Friend or Fame

[Zero McHannon]

Friend versus fame. That’s what this really boils down to.

And you know what? I’m not too different from everyone else. There’s a part of me deep down that wants to see Cindy Parker become the first female FGA World Champion.

This is the crossroad.

I’m a man of small values. I cherish the little things. This FGA World Championship? It isn’t a small value. It means the world to me. The road that I had to take for this gold was a rough one. The bumpy start. The losing. Jimmy Page… The winning streak. Chandler Scott. Now, the biggest challenge in front of me is Canadian Stampede.

But then I look at Cindy Parker’s story and it’s nothing compared to mine. She’s right, this isn’t about having the Cinderella Story anymore. This isn’t about me being the underdog to make the climb. This is about the people getting behind Cindy to watch her get the treasure that she finally deserves.

Who am I to hold her back from that?

I say I cherish the small things, well this friendship is one of those things. I’ve lost more than I care to when I left America and went AWOL. I lost the majority of my friends in that passing. People that I don’t even talk to anymore for the hell of it. My family doesn’t look at me the right way anymore.

Then there’s Claire… she hates me. I turned my back on her when she needed her Godfather the most. I try to make up for lost time, but she won’t have it. I have a feeling that will pass in due time, and the stories I’ll get to tell her about will be the best part of my old and fragile life.

Cindy doesn’t have that with Nolan. She can talk about Sex Sells and how her and Cordy Stevenson were the toughest tag team on the block, but the individuality? It’s not there. And if I care about Cindy the way that I claim, she should have those times to spend with her son. She should have the opportunity to have those moments I’m going to have.

The crossroad.

I’m caught. Torn. I remember a day when wrestling wasn’t this way. The good old days if that’s what you want to call it. I’m coming to the end of my career here in a few years probably.

What’s a title to one of my closest friendships?

Everything and nothing at the same time.

It’s time to do what’s right. I don’t get the chance to do that very often.

~~~~~~~~~~

This is where everything’s tested. 

Cindy Parker finally gets HER shot after 2 years of wrestling in FGA. Time after time again she has been looked over for someone else, and never had the chance to try and make something of herself at this stage. It’s been said the whole time between the two of us.

Two years.

Six months.

While Cindy has been waiting her time, I walked right into this company and made my claim on the FGA World Championship in under a year, a new accomplishment for me, by the way. Just like my other world title run, there wasn’t any other title I contended for. Straight to the top. The win. Then everything that comes with it. Soon Cindy might get that same feeling when she steps out of Canadian Stampede.

And this time there’s no Cordy Stevenson to overshadow her. This isn’t like the tag team titles where people say that someone was carried by another person on the team. There won’t be any talk of how Cindy isn’t able to make something of herself with Cordy there to help her every step of the way. No, no. This is Cindy walking into the light on her own and to the beat of her own drum. 

That has bother Cindy. That people think she wouldn’t even have came this far if it weren’t for her Sex Sells partner. Personally, I think Cyn needed to have her own time away. To stop being the Robin to Cordy’s Batman…. and be her own Superman. There’s always the time when enough is enough, and if you want to be taken seriously in this business, you’ve always got to step out on your own every once and a while.

Cindy did just that. She put the tag team titles behind her and stepped out on her own two feet. Fight after fight after fight. She took Chandler Scott to every limit that he had. She shaved Dom bald. Then she became a number one contender right after her match with Dom, then retired Sean Sands, and sent him out in style. 

While the match against Dom is what got her here, Dom is now on the backburner. While she become a contender to the FGA World Championship, Dom got his shot at the MAL Championship, regardless of his loss to Cindy, right before he was put on the shelf with an injury. That’s how much that FGA felt her match was worth. That they’d both get their own title shots after putting on that performance. Then Dom loss… again. 

And you makes you think… was it worth it? Putting all your heart into a match against Dom Harter to become the number one contender, then watch him spiral into another loss against the MAL Champion? That’s not taking away from the MAL Championship, but this is the FGA World Championship. This isn’t child’s play. 

Regardless, Cindy deserves this chance after two years of waiting. Perhaps my chance came too early, but I deserved it all the same after fighting my way through that round robin. She did take the former champ to the boundary, and now she has the chance to become one herself. 

While everyone has been saying that I’m a fraud. Boring. Did nothing to get where I’m at today… Cindy hasn’t felt that way. She KNEW I could get her and turn my career around at the drop of a dime. She believed in me when I walked into Final Frontier. She supported me even when everyone else started to give me the cold shoulder, or ignore my existence to begin with. That’s the type of person that Cindy Parker is, and I know that if I do lose, this title will be going into good hands. The right hands. She will represent FGA in a way that these other bastards won’t, and she’ll make us proud while she does it. She’ll get the support of the fans and the roster, and I can only get half of that. She’ll put half of the pieces of shit on the roster on notice, because believe it or not, some of her beliefs are the same as mine.

Cindy has tasted this moment every since she joined this company, just like I did seven to eight months ago. She can be proud of me all she wants, but to watch me win the big one must’ve stung when she has been waiting in the back for her shot this whole time. I walked in and took it. She walked in and had to take her place in the back of the line. 

But honestly, being content with standing in Cordy’s shadow will make that happen to a person. To the point where Cordy won this. Cordy challenged for that. Cordy made it on her own, and she left Cindy in the dust while she did it. It wasn’t about the tag team titles anymore and never was when it reached that point. She’s a challenger just like everyone else and whenever Sex Sells was put on hold for Cordy’s individual success, so was Cindy.

Not anymore. This match at Canadian Stampede isn’t about Cordy or Sex Sells. It’s about Cindy Parker finally being able to come out of her shell after two years and get her match for the big one. To tear down the roof of the arena and scratch her way to one of the biggest success stories that she can have…

…. and something that even Cordy Stevenson couldn’t do. 

Friend versus friend. In that ring, we aren’t friends. Everything that we’ve been preaching over the last month doesn’t even really matter anymore. We weren’t torn between each other up to this point, but at Canadian Stampede? All bets are out the window. We’ve held a respectable ground, but when that bell goes off, it won’t matter anymore. 

And maybe… just maybe. You’ll have your own little story to bring home to Nolan.