I'm Nobody's Role Model
Feb 18, 2016 19:21:08 GMT -5
Post by Savannah Taylor on Feb 18, 2016 19:21:08 GMT -5
Wednesday, February 17th, 2016
Hard Rock Cafe
Las Vegas, Nevada
OFF CAMERA
Known the world over as a place for casual dining in an upbeat atmosphere, the popular Las Vegas branch of the Hard Rock Cafe was fairly busy for a Wednesday afternoon. The usual lunch crowd was still trickling in, hoping to get a taste of the casual fare the Cafe was famous for. As the waitstaff bustled about between the rapidly filling up tables and booths, a pair of patrons are already sitting back in a corner booth enjoying their appetizer. The older of the two diners is one of the city’s favorite daughters, Savannah taylor. Seated across from her is her seventeen year old sister Harper. Savannah carefully takes a tortilla chip from the mountainous plate of nachos in the center of the table and takes a bite, trying not to drop any of the toppings on the table or on her. Harper takes a sip of her soda and wipes the corner of her mouth with her napkin.
Harper Taylor: Thanks for taking me to lunch, Savannah.
Savannah Taylor: You’re more than welcome. I figure, given everything that is going on, you could use a day just to do whatever.
Harper Taylor: You can say that again.
She says with a wistful sigh. Their mother’s illness was hard on both of them, but for the younger Harper, she was taking this harder than one could imagine. Going through her senior year of high school, a year that is stressful enough, with the thought that her mother could take a turn for the worse and end up passing away, it was a miracle the younger of the two sisters was keeping it together as well as she was. Savannah glanced at her sister, her blue eyes focused on her facial expression and overall body language. She could see that the facade was beginning to crack.
Savannah Taylor: Is everything okay?
Harper Taylor: Why do you say that?
Savannah Taylor: Because your eyes are telling a different story.
Harper sighs.
Harper Taylor: Dammit.
Savannah Taylor: So, out with it. What is on your mind?
Harper Taylor: Well, you see, there is this guy in one of my classes. We;ve been friends since grade school. The thing is, I’ve kind of grown to like him.
Savannah Taylor: What level of “like” are you talking about?
Harper Taylor: Like like.
Savannah Taylor: Gotcha. And does he feel the same way?
Harper Taylor: I don’t know. I haven’t really told him.
Savannah sighs slightly as she leans back in the booth.
Savannah Taylor: You need to tell him as soon as possible.
Harper Taylor: I’m kind of nervous though.
Savannah Taylor: That is typical. It means that you really like-like this guy. But trust me when I say you need to tell him as soon as you can. Because the longer you take, the more likely it becomes that things could go South and you are left wondering just what happened that caused to drift away from each other. It’s better to be honest with both him and yourself than to have to walk around with the regret of not telling him.
Harper ponders her sister’s words as Savannah takes a long sip of her water. To say that she had some experience in this subject matter would be a vast understatement. Things have worked themselves out in that aspect of her life, but it took Savannah a while to come to grips with her lack of action.
Harper Taylor: Has that ever happened to you?
Savannah Taylor: It has.
Harper Taylor: What happened? I mean, did you eventually come to terms with your choice?
Savannah Taylor: Somehow by the grace of God, a second chance came my way. I did end up getting everything out in the open and I have never felt better about it.
Harper Taylor: You do seem happier than I remember, happier than when I first ran into you over the summer.
Savannah Taylor: Oh trust me, I am.
She says with a genuine smile, feeling her cheeks start to flush with crimson. For the first time, her personal and professional lives were meshing well together. She still wants to know just what she did to deserve such a bright spot in her life, but she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Harper Taylor: He sounds like quite the guy.
Savannah Taylor: He’s the best thing that has happened to me in a long while.
Harper Taylor: I think…...I think I’m going to tell him tomorrow. A bunch of friends and I are going to hang out tomorrow and he’s going to be there.
Savannah Taylor: Just do me a favor. If it end up happening, send me a text. I’m heading out of the country early tomorrow morning.
Harper Taylor: That's right, you’ve got the pay per view Saturday. I can’t wait to see your match with Annie.
Savannah Taylor: She’s a good kid and her heart is often in the right place. She just has a habit of speaking before thinking is all. I’ve seen her get into it with people on social media because of her overly curious nature. But honestly, she’s good people. She reminds me a lot of you.
Harper Taylor: Really?
Savannah Taylor: You both have a positive outlook on things. You both are genuine and good people whom others love.
Harper can only smile as she hears her sister’s assessment. She doesn’t get a chance to respond as the waitress comes back to their table to take their meal orders. The waitress scribbles down the orders on her notepad and scurries off towards the kitchen. Harper takes another sip of her drink as she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.
Harper Taylor: I never knew that. She seems like someone I’d get along with if we were to ever meet up.
Savannah Taylor: If the FGA ever comes back to Las Vegas or the surrounding areas, we can arrange that.
Harper Taylor: Really? that would be amazing! I knew there was a reason I looked up to you.
Savannah was in the middle of a drink of her water when she heard her sister say that. She places the glass down on the coaster with a slight thud as she swallows the water in her mouth, trying to hide her obvious shock and surprise.
Savannah Taylor: Come again?
Harper Taylor: What? Did I say something wrong?
Savannah Taylor: No no, it’s just………..you really look up to me?
Harper Taylor: Well, yeah. You’re a confident, beautiful and driven woman. You’ve got all the qualities that someone should hope to reach one day. Not to mention you’re my sister. Why wouldn’t people look up to you?
Savannah Taylor: Why? Because I am not that good of a person. I’m just a partially broken person who has done some pretty deplorable things in my life and career. No matter how much I can try otherwise, people are always going to judge me based on what I’ve done in the past. People don’t care that I’ve tried or am trying to move past everything. They just have this one ideal in their head and they sink their teeth into it like a dog biting a bone. Besides, outside of you, Mom and Dad, I only care about what three, possibly four other people think.
Harper Taylor: I still think you are a good person.
Savannah Taylor: Well, thank you. That means a lot to me to hear someone say that.
Harper Taylor: Anytime. I still can’t wait to see you kick some butt Saturday night.
Savannah Taylor: Annie is tough and has hung with the best of them. But…..she’s never faced me before.
Savannah says with a grin as she reaches for another nacho. The time spent bonding with her sister was special to Savannah. She wanted to make sure that her sister had as relatively normal a time as possible. Going out to lunch, shopping and just bonding seemed like simple things, but for someone like Savannah, it was time well spent. It was time she could use to escape the world for a while and to have to worry about her impending match in Toronto with Annie Zellor. She knew facing Annie was going to be a tough task. But like the old saying went, what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. With everything that Savannah has gone through thus far, people had better watch their backs because she was about as strong as they came. That would eventually spell trouble for those that stood against her.
“You cheated.”
“How could you be happy with winning that way?”
“Cheating in a tag team match isn’t right, you know.”
Do you honestly have any idea how many times I have heard that and variations on those themes in the past two weeks? Here is a hint……...a lot. People are irritated with me. People are upset with me. People aren’t happy with me. Guess what? People haven’t been happy with me in one way or another in this business for the past two or so years. That isn’t a trend that is going to stop anytime soon. For whatever reason, people seem to want to make me the scapegoat. They are unhappy with whatever problem they have or whatever is going wrong in their current company, and they find a reason to pin it on me. That is one thing about this business that has jaded me a bit. No matter what I do or no matter what i say, it is never good enough for people. It is never going to be good enough or is going to matter because people are going to believe whatever they want and to hell with differing opinions.
Thank you for being different, Annie.
Thank you for being one of the people who actually made me feel welcome me when I first joined FGA. You knew what I’ve done in the past and yet you went out of your way to be nice to me. For having ever really met me outside of spending time on the beach in Miami last year, you proved to be a genuine and good person. Those are a rare commodity nowadays. I honestly don’t know what I did to earn the title of your friend, but I’m taking it and running with it.
I just hope you don’t expect me to be as cordial to you on Saturday night as I am being right now.
You should know by now that when I step into the ring, I have no friends. I have no acquaintances. I am there to do my job and do it exceedingly well. Will we be friends before the bell rings? Of course we will. Will we remain friends after the match is all over? I don’t see why we can’t. Just know that as soon as my feet enter the arena to begin getting ready for our match, you are no friend of mine. Don’t expect me to come find you backstage for one last pre-match pep talk. Don’t expect me to text or tweet you. I want nothing to distract me from getting ready for a match of this level of importance. I know to the untrained eye or the people who write for the wrestling dirt sheets that this is a throwaway match. They say this match shouldn’t get the hype that is it. Do you want to know what I say to that? Bullshit. They don’t know that EVERY match, regardless of it’s place on the card, is important. They don’t know the kind of pressure people put on themselves to make sure the people don’t go away disappointed or not having received their money's worth.
They also don’t know what kind of pressure out match presents, Annie. We have probably the most under-pressure match not named Zero McHannon and Cindy Parker. Oh, you don’t believe me? Allow me to elaborate. The fact that our match is opening the show is something of a confidence booster. It shows that FGA management has enough faith in it’s former two time tag team champion and a relative newcomer to put on a one of a kind match. Think about it. The first ever meeting between Annie and Savannah. The former two time FGA World Tag Team champion and the last ever EXODUS World Heavyweight champion. The hype and the headlines just seem to write themselves. But the fact that we are tasked with opening the show and the fact that it is up to US to set the tone for the rest of the evening……...it is a lot of pressure to put on two people. I’ve seen how you perform under pressure, Annie, and I must say you do an admirable job.
You just aren’t on my level yet.
You want pressure? Pressure is going into a match against someone who is twice your size in both height and weight and being tasked with taking his championship from him. It is putting on a clinic with said person in front of my hometown fans, my Las Vegas crew, and delivering on my promise. Pressure is heading into the biggest event of the calendar year for my former company and wrestling a true class act and should-have-been first ballot Hall of Famer in a thirty five minute classic. Pressure is finding out just minutes after that match that you are going to be thrown into the main event for the World title. Not only did that happen, but I now have the title belt back home to prove it. I know this isn’t the kind of pressure that Cindy and Zero, or even Noelle and Tony are under, but it is pressure just the same. It is said that with the right amount of pressure, a lump of coal is transformed into a dazzling diamond. From the looks of it, there is going to be more than one diamond emerging from the fire Saturday night in Toronto.
I’ve seen tapes of you you have fared against other former World champions and I have to say that there is some definite room for improvement. You’ve won some, but it looks like you’ve lost more of those than you’ve won. That is something of a damn shame. I mean, if you are looking to make a name for yourself in any company, you target the top dog. You target the guy or girl at the top. Unfortunately for you Annie, the big downfall in all of this for you has been your mouth. You have talked your way into some pretty hairy situations. You can talk the best game of your life all you want to someone. You can hype yourself up to being the one that everyone should look out for. But if you can’t back it up, like I have seen you do time and time again, you are just going to be left standing in the middle of the ring with egg on your face. Can’t wait to see which Annie Zellor shows up Saturday night.
It may seem like I’ve got a lot on my mind. It may seem like I am just sitting here and lashing out at you for no apparent reason. Maybe it's because there are certain things that are going on in my family life that have left me a bit frazzled. Maybe it’s because I’m going to be on regular pay-per-view instead of internet pay per views, so I have to perform at a higher standard. Or maybe it's because I have yet to really get much of an apology for your blatant inadequacies as a referee. Oh don’t think I have forgotten about that match, Annie. I never forget people who, intentionally or not, do wrong by me. That was a big wrong, Annie. Like I’ve said before, you are a great person and I have no issues with you outside of that one. You just need to prepare yourself because what is about to come at you is something much different than you have faced before. I knew what I was getting into when I signed my FGA contract. I knew I was going to be thrown to the wolves when it came to the best competition on the planet. It is something I’m not only ready for, but am looking forward to. It all starts with you, Annie. It all starts with you and me opening Canadian Stampede in front of a sure-to-be ravenous Toronto crowd. Just please do me one favor though, just one simple favor. Before the bell rings and we are staring at each other across the ring, take a good look into these blue eyes. I want you to remember the look on my face and the glint in my eyes because as God as my witness, that will be the last thing you will remember seeing before all hell breaks loose. But good luck all the same, Annie. Some may need it more than others.
Auf Wiedersehen.
Hard Rock Cafe
Las Vegas, Nevada
OFF CAMERA
Known the world over as a place for casual dining in an upbeat atmosphere, the popular Las Vegas branch of the Hard Rock Cafe was fairly busy for a Wednesday afternoon. The usual lunch crowd was still trickling in, hoping to get a taste of the casual fare the Cafe was famous for. As the waitstaff bustled about between the rapidly filling up tables and booths, a pair of patrons are already sitting back in a corner booth enjoying their appetizer. The older of the two diners is one of the city’s favorite daughters, Savannah taylor. Seated across from her is her seventeen year old sister Harper. Savannah carefully takes a tortilla chip from the mountainous plate of nachos in the center of the table and takes a bite, trying not to drop any of the toppings on the table or on her. Harper takes a sip of her soda and wipes the corner of her mouth with her napkin.
Harper Taylor: Thanks for taking me to lunch, Savannah.
Savannah Taylor: You’re more than welcome. I figure, given everything that is going on, you could use a day just to do whatever.
Harper Taylor: You can say that again.
She says with a wistful sigh. Their mother’s illness was hard on both of them, but for the younger Harper, she was taking this harder than one could imagine. Going through her senior year of high school, a year that is stressful enough, with the thought that her mother could take a turn for the worse and end up passing away, it was a miracle the younger of the two sisters was keeping it together as well as she was. Savannah glanced at her sister, her blue eyes focused on her facial expression and overall body language. She could see that the facade was beginning to crack.
Savannah Taylor: Is everything okay?
Harper Taylor: Why do you say that?
Savannah Taylor: Because your eyes are telling a different story.
Harper sighs.
Harper Taylor: Dammit.
Savannah Taylor: So, out with it. What is on your mind?
Harper Taylor: Well, you see, there is this guy in one of my classes. We;ve been friends since grade school. The thing is, I’ve kind of grown to like him.
Savannah Taylor: What level of “like” are you talking about?
Harper Taylor: Like like.
Savannah Taylor: Gotcha. And does he feel the same way?
Harper Taylor: I don’t know. I haven’t really told him.
Savannah sighs slightly as she leans back in the booth.
Savannah Taylor: You need to tell him as soon as possible.
Harper Taylor: I’m kind of nervous though.
Savannah Taylor: That is typical. It means that you really like-like this guy. But trust me when I say you need to tell him as soon as you can. Because the longer you take, the more likely it becomes that things could go South and you are left wondering just what happened that caused to drift away from each other. It’s better to be honest with both him and yourself than to have to walk around with the regret of not telling him.
Harper ponders her sister’s words as Savannah takes a long sip of her water. To say that she had some experience in this subject matter would be a vast understatement. Things have worked themselves out in that aspect of her life, but it took Savannah a while to come to grips with her lack of action.
Harper Taylor: Has that ever happened to you?
Savannah Taylor: It has.
Harper Taylor: What happened? I mean, did you eventually come to terms with your choice?
Savannah Taylor: Somehow by the grace of God, a second chance came my way. I did end up getting everything out in the open and I have never felt better about it.
Harper Taylor: You do seem happier than I remember, happier than when I first ran into you over the summer.
Savannah Taylor: Oh trust me, I am.
She says with a genuine smile, feeling her cheeks start to flush with crimson. For the first time, her personal and professional lives were meshing well together. She still wants to know just what she did to deserve such a bright spot in her life, but she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Harper Taylor: He sounds like quite the guy.
Savannah Taylor: He’s the best thing that has happened to me in a long while.
Harper Taylor: I think…...I think I’m going to tell him tomorrow. A bunch of friends and I are going to hang out tomorrow and he’s going to be there.
Savannah Taylor: Just do me a favor. If it end up happening, send me a text. I’m heading out of the country early tomorrow morning.
Harper Taylor: That's right, you’ve got the pay per view Saturday. I can’t wait to see your match with Annie.
Savannah Taylor: She’s a good kid and her heart is often in the right place. She just has a habit of speaking before thinking is all. I’ve seen her get into it with people on social media because of her overly curious nature. But honestly, she’s good people. She reminds me a lot of you.
Harper Taylor: Really?
Savannah Taylor: You both have a positive outlook on things. You both are genuine and good people whom others love.
Harper can only smile as she hears her sister’s assessment. She doesn’t get a chance to respond as the waitress comes back to their table to take their meal orders. The waitress scribbles down the orders on her notepad and scurries off towards the kitchen. Harper takes another sip of her drink as she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.
Harper Taylor: I never knew that. She seems like someone I’d get along with if we were to ever meet up.
Savannah Taylor: If the FGA ever comes back to Las Vegas or the surrounding areas, we can arrange that.
Harper Taylor: Really? that would be amazing! I knew there was a reason I looked up to you.
Savannah was in the middle of a drink of her water when she heard her sister say that. She places the glass down on the coaster with a slight thud as she swallows the water in her mouth, trying to hide her obvious shock and surprise.
Savannah Taylor: Come again?
Harper Taylor: What? Did I say something wrong?
Savannah Taylor: No no, it’s just………..you really look up to me?
Harper Taylor: Well, yeah. You’re a confident, beautiful and driven woman. You’ve got all the qualities that someone should hope to reach one day. Not to mention you’re my sister. Why wouldn’t people look up to you?
Savannah Taylor: Why? Because I am not that good of a person. I’m just a partially broken person who has done some pretty deplorable things in my life and career. No matter how much I can try otherwise, people are always going to judge me based on what I’ve done in the past. People don’t care that I’ve tried or am trying to move past everything. They just have this one ideal in their head and they sink their teeth into it like a dog biting a bone. Besides, outside of you, Mom and Dad, I only care about what three, possibly four other people think.
Harper Taylor: I still think you are a good person.
Savannah Taylor: Well, thank you. That means a lot to me to hear someone say that.
Harper Taylor: Anytime. I still can’t wait to see you kick some butt Saturday night.
Savannah Taylor: Annie is tough and has hung with the best of them. But…..she’s never faced me before.
Savannah says with a grin as she reaches for another nacho. The time spent bonding with her sister was special to Savannah. She wanted to make sure that her sister had as relatively normal a time as possible. Going out to lunch, shopping and just bonding seemed like simple things, but for someone like Savannah, it was time well spent. It was time she could use to escape the world for a while and to have to worry about her impending match in Toronto with Annie Zellor. She knew facing Annie was going to be a tough task. But like the old saying went, what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. With everything that Savannah has gone through thus far, people had better watch their backs because she was about as strong as they came. That would eventually spell trouble for those that stood against her.
“You cheated.”
“How could you be happy with winning that way?”
“Cheating in a tag team match isn’t right, you know.”
Do you honestly have any idea how many times I have heard that and variations on those themes in the past two weeks? Here is a hint……...a lot. People are irritated with me. People are upset with me. People aren’t happy with me. Guess what? People haven’t been happy with me in one way or another in this business for the past two or so years. That isn’t a trend that is going to stop anytime soon. For whatever reason, people seem to want to make me the scapegoat. They are unhappy with whatever problem they have or whatever is going wrong in their current company, and they find a reason to pin it on me. That is one thing about this business that has jaded me a bit. No matter what I do or no matter what i say, it is never good enough for people. It is never going to be good enough or is going to matter because people are going to believe whatever they want and to hell with differing opinions.
Thank you for being different, Annie.
Thank you for being one of the people who actually made me feel welcome me when I first joined FGA. You knew what I’ve done in the past and yet you went out of your way to be nice to me. For having ever really met me outside of spending time on the beach in Miami last year, you proved to be a genuine and good person. Those are a rare commodity nowadays. I honestly don’t know what I did to earn the title of your friend, but I’m taking it and running with it.
I just hope you don’t expect me to be as cordial to you on Saturday night as I am being right now.
You should know by now that when I step into the ring, I have no friends. I have no acquaintances. I am there to do my job and do it exceedingly well. Will we be friends before the bell rings? Of course we will. Will we remain friends after the match is all over? I don’t see why we can’t. Just know that as soon as my feet enter the arena to begin getting ready for our match, you are no friend of mine. Don’t expect me to come find you backstage for one last pre-match pep talk. Don’t expect me to text or tweet you. I want nothing to distract me from getting ready for a match of this level of importance. I know to the untrained eye or the people who write for the wrestling dirt sheets that this is a throwaway match. They say this match shouldn’t get the hype that is it. Do you want to know what I say to that? Bullshit. They don’t know that EVERY match, regardless of it’s place on the card, is important. They don’t know the kind of pressure people put on themselves to make sure the people don’t go away disappointed or not having received their money's worth.
They also don’t know what kind of pressure out match presents, Annie. We have probably the most under-pressure match not named Zero McHannon and Cindy Parker. Oh, you don’t believe me? Allow me to elaborate. The fact that our match is opening the show is something of a confidence booster. It shows that FGA management has enough faith in it’s former two time tag team champion and a relative newcomer to put on a one of a kind match. Think about it. The first ever meeting between Annie and Savannah. The former two time FGA World Tag Team champion and the last ever EXODUS World Heavyweight champion. The hype and the headlines just seem to write themselves. But the fact that we are tasked with opening the show and the fact that it is up to US to set the tone for the rest of the evening……...it is a lot of pressure to put on two people. I’ve seen how you perform under pressure, Annie, and I must say you do an admirable job.
You just aren’t on my level yet.
You want pressure? Pressure is going into a match against someone who is twice your size in both height and weight and being tasked with taking his championship from him. It is putting on a clinic with said person in front of my hometown fans, my Las Vegas crew, and delivering on my promise. Pressure is heading into the biggest event of the calendar year for my former company and wrestling a true class act and should-have-been first ballot Hall of Famer in a thirty five minute classic. Pressure is finding out just minutes after that match that you are going to be thrown into the main event for the World title. Not only did that happen, but I now have the title belt back home to prove it. I know this isn’t the kind of pressure that Cindy and Zero, or even Noelle and Tony are under, but it is pressure just the same. It is said that with the right amount of pressure, a lump of coal is transformed into a dazzling diamond. From the looks of it, there is going to be more than one diamond emerging from the fire Saturday night in Toronto.
I’ve seen tapes of you you have fared against other former World champions and I have to say that there is some definite room for improvement. You’ve won some, but it looks like you’ve lost more of those than you’ve won. That is something of a damn shame. I mean, if you are looking to make a name for yourself in any company, you target the top dog. You target the guy or girl at the top. Unfortunately for you Annie, the big downfall in all of this for you has been your mouth. You have talked your way into some pretty hairy situations. You can talk the best game of your life all you want to someone. You can hype yourself up to being the one that everyone should look out for. But if you can’t back it up, like I have seen you do time and time again, you are just going to be left standing in the middle of the ring with egg on your face. Can’t wait to see which Annie Zellor shows up Saturday night.
It may seem like I’ve got a lot on my mind. It may seem like I am just sitting here and lashing out at you for no apparent reason. Maybe it's because there are certain things that are going on in my family life that have left me a bit frazzled. Maybe it’s because I’m going to be on regular pay-per-view instead of internet pay per views, so I have to perform at a higher standard. Or maybe it's because I have yet to really get much of an apology for your blatant inadequacies as a referee. Oh don’t think I have forgotten about that match, Annie. I never forget people who, intentionally or not, do wrong by me. That was a big wrong, Annie. Like I’ve said before, you are a great person and I have no issues with you outside of that one. You just need to prepare yourself because what is about to come at you is something much different than you have faced before. I knew what I was getting into when I signed my FGA contract. I knew I was going to be thrown to the wolves when it came to the best competition on the planet. It is something I’m not only ready for, but am looking forward to. It all starts with you, Annie. It all starts with you and me opening Canadian Stampede in front of a sure-to-be ravenous Toronto crowd. Just please do me one favor though, just one simple favor. Before the bell rings and we are staring at each other across the ring, take a good look into these blue eyes. I want you to remember the look on my face and the glint in my eyes because as God as my witness, that will be the last thing you will remember seeing before all hell breaks loose. But good luck all the same, Annie. Some may need it more than others.
Auf Wiedersehen.