The Tree of Legacy (Why The Anglo Luchador Is A Wrestler)
Oct 4, 2022 18:17:34 GMT -5
Harvey Marx likes this
Post by th on Oct 4, 2022 18:17:34 GMT -5
I could tell you wrestling was the family business, and it would be the end of this promo. It wouldn’t make for an interesting speech, but it would also be a lie. Yeah, my father was a wrestler, a pretty good one at that. “The Italian Stallion” Lorenzo Battaglia made towns and drew money. I saw my dad wrestle, and the only feeling that swelled up from my jellies was fear that he’d get hurt. But I’m still a wrestler today for wholly different reasons than it being genetic.
You can blame lucha libre on Telemundo for that. It caught my eye one morning when I was flicking through the channels looking for cartoons. I saw these men in masks, festooned in bright colors, doing what my dad did for a living but somehow transcending his feats in ways that blew my adolescent mind. It was there where I knew I didn’t want to go to college or learn a trade. I was either going to be a wrestler or a failure. The in-between might as well have been no-man’s land between the trenches in Ypres. That’s why I became a wrestler, and chose the path of lucha libre.
Why did I continue, though? Why am I still a wrestler?
The truth is I’m 40 years old, nine months into a comeback after over a decade on the shelf. I have been to the top of the mountain, and the weight of my own hangups has pulled me to the ocean floor. I’ve done everything except successfully defend a World Championship. I’ve suffered every injury possible, wrestled a wide swath of the best wrestlers this industry threw at me, melted down and reformed in a continuous feedback loop. You’d think there isn’t a whole lot left for me to do.
You’d be wrong.
Wrestling is like an exciting amusement park thrillride. Going around once is never enough. This sport is a carousel, and they’re always replacing the conveyances, horses or otherwise. The only difference is that the plastic animal you ride isn’t lifeless. Each new addition is alive and poses a different challenge, a unique one. If you’re going around and experiencing the same challenges with the same scenery every time, you’re doing it wrong. The doomers and pessimists among us may say time is a flat circle, but that’s only the case if you lack imagination. If you take the unknown path, the one you haven’t been down before, life becomes a beautiful spiral, a helix. There’s a hint of familiarity, but the path traveled gives you breathtakingly different views, thrilling and exhilarating.
That’s why I’m here in the World Series of Wrestling, accepting PRIME’s Golden Ticket. That’s why I’ve taken it upon myself to be my company’s face in the Phoenix Wrestling Alliance. That’s why I still wrestle, at a high level, at a Championship level, in the fiercest and most prestigious wrestling promotion that has ever existed. I am not satisfied being known as a former World Champion in feds that have long since ceased operation. I don’t want to rest on my laurels, however withered they have become. I want to grow new branches on this name. I want to nurture new laurels.
War hawk jingoists like to say “the tree of liberty must be watered with blood,” and while their thirst for war-for-profit is abominable, that phrase fits well in our industry. The tree of my legacy, of all our legacies, must be watered from time to time with blood, be it our own or that of our opponents. I am willing to spill my own blood. Just ask Jace Parker Davidson. He’ll be glad to tell you how many buckets I bled in our match at HOW’s CHAOS 11. The thing is, I still won that match, because that’s what I do. I win matches against tough opponents. My legacy tree only needs a little of my own blood. I’m here in the World Series of Wrestling to cull from 63 other wrestlers, some I’ve faced before (hi Larry), others who are completely foreign to me.
It doesn’t matter who you put in front of me, though. I will defeat them because I am a wrestler, and I am a wrestler because it’s the only way I know to keep living life the way it was meant to be lived. You only die when you accept the rut.
And I’m not ready to die just yet.
You can blame lucha libre on Telemundo for that. It caught my eye one morning when I was flicking through the channels looking for cartoons. I saw these men in masks, festooned in bright colors, doing what my dad did for a living but somehow transcending his feats in ways that blew my adolescent mind. It was there where I knew I didn’t want to go to college or learn a trade. I was either going to be a wrestler or a failure. The in-between might as well have been no-man’s land between the trenches in Ypres. That’s why I became a wrestler, and chose the path of lucha libre.
Why did I continue, though? Why am I still a wrestler?
The truth is I’m 40 years old, nine months into a comeback after over a decade on the shelf. I have been to the top of the mountain, and the weight of my own hangups has pulled me to the ocean floor. I’ve done everything except successfully defend a World Championship. I’ve suffered every injury possible, wrestled a wide swath of the best wrestlers this industry threw at me, melted down and reformed in a continuous feedback loop. You’d think there isn’t a whole lot left for me to do.
You’d be wrong.
Wrestling is like an exciting amusement park thrillride. Going around once is never enough. This sport is a carousel, and they’re always replacing the conveyances, horses or otherwise. The only difference is that the plastic animal you ride isn’t lifeless. Each new addition is alive and poses a different challenge, a unique one. If you’re going around and experiencing the same challenges with the same scenery every time, you’re doing it wrong. The doomers and pessimists among us may say time is a flat circle, but that’s only the case if you lack imagination. If you take the unknown path, the one you haven’t been down before, life becomes a beautiful spiral, a helix. There’s a hint of familiarity, but the path traveled gives you breathtakingly different views, thrilling and exhilarating.
That’s why I’m here in the World Series of Wrestling, accepting PRIME’s Golden Ticket. That’s why I’ve taken it upon myself to be my company’s face in the Phoenix Wrestling Alliance. That’s why I still wrestle, at a high level, at a Championship level, in the fiercest and most prestigious wrestling promotion that has ever existed. I am not satisfied being known as a former World Champion in feds that have long since ceased operation. I don’t want to rest on my laurels, however withered they have become. I want to grow new branches on this name. I want to nurture new laurels.
War hawk jingoists like to say “the tree of liberty must be watered with blood,” and while their thirst for war-for-profit is abominable, that phrase fits well in our industry. The tree of my legacy, of all our legacies, must be watered from time to time with blood, be it our own or that of our opponents. I am willing to spill my own blood. Just ask Jace Parker Davidson. He’ll be glad to tell you how many buckets I bled in our match at HOW’s CHAOS 11. The thing is, I still won that match, because that’s what I do. I win matches against tough opponents. My legacy tree only needs a little of my own blood. I’m here in the World Series of Wrestling to cull from 63 other wrestlers, some I’ve faced before (hi Larry), others who are completely foreign to me.
It doesn’t matter who you put in front of me, though. I will defeat them because I am a wrestler, and I am a wrestler because it’s the only way I know to keep living life the way it was meant to be lived. You only die when you accept the rut.
And I’m not ready to die just yet.