TOO MUCH IS NEVER ENOUGH

[Izzy Anders]

---

I know that I am not a fan favorite, by any means. The common FGA fan wants to see me put down, if they see me as a threat to begin with. I beat down heroes, I make fun of everyone, and I want FGA burnt to the ground. I cannot say that I am approachable either. Fans have gone on about how I disappear after each show, not bothering to show up to public events. I went to one of those events once. It was not because of the fans. I think it was because Yun went and I did not want her to be lonely. For a minute there, some fans were thrilled to see me. They rushed me for my autograph. Some wore shirts that were completely against Dom Harter. I guess that meant that I was a hero to them. I signed autographs, I promoted my work, and I smiled for pictures. I guess I wasn’t a total bitch.

That was then, though. 2016 is about to end. Of course, it will have a weird ending to carry over into the new year.

Now, I’m more elusive than ever. During my tenure in ECWF, I became a pro at being able to evade the public eye. On those wrestling forums, people wondered if I disappeared into some black hole and only came out to wrestle. They were mostly right, except that black holes kind of never let you go anywhere. They’re the territorial type. I have no reason to stick around. The more I do, the more publicity that FGA gets. I come to wrestle and then leave. It’s a vicious cycle that makes people hate me more. Even the people that wanted Dom Harter dead as much as I do probably turned on me too.

However, the night after my Vertigo against Erin Gordon, someone managed to find me. I stayed around too long. I hung out with Molly Reid for a short while. Reid and I became friends outside of wrestling. We somehow managed to bond over the bullshit that FGA was putting us through. She has begun to agree with me. FGA doesn’t care for its employees. So, I helped her get the thought in her mind to put Evan Envi six feet under. So far, she has been doing just that. I’m proud of her. But it’s her fault that a fan was able to locate me. I should have gone to my bunker and waited it out.

“Izzy Anders?” it was a female that called out to me.

I had left the hotel to go get a bite to eat. There was a Mom and Pop shop that smelled of sweet, glorious cinnamon buns. I cursed my sweet tooth, the cute elderly couple that ran the place, and Molly Reid for this. I turned on my heel, taking down my hood. When I turned, a girl stared at me. She was short, had a mop of flaxen shaggy hair, and bore twinkling, hopeful eyes. I cringed at the positive energy radiating off her. She came close to me, carefully. As she came closer, I noticed that I towered over her. However, she came cautiously not out of fear, but out of her own worry. She didn’t want to embarrass herself.

“Yes?” I asked, preventing my scornful tone from taking over.

“Wow, you’re actually buffer in person,” she whispered to herself.

“Uh-huh,” I started my way past her, but she made a nervous noise that made me stop. So, I turned, “What do you want?”

“Well,” she bounced on her heels, “I’ve actually always wanted to meet you. You probably hear this a lot, but you’re my favorite wrestler, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know,” I felt my bitterness take over for a moment. Her compliment was heard, but my hunger fired back there.

“Uh,” she stammered, probably withdrawing, due to my tone, “Can I talk to you about something personal. We don’t know each other. You’re probably wanting to go eat, but I think this is the only chance. You’re kind of like a ghost. I need to tell you this, though. You probably won’t care.”

At this point, her voice had reached an octave almost too high for my ears to process. If it wasn’t that, it was the fact that she was speaking lighting fast.

Did she need to breathe?

“Calm down,” I commanded.

“Sorry,” she replied quickly, before taking the much-needed breath.

“What do you need to tell me?”

“You’re my favorite wrestler?”

“Anything beyond that?”

“It’s cool to meet you?”

I squinted my eyes. “Is that it?”

“I think so,” she murmured, looking down at her feet. I guessed she expected me to open up or something. She was wrong.

“Okay then,” I said. I then turned to leave with a huff. Once again, she emitted a nervous noise that made me turn. When I did, she held a letter in her hands. She presented it to me with her head bowed and her legs trembling. I admit, the gesture shocked me. Where the hell they do that at? I took it, trying to keep the air of coolness about myself. I inspected it, smelling a fleeting vanilla scent.

“Uh, if you can read that letter when you feel like it, it’d make me happy.”

“Is it a love letter? I’m not Dom Harter, ya know?” I asked, titling the letter. The girl had some expert handwriting. She dotted the ‘I” in my name with a heart. It made me cringe.

“No, it’s nothing like that. I have a girlfriend, but I wanted to tell you something,” she stood up straight, gathering confidence.

“Izzy, you may not know it, but there’s a lot of people like me that think you’re the best. You’re strong, courageous, outspoken, and you do what you want. Even after the kidnapping, you stood up and said you were going to bring justice to the place that disregarded you. So, despite what anyone else says,” she pursed her lips, “You got fans. I can’t speak for all of them, but I know for sure that I will cheer for you no matter what you do.”

Her final words caught me entirely off-guard.

“You’re an inspiration to a lot of us,” she smiled widely.

I stood there, quiet. As she concluded her speech, she began to rock back on her heels. The nervousness came back tenfold, with her pale features turning a bright red. “Okay, I’ll leave you alone,” she started on her way.

“What’s your name?” I called out.

She froze up, overflowing with nervous energy. She turned, giggling.

“Tessie!”

I gave her a small smile, “Nice to meet you. I’ll read this when I can. And uh, I’ll send you a letter back. This is your address on here, right? That’s probably why you left it.”

“If it’s not too much of an inconvenience, that’d be cool,” Tessie said, her eyes wide with a subtle excitement. I successfully got her hopes up.

“It’s rude not to reply to your fans, right?” I asked, offering a joke.

She blushed. “I wouldn’t know,” her voice faded into a whisper.

I gave her a wave and started back to the hotel. I heard her scamper away in her flats. I looked at the letter.

I’d read it when I was alone. It’s important, I guess.

---

“I am tired, Noelle.”

“I am tired of people coming forward and telling me that my wants are not warranted. That I didn’t get kidnapped. Or that I am being over dramatic.”

“I am tired of being in this point of stagnation. Man, that has defined my time here in FGA. When I took that Mid-Atlantic Legacy Championship from you, I didn’t expect me to end up where I am now. That fact that I’m the best MAL champion there is doesn’t really matter now. It doesn’t matter to anyone, except me, that the belt that Salem and Annie are about to fight over is mine and mine alone. No one else can carry that belt like me. They can try, but they will fail. I’m tired of that fact too.”

“I’m tired of coming back to a FGA ring and not having my voice heard.”

“I’m tired of FGA treating each person that isn’t at the tippy top as insignificant. Molly Reid only attacked Evan Envi the way she did because she had to take matters into her own hands. Salem Cartier got attacked by the Crimson Baroness who was not supposed to be here to begin with. You know, everything bad that has happened here has been an act of inactivity on FGA’s part. So, you know that we don’t really matter, Noelle? I’m tired of that.”

“But most of all, Noelle, I’m tired of you. When we met backstage that one night, where you vowed to stand against me. I found myself excited to see you so gung-ho about losing to me again. I saw the fire in your eyes. I heard the passion in your voice. Then I heard your spirit trying to convince me that you can beat me. For a second there, I found myself back in the same position I was before. I was excited with you.”

“At Final Frontier, I planned to come out there and have a beautiful, respectful match with you. I planned on not making you a pile of blood, broken dreams, and self-hatred. You’re so full of hope that you glisten. You’re going to the gym, probably training every day with Kamijo to be the best that you can be. All of that because only the best Noelle Smith can stand a chance of beating Izzy Anders. You know what? Everyone out there wants you to beat me. They want you to shut up, Izzy Anders, the person who wants to destroy the place they love and support.”

“Guess what, Noelle?”

“Things have changed.”

“What has, you ask? Erhm, Chris Madison and Ryan LeCavalier are exciting—wait, no, that’s not right. Dan Herrera can beat Chandler Scott. Probably not. John Blade is finally getting his first match against another inconsequential piece in the cog like LJ Summers, Erin Gordon, Ian Cross, and whoever else is there. Annie Zellor is still a cunt. Salem Cartier is still an idiot. And Dom Harter is still a fuckboy.”

“I came here to change FGA and all I see is that one thing has changed. We have a new World Champion. I’m both glad and upset that it’s Cordy Stevenson. Because she will not use her standing to change what FGA has done to people like me, her friends.”

“But the one thing that really hasn’t changed is you, Noelle. Sure, you can get on Twitter, post all the dick tease pictures you can of you in low-cut shirts in the gym, and say cryptic things about how much you have improved. But to me, that’s a load of bullshit. All I have to do is take a shower and put a bottle of Gatorade next to me and I will look the part. You had me fooled for a good second there, because of that glint in your eyes. But all I had to do was sit down and remember who the fuck you were and what the fuck you’ve done here.”

“I stood against Cordy Stevenson and I lost. I felt my dream die out for a second there. Now I’m regulated back to having to pick the scraps that FGA management has set out for me. While people like Chandler Scott, Johnny Cannon, and Dom Harter, people who have won, failed, and continued to struggle get their second, third, and fourth chance to stand in the spotlight. We, Noelle, we sit here on the sidelines, fending for ourselves.”

“The difference between us is that I am trying to get my job done. I want FGA dead and I have begun to inch and claw my way to the FGA World Championship. I got farther in the tournament than a crapload of people. I have gone out on excursions to improve constantly. You can actually see that!”

“I began to analyze each event from here on out. I’m getting back to that FGA World Championship, one way or the other. If I have to kick everyone’s ass in the Gold Rush Rumble, I’ll do it. If I have to kick everyone’s ass in Frontier Lions’ Cup, I’ll do it. Whatever random tournament that comes up, I’ll win. Whatever I can do to make it back to that stage that I belong on, I will do it. If that means beating you and making you remember that you aren’t pushing yourself to my level, then I will do it gladly.”

“Back when I first talked to you, I was happy. I was elated to be back in FGA to destroy it from the ground up. But now, I’m standing here pissed right the fuck off. Unfortunately for you, your little dream of you beating me is out of the window. Yeah, we’ll have a nice match, because you’re a good wrestler and I’m the best damn wrestler in FGA.”

“That’s a controversial statement.”

“But you’ll skip on out there and try to fight me, but Noelle, let me tell you straight up that I’m coming to beat your ass.”

“Because Cordy Stevenson told me a little thing. There are plenty of people who represent FGA and will stand before me to defend it. The thing is, Noelle, I found out that you’re one of those people.”

“Or at least you try to be.”

“But regardless if you are or if you’re not one of FGA’s soldiers, you’re in my way in some fashion. Either you’re in my way as someone who wants to see FGA continue to thrive and mistreat each person there is here or you’re going to be a person stopping me from moving up. Because I get how this system works now. You take this place by the balls and then they give you what you want. As you have experienced a long time ago, I got exactly what I want by doing just that.”

“I walked in Rookie X Cup and kicked everyone’s ass there. I beat future World Champions and mainstays of other companies to be the best damn rookie to walk into the business in 2015. Then in FGA, I kicked ass until I demanded a title shot you denied me of. So, I continued to kick ass. I kicked any contender in the MAL division in the fucking face. Then FGA gave me what I wanted. Then I went in, beat you, and took the MAL Championship from your sorry ass.”

“I’m giving you what you failed to give me: a shot, a chance.”

“You’re going to waste this chance, just like everyone else does in FGA.”

“Noelle Smith, this is it. You’re finished. Izzy Anders doesn’t have time to waste. It’s nice to have dreams. I have them too. You may come into Final Frontier with the aspirations of being able to defeat me like Ruby was able, but unfortunately, I’m not going to give you the opportunity. And to finalize this all, let me tell you one thing.”

“I never gave a damn about your fucking dreams.”

---

Reading the letter made me feel a lightness in my chest.

I sat in my car, laid out on my backseat. I got up from the position, placing the letter next to me. I tucked my hand underneath my jaw, not knowing the feeling that was overwhelming me. It was a mixture of delight, astonishment, but finally sorrow. I didn’t know that people saw me in that way. Did my words really hit people that hard like that?

I’m not a hero.

I never have been, even when I first started. Sure, I enjoyed the cheers of the fans, because it was a fresh atmosphere. Time works against that. All of that fresh wonder and glee starts to die out horribly. With all the attacks and personalities surrounding wrestling, I began to let it decay. Eventually, I took my rookie idolization with wrestling and shot it in the back of the head. I started to hate the fans who welcomed Dom Harter back into their arms. I started to hate the people who did not try to understand why their supposed villains acted the way that they did.

Contrary to popular belief, there are no villains in wrestling. Yes, you have people like Tony Carmine that embody pompousness and attitude. He’s the closest one to that dreamed up vision of a villain. Nevertheless, Tony Carmine still feels the same feelings as Cordy Stevenson does. He has spoken openly about how he feels the coldness of failure and how much he hurts. He may be an asshole, but he never said he hated the business. He never said that he didn’t enjoy bringing the crowds.

Jimmy Page only hates people, because the world has abused him like it abused me. We’re victims of the business and the world. We can only defend ourselves by not trusting anything and being ready for it all. People may hate us for it, but we know what lies behind the false smiles. The jeers and the hatred is the only truth we know. Wrestling is a fickle business. None of us are truly evil. We are products of everything around us. We still feel, we still cry.

Like I did there in my backseat.

The lightness in my chest was a release of that pent-up emotion.

To Tessie, I was her favorite wrestler, not because I punch douchebags in the face. I’m her favorite because of what I represent.

I am a rebel that stands up against the oppressive society.

I am a person who does not want to remain weak in a place that will eat you alive and not care.

I am a victim who is tired of being one.

I am a victim…just like her.

And so many others.