pulled out her phone and sent off a quick text to Mia.

Can you do me a favour and give it a rest for now hon? When I'm actual trash talking with sacks of shit like Dom and Tony I'm even less in the mood for friendly trash talk than I am normally.

She hoped that was just the right tone to convey how upset she was without openly having a go at Mia, but she didn't bother rereading it. She just hit send. A few seconds later, a reply came through.

Yeh, sorry; I don't follow Tony, so I don't see any'a his shit, didn't realise he was shooting his mouth off. Sorry, lovey.

She snorted, then irritatedly clicked through to the game's menu screen before picking her phone back up. She stared at Mia's message, then at the screen, then sighed and typed out:

Sorry. Just dealing with those two at once has got me all wound up. Gonna go for a walk I think.

She stared at her message, then at the screen, then sighed and tapped send. Her phone buzzed in her hand with Mia's reply before she'd even finished setting it down.

Yeh, I...get that. Text/call if ya need, yeh?

Leanne nodded absently to herself, stared at The Sims, and exhaled again. Then she closed it down and stood up in the same motion, and stretched her arms out.

She slid her phone into her pocket, making a mental note to text Mia back once she was in the kitchen and waiting for the kettle to boil, then grabbed one of the coffee mugs and headed downstairs. She hummed loudly to herself, feeling relatively un-self-conscious; Lily was having lunch with their parents, Laurel was abroad to wrestle, and Jay, Matty and Jem would all be at work. That only left one person who might be in, and as she passed the doorway to the living room her eyes caught sight of him sat on the sofa, playing... one of those shooty games. She couldn't tell which one. Battlefield or Call of... whatever it was.

She noticed something else, too. A smell. A pungent, spicy, acrid smell. She shuffled into the room, clutching her cup in both hands, and asked, "Can I be dead cheeky?"

"Mm?" asked the household's quietest member, Wlad, not taking his eyes off the screen.

"Could I nick a cigarette?"

Even with his face turned away from her, she could see him frown. "What for? You don't smoke."

"I know," she said, trying to hide the pleading edge in her tone, "I just really, really need one right now."

He nodded, paused his game, and passed her his already-lit cigarette before pulling a fresh one for himself out of his pocket - the same brand he always smoked, L&M Reds, which he bought by the carton. Wlad was tall, thin and hairy, a little older than the rest of them - or was he? It occurred to Leanne that she didn't actually know how his age. She'd always just assumed he was older. He seemed older, but maybe that was just because he kept himself out of the household drama as much as he could, or because years of a diet consisting mainly of coffee, beer and cigarettes had aged him beyond his years.

As she sucked down her first cigarette smoke of 2015, of possibly almost a year in fact, Leanne could feel the knots in her muscles start to slacken. She wasn't sure whether it was real or just her mind screwing with her again, but right now she didn't particularly care.

She pulled her phone back out and sent Mia another message.

How your match go last night btw? Didn't get to see it with being at the SSWA show.

"How come you're smoking?"

She looked up. "Huh?"

"How come you needed a cigarette?" repeated Wlad.

"Oh... just..."

...just my crazy acting up...

"...just... work stuff."

Wlad nodded, apparently satisfied by that, and went back to his game as she perched on the edge of the settee and pretended to have any interest in watching him run around a grey field shooting distant greyer things.

Leanne's text alert tone went off, mercifully breaking the silence. Leanne liked Wlad, but always felt slightly awkward around him. Grateful for the distraction, she read what Mia had to say.

Cass nearly popped my head off, but...only nearly. d: But hey...now all I need's an FGA title and I complete the set d:

That tongue again. Leanne bit down the impulse that it was another shot at her, and replied:

Oh, well done hon. Nice one. Heard winner of you vs Noelle might be getting a Pride shot. Much as I want to be the one to knock off Tony or Dom, good luck.

Another little jab of her own? She wasn't sure.

"FUCK!" shouted Wlad as he got shot through the head, but before Leanne could take in any more than that from the screen, her hand started buzzing again.

Eh, I don't bank on rumours like that. Besides...I sorta feel like I'm just spinning my wheels in FGA at this stage...just another match, yanno?

Leanne couldn't help but laugh. She slid across into the armchair. That was so like Mia, to always look on the negative side. Mia had been on fire lately. Now, Leanne? Leanne had been spinning wheels. She felt she ought to remind Mia of how much higher in the pecking order right now she was than Leanne.

You did good against Page. Sure people up in the office musta took notice.

And then, after a moment's deliberation and stubbing out her cigarette butt, sent a second reply, saying:

As for me pretty sure when I come back off my LOA I'm going to be back in dark matches again.

"More work stuff?" inquired Wlad in his heavy Polish accent.

"Um... yeah, kinda."

Wlad turned to look her up and down, then slowly said, "Want another cig?"

Leanne traced the crown of a tooth with her tongue.

"Uh... yes. Thanks."

"Is no problem."

Again Leanne's phone went off, and she skimmed the message.

Yeh right...I'll be stunned, you get back and don't get your shot.
I mean, fuck me, if god damn Johnny Karma deserves a shot and they can't justify giving you one? There's something wrong with the people in the office.

After taking the gist of it in, she slid her phone back into her pocket making a mental reminder to reply, once again, when she went into the kitchen. She opened her mouth to ask Wlad if he wanted a tea or a coffee, and was surprised to find that the words tumbling out were, "What's it like, living with wrestlers?"

Wlad's big nostrils flared for a moment as he ruminated. "It's weird," he finally rumbled in deep tones, "Your friends who come round are very strange. Like that guy in the blue mask..."

"Kickass Smurf?"

"Smurf, yes. Like, I like him and shit, I know you two are..." ...and he waved his hands around each other suggestively in front of his chest... "...but man, he's a weird guy. Way he talks, way he's so nervous all the time... fuck kinda name even is Kickass Smurf? I mean that can't be his real name, right?"

Leanne took a moment to respond, mainly because she couldn't decide whether or not to be sarcastic, and Wlad answered for her with another question.

"What is his real name?"

She smiled softly. "I don't think I'm allowed to tell you. Luchadores are very protective of their identities. It'd be breakin'... like... a wrestlers' code."

Wlad laughed, a booming bass roar that seemed to blast straight from his beard, and said, "See! This is the kind of thing. Wrestlers' code. Wrestlers' court! I heard about that. Is that true?" He didn't give her the chance to reply. "Weird words you guys use. Talk about... what is it... people get heat and they're over, but those are good things? It's crazy. Like three years pretty much I been living with you guys and I still don't understand half the words you fucking say, man. I heard next time you fly to America you're fighting a guy called Mirage. Who the hell calls themselves Mirage? Unless you're... like... a DJ, or a pro gamer or something... or a serial killer..."

"Hah, this guy, it wouldn't shock me if he was a serial killer," she told him, realising to her horror that she was only half joking, "But no, well, it's the same kinda thing as a DJ, y'know?" reflected Leanne, "Or like... Lady Gaga, or Alice Cooper or something. It's some distance. Or... a stage... what is it... persona."

Wlad raised a bushy eyebrow. "But you guys are athletes? Like I don't see boxers called Mirage or MMA fighters called Mirage. Only as a nickname but they still get their real name too."

"Footballers, though," pointed out Leanne, "Like Oscar, or Rafael? Or Ronaldinho."

"No no no, that's different," replied Wlad, pushing a bony hand underneath the beanie hat he wore almost permanently to scratch his head.

"How?" asked Leanne, shifting to a cross-legged position and then drawing an ashtray closer to herself across the coffee table.

"Because those are their actual names! They're just... one of their real names, or a nickname that people call them, you know."

Leanne shrugged. "Evangelista's my real name."

"Your last name," said Wlad dismissively, "I never, ever call you just as Evangelista unless I'm telling people what wrestlers I live with. You're Leanne, right? Off the screen, even when wrestlers come here, they call you Leanne. 'Cept that one guy in the blue mask..."

"I told you, he's called Kickass Smurf," corrected Leanne as she reached over to tap out some ash.

"No, not him," mumbled Wlad, "The other guy. The one who always brings really good weed. He brought that northern lights hybrid that make Lily puke up."

Leanne could really have done without being reminded of her little sister's first exposure to anything stronger than the shity dried-out grass her friends got, and the drama that ensued that evening, but she simply said. "Oh. Madman."

"Madman! Madman... what is it, Sza- Sza-something."

"Szalinski. Madman Szalinski."

"You call him Madman?" asked Wlad incredulously, "To his face, like you'd call me Wlad?"

It was Leanne's turn to frown, as she didn't really understand the significance of the question. "Yeah, I mean... for him, his real name's not a secret, it's Jeremy, but everyone calls him Madman. All his mates."

"And he calls you Eva."

"That's right."

"I swear he's the only guy, the only guy, I ever heard call you Eva offscreen. Or Evangelista, or anything like that."

"No... no," said Leanne as she thought about it, "Cindy Parker calls me Eva sometimes too. Think Cordy's called me it once or twice as well."

"Well, I don't know Cordy, or Cindy Parker, so I can't say anything there. The point is though, you're Leanne - that's your name, that's what pretty much everyone calls you. But on TV you want people to call you Evangelista."

"Like I said... it's a bit of distance."

"I thought you do this thing because you love it? I see how beat up you all are always. I mean, the way you guys are with Laurel, how much you worry about how banged up she always gets? That is to me what it's like with you and Jay and Matt. And, you know, not even just the physical pain side of it. I see how much other trouble it causes you, but you keep doing it."

The words lined up in Leanne's mind - We keep doing it because we love it, no matter how hard it gets, but that little bit of distance helps in dealing with the hard stuff. But they didn't come out, and Leanne genuinely couldn't tell whether that was because he kept talking over her spot or because she couldn't bring herself to say it.

"What's that thing Laurel says?" laughed Wlad, "Only crazy people become wrestlers?"

"It was actually our, uh, friend I guess, Sal, and that's not exactly what-"

"You'd have to be crazy to live with them too! But fuck it, Leanne, who's not crazy? You ever meet someone who's not crazy, you take a picture of them and send it to Fangoria... no, send it to fucking National Geographic, man, that shit will make you famous."

Leanne laughed along with him, while beating herself up as she thought about herself and her friends.

She cleared her throat.

"So what's that you're playing, there?"

=========================================================================

Modified: ‎25 November ‎2014, 03:42:50



Justin Brooks. Adrien Cochrane [sp?]. The Masked Salaryman.

I...

Wow.

I have not one fucking thing to say about any of you.

I like one of you fine, in as much as I even know you, and the other two I have basically no opinion of.

Good match,talented opponents, need the win...

try hard...

fans...

urh

WHY DO I HAVE TO DO THIS?

/,>== () -~:;

=========================================================================

Leanne finally sat down with her coffee after two more cigarettes, all thoughts of texting Mia back forgotten. Listlessly, needing a diversion but not in the mood for any of her diversions, she minimised Steam, minimised YouTube, minimised Netflix. What was left on the screen caught her off guard; she forgot she'd been looking at them. Old unfinished blog posts on opponents now long since fought and beaten by. She'd had them open as inspiration for anything she might have to say to Mirage, but anything in them that was still relevant was nothing she cared to say in public.

Fourway with Brooks, Adrien and an incognito Ryuji Kamigawa. Sebastian's big return match. Mara, or mara with no caps now as she called herself, who'd made Leanne the first victim of her rampage over the EXODUS roster. That had been her last match in the USA, over two months ago. The last anyone saw of her on American soil, she'd been getting smashed up like a porcelain doll by one of the many psychos trying to fill the EXODUS power void after the fall of Gods & Monsters. Leanne had pointedly tried to stay out of all that, and all it got her in the end was a concussion.

She skimmed the documents again then made a decision. She didn't need to hang onto this stuff. It wasn't going to matter again in the future, was it? These moments had passed. These posts were spectres of things that never came to be, wastes of entire kilobytes of hard drive space.

She highlighted them all and hit delete.

=========================================================================



2015-03-12 | 15:58
posted by: Evangelista

It's nice to have a reputation, eh Mirage? I mean, I have to admit, I say that from memory. I don't really have one myself anymore, except maybe "person who can sort of wrestle okay". That's why I'm being fed to you - I'm sorry, I mean, you're facing me - in Charlotte. I guess I'm still just about enough of a name that beating me means something (I've got a couple of those kinds of losses in me, I think, maybe even three or four if you scrape under the inside of the tube) but it's not like I'm someone the brass still have any serious long term interest in. I got two chances in 2014 and I blew them both. There are younger, newer, prettier people for them to roll the dice on now. I'm not even noteworthy enough to have a *bad* reputation. I'm just sort of *there*. Small miracles I guess?

In the words of the Fresh Prince, I ain't even mad. I'm not going to use this blog to tell you how you're a roadblock or a stepping stone or anything like that. I've done the "this is my time" speech enough times now to know how much it means. I've had my time, I've had my chances, and they didn't go my way. I have to accept that. It's fine. I'll keep doing this for a while, long as my name is still one worth beating or until my body gives out, and then when that's done, in like six months or something I guess, I can always retire to be a trainer at Jay's school.

But that's the future. Right now, I need to think about you, Mirage, and your weird church. I know you said they're not around to get involved in matches but I hope you'll understand that I don't particularly trust you. I have no reason to, because I've seen you so many times before. I've fought you a thousand and one times and I'm sure I'll fight you nine hundred and ninety times more, but each time I have to treat it as new. This time is a bit different, though, I'll give it that. To be honest, I don't get any of this stuff with the Mid-Atlantic Legacy Championship. FGA say you're injured, you say you're not, they say the title is vacated and they're holding a match to crown a new champion this show, but I thought you still had the actual physical belt? I'm not going to lie to you, I'm confused as hell. All I know is that I'm not considered good enough for that battle royale; I'm just about good enough for you to beat on your way to your inevitable showdown with whoever leaves Charlotte as champion.

Reputations then, Mirage. You have one. You have one for being deceitful and shifty, just like your name. Guess that's a big part of why I don't know what to think with all this Mid-Atlantic Legacy Championship stuff; I don't know if I trust this not all to be some kind of game you've got everyone playing. You're acting like a man who's losing what's left of his mind over that title, but are you *really*? Or do you just get a kick out of watching everyone run around panicking about you?

Don't forget, I have a lot of experience reading psychopaths.

On the subject of people who may or may not actually be injured, by the way, thanks for letting me know I'd been injured, because I sure as hell had never noticed it. I've been away from FGA for a little while, yes, but those were personal issues. It's weird to me that you'd pull the same thing - talking about a healthy person as being injured - as you say FGA are doing to you. Part of me thinks it might be some weird projection thing. More of me thinks you're doing it to fuck with my head, just like your cute way of dismissing me, trying to push my buttons, inviting me to defend myself so you can find some leverage.

Whatever it is, don't extend yourself on my account. Don't waste good schemes on someone who's too experienced to fall for them and who, even if she did, nobody would care and it wouldn't make any difference to anything at all.

Don't insult us both, Mirage. Don't play these games with me, and don't think either of us is going to give a flying damn about the other come Sunday morning.

Don't pretend I matter.

-Evangelista