Post by weckface on Jun 27, 2013 17:25:10 GMT -5
*Our camera turns on, and we see the NAW logo in the bottom right corner. Our setting for this segment appears to be a suburban house. We are standing in a driveway with a black Ford F-150 parked in it, and a house in a sad state of repair sits just to the left of it. The white siding shows signs of age and apathy, and the yard appears to be in a similar state of neglect. Trees and shrubs are scattered in between the house and the street, dangerously close to taking over the yard. Our crew member makes his way toward the back, as if he was instructed to ignore the front door. We find that this yard is also in disarray, highlighted by an above ground pool with the cover stretched across, and what looks like years of yard debris on top of it. We can hear a beat coming from inside the house, and it gets louder as we turn again and walk alongside the back, past the wooden deck that would lead to the backdoor. Finally, just to the left of the steps, our camera turns and again directly faces the house, leaving us staring at two metal storm doors that seems to lead to a basement. The view gets shifted momentarily as the cameraman reaches and opens the door, and immediately our senses are overwhelmed with noise. As the sounds of "Mother" by Danzig blasts through the speakers, we make our way down the few steps which appear to lead to an unfinished, wood paneled basement. The room, approximately 50" by 50", has a ceiling that looks to be just over 9 feet high. The camera turns left briefly, to show a set of steps that presumably climbs upstairs into the main part of the house. Just as suddenly, we are turned back to the center of the room, where a large man stands in the center of a wrestling mat. He is wearing nothing except for a pair of shorts and wrestling shoes, allowing the sweat he is working up to shine off of his musclebound arms. On his shoulders rests a blue, human shaped dummy, which we have to assume is to be used for preparing for combat sports. Suddenly, violently, our host drops the dummy with a Burning Hammer. He is up in a blink, and picking the dummy up, this time in position for a belly to belly suplex. Our film takes a quick detour to the walls, which we can see are lined with newspaper clippings. All of them are from a newspaper called the "Bergen Record", and most the dates in the top right hand corner read from 5-8 years ago. At a glance, each of them features the name "Weck" in the headline, a strong indication that we are in the home of James Weck, one of the newest signings of the NAW. Almost on cue, the music stops and James' face is directly in front of the camera, with a raptor like gaze facing us. We follow him as he sits on a weight bench next to the mat, the closest thing to furniture in the dim setting.*
"Trust me, you and the rest of the NAW will soon know the truth of those stories. Soon enough, everyone watching will understand that they show just how, and why, I need to dominate this company like no athlete has ever dominated before. My name is James Weck, and I will begin my path at Heatwave, begin by taking out a waste who is not worthy of sharing the ring with me, by the name of Zealot. But before I explain to this unfortunate pretender just what awaits him, I suppose I should let everyone know just what the fans, officials, and wrestlers of North Atlantic Wrestling are in store for. After all, you have been so conditioned to expect garbage, so trained that mediocrity is greatness, that I doubt one of you has any idea just what a genesis I am brining with me."
*Weck turns his head for just a second, facing one of the walls. His eyes seem to scan the stories for a few brief seconds before he comes back to us, more intent then before.*
"19 years. For the first 19 years of my life, the only thing that mattered to me was this sport. It was what I had embedded in me from birth, The only activity, past-time, or hobby I ever knew. While Sparkmon was biting Willie Nelson's ankles, while Jenny Smith was feeling "funny" watching her idols on TV, I was on this mat, with this dummy, learning the oldest sport in the world. I was born to do this, or so I'd get told when the old man was taking a break from popping a bottle, or kicking my ass. He was a national champion, and regarded as one of the best coaches around, and I was just growing up, but that didn't matter to him!! Night in and night out, after school, we would be down here on this mat, him showing me just how much I needed to learn if I was ever going to live up to all that was expected of me. I figured out early on, that a social life, a chance to make the kinds of connections that young men make, just wasn't an option for me. When you have been trained your while life to be a fighter, making friends isn't a skill that you easily pick up. Would you have wanted to come over to the kid's house who they say never left this basement? How many parents do you think let their kids hang out with boy whose dad paced him in the car while he ran home from school every day? Not that it much mattered, you see, because friendship would have taken away from the singular focus of becoming the best American ever to lace up a pair of these shoes. And make no mistake about it, I was on my way. Read these articles further, and you will find out about my freshman year at Hillsdale Catholic as a "Crusader", the best program in the state. You will hear how I set a freshman record for team wins, and got within inches of winning state titles my first two years there. Keep going down that wall, and you will read about the utter domination of my last two years, my two undefeated, state championship seasons, of how I was not scored upon for a year and a half."
*James suddenly stands up, and walks over the papers he is referencing. We can see a younger version of him standing tall in the middle of a mat, trophy in hand, in one of them. He turns back to us, his expression darker still, despite what would appear to be a happy memory.*
"And you know, right around that same time, as I was really beginning to make a name for myself, a funny thing started to happen. As I rewrote the record books, and became greater then any Crusader who came before me, suddenly, people began not to be so wary of me. Suddenly, they would try and talk me when I was in class. The girls in school would all bat their eyes at me and try to yell louder than each other at every match, and then revel in telling me it was their voice I heard. Truthfully, when I was on the mat, there was nothing but focused adrenaline in my head, but they delighted in telling me anyway. And, amazingly, the same boy who they all turned their backs on became a young man who was a source of pride for the community. All because of what I was able to do in this sport, all because of my ability to pin another person's shoulders to the mat. When the colleges came calling after my junior year, it was no different. All of their recruiters, all of their boosters, made sure I knew that their school was the place for me. All of the schools in the Big Ten and Big 12, the hotbeds of college wrestling, came to have a very intimate knowledge of what my living room upstairs looked like. Hell, Penn State, the place where I will make my NAW debut, was one of the schools the hottest to get me. I remember their coach tell me, "Nittany chicks love wrestlers di....". Well, you can probably figure out the rhyme, but the point is that they knew I would make their program great. Every voice in my ear told me that if I wanted to realize my dream and get to the Olympics, I needed to be where they were. The truth is, none of them knew just how much I busted my ass, none of them knew that I was dedicated enough to get the job done wherever I was. And as I thought about it, I started to realize that the only way to truly become the greatest legend that United States Wrestling had ever seen was to blaze a path none before me had followed! Wrestlers had been going to Iowa, or Michigan, or Oklahoma, and garnering national and international fame for damn near a hundred years. But I decided to stay home, as it were, to lead the dawning of a new era. I went to Rutgers University to become a Scarlet Knight, a program which at the time had just two All-Americans in it's history. I knew that my tenacity and determination, my excellence, would inspire others to follow in my footsteps, and create a dynasty. When you can not just dominate, but dictate the course of an entire sport, then you are sure to go down in history. And for my first year, everything went so very right! We were a top 25 team, the first time ever for the program! Cruising into the league tournament the clear favorites with me being one of several athletes who we were sure would be moving on to the nationals, it was all coming true! My 32-0 record as I steamrolled into the finals was the culmination of what I had worked my whole life for. Until the man who started it all suddenly made it all come crashing down."
*Weck turns, suddenly, and slams his fist into the wall, putting a crack the width of knuckles through the planks. More perceptive viewers can now make up, just below the clippings, several similar marks going along the wall, and assume that this is not the first time Weck has dealt with the demons he is now.*
"You see, my father, dear old Dan, doesn't view that period in history with the same rose colored glasses as I do. Maybe it was the fact that with me at school, and my mom long gone, he had no one to direct his rage at. Or to run out and grab him another 6 pack. Could have been that I was away and listening my school coaches, instead of his words pounding through my head all the time. It might even be that he was jealous of seeing me reap so many rewards from the sport he was the one who had forced me to pursue, The sport that was once all his. Either way, no victory I had was dominating enough for him, no hurdle jumped high enough. When he used his connections to find his way onto the floor for the finals of that year's EIAA tournament, and I heard people congratulating him on his son's success, it was all I could not to lose it right then. But I knew I was on a journey, a journey that was to end with me winning a national title. Then the match started. As I jumped out to a commanding lead, we rolled out of bounds, and the official threw up two fingers, signaling two points for a takedown for my opponent. It was a bullshit call, and everyone knew it, but I still had the match well in hand, and was set to close it out. Until all of a sudden, Dan Weck was on the mat, causing a scene, berating the referee with swears and spittle as my coaches tried in vain to pull him away. Suddenly, the official turned and said that I was thrown out of the tournament, my glorious dream crashing down around me. Well even though none of you would ever understand it, when you have given everything just to have your dream taken from you, it can cause a man to lash out. And so I did. A left hand dropped the official, and then i heaved my father across the mat, and straddled him, ready to start punching, when I was finally tackled off of him by security guards. About a week later, I got the letter from USA Wrestling, saying that I was banned from competing for them in foreign and domestic competition, and the letter from the NCAA saying I was no longer going to be allowed to be a college athlete came the next day. Do you know what that's like, do any of you watching, know what it means to give your entire life to something, to have every little bit of yourself wrapped up in a goal, and fail because of someone else's mistake? None of you can, because no one of you have ever made the sacrifices for ANYTHING that I made for wrestling!! And all of a sudden, all those hanger-ons stopped calling, all those people who couldn't wait to be seen by me vanished. Hell, even my father, the man who is the cause of all this, moved back to his brother's in Chicago, and left me with this shithole. I suffered a very, very, quick fall from grace, and I feel from a hight that most of you could not even imagine!"
*Weck stops himself for a second, as if to slow his breathing, his rage. He sits back down and takes a sip from a water bottle while he gathers his thoughts.*
"It was a pretty lonely five years here, all by myself. In suburbia, high school sports are king, so it's not to easy to find a job when everybody knows someone who has heard about a fuck-up like mine. And besides, I was a monster, a machine bred for one purpose, to be the very best who ever stepped on the mat. I wouldn't be the right guy to help you get a phone at Radioshack! This room, this place that was once my hell, became my sanctuary, my salvation. Down here was the only place I could show the rage that I truly felt, that I could exercise my demons and convince myself, if only for a little while, that I could still achieve my goal. I thought I would never get the chance to prove all the things I was capable of. Until I heard about a group of wrestlers coming to the University of Connecticut. That was a month ago today, and only a couple hours away, I just had to see it for myself. And what did I see? I saw this sport, the ORIGINAL Olympic sport, being destroyed by men who couldn't hold my jock strap! I saw a man dressed like a rabbit, I saw a man named Trent Brown try to prove he was tough by beating up a crew member, and I saw a main event where the champion, the face of the company, got beat by a man who looks more like he should be fighting for a "Big Mac" from a dumpster than for a title! I was so fucking disgusted, the rage in me wanted to wait outside the locker room and take on every single one of the men inside right then. But then I realized that this was to be another turning point in my story. You see, North Atlantic Wrestling runs shows in many of the very same school who once recruited me, in places where the power players of USA Wrestling are frequent guests. It dawned on me that this was not a coincidence I could afford to ignore, but rather, a chance to grab my redemption by the balls. For the vast majority of you uneducated fans, wrestling is a little bit of a critical point in it's existence right now. The oldest sport on record, the only sport mentioned in the bible, and one of the sports from the original Roman games, is in danger of losing it's spot in the Olympics. All those, like me, who have found redemption from this mat and this mat alone, are in danger of losing the highest pinnacle we could ever reach! And I see now that, just like long ago, the way for me to be remembered forever is to blaze a new path! THAT is why I have come here, to NAW, to dominate. Not because I want to, but because I need to, to get redemption for me in the sport I love, the sport I have dedicated my entire life to. In so doing, in bringing the NAW to kneel down before me, I will not only redeem myself, but redeem my sport. I will show the ENTIRE world that wrestling, at it's purest form, is the most compelling competition mankind has ever thought up, and save it from the biggest defeat the sport has ever known. I will usher in an era where NAW will be seen as where the greatest come to ply their trade, where only the strongest survive. And as the groundswell of those who cannot turn away continues to grow, the world will once again fall in love with this most grueling activity, just as I did, and I will cement myself as the leader of it's revival!!!"
*Suddenly, the most unexpected thing possible for our host happens. He begins to laugh. Not a haughty laugh, or even an amused laugh, but one of grim excitement, and the smile he wears on his face is a sinister match for the noise.*
"And, at last, we have arrived at Heatwave. At last, we have arrived at you, Zealot. After all that I have told you, can their be any doubt that I must destroy you? Can you even question how important it is to my mission to take down a man like you, a man who at his very core, stands in opposition to everything I am trying to accomplish. Hell, the name you choose to have others call you means that you claim to truly understand fanaticism, that you are a man who fancies himself as devout. Well, after all you have heard, can you doubt for a second my devotion to my task? Can you question how badly I need to end the scourge of pretenders like you, if the NAW is going to become what I need it to? Especially, one like yourself, who shrouds themselves in mystery, who can't get the job done when it matters, and who, at the end of the day, is a shining example of of the main reasons that I was so disgusted by this company in the beginning?"
*The anger that James worked so hard to subdue is back suddenly, as he leans forward, making sure to convey the grave seriousness in his eyes.*
"I have heard the rumors about you, Zealot! I have heard that you have been here, and there, and everywhere, that you have been plying your trade with less success than you might want to admit! This name, Zealot, is not the first thing you have chosen to call yourself. So why then, hide your past? Why, when you have accomplishments, experiences, to hang your hat on, would you instead chose to make the world believe that you are a newcomer to the greatest physical activity of all time? It seems pretty simple to me; because everywhere you went before, you couldn't get the fucking job done! Now, brother, I don't give a shit what you did at the local flee market before you got signed to a contract here, but as soon as you touched pen to paper, you became exactly the type of virus I am out to cure. I see people like yourself all around this place, I see people who have been competing for years, and have not yet left their mark. And those are just not the type of competitors, YOU are just not the type of competitor, I can have running around the company I am going to use as my springboard to greatness. If NAW is truly going to grow to new heights, if it is going to springboard me to the recognition I have worked my entire life for, people like you, who wander through life in a haze of mediocrity, cannot be seen as a part of it! I have not not been defeated in the last 3 years I was in competition, I have not been pinned in the last 5! Do not make a mistake and assume that I am a rookie to this sport, Zealot, because I have given more to it then you could ever hope to understand. While you have been hanging posters, hoping to perform in front of 70 people in a Knights of Columbus, I have been working towards becoming an immortal. I promise you, when we get into that ring at Heatwave, it is you who will feel like the greenhorn, you will understand that you have never before competed at the level I am planning to raise this whole company to! I call myself the Incarnation of Determination because, when all is said and done, I will have lit the beacon for the rest of the competitors in this company to follow. We are up first on the main show on July 7th, followed by a slew of title matches. By the time those champions and challengers hit the ring, I plan on them knowing that the bar has just been raised. To do that, I need to make brutal work of someone who has been nothing but average everywhere else, and now comes here, to MY company! I will show them, and you, just what it means when I say that mediocrity need not apply!!!"
*The smile is back. No laughter to accompany this time, but an evil, knowing grin none the less.*
"But don't you worry, Zealot, you will have a part to play. You see, I would imagine someone of your passion, someone who wants to show everyone just how much they care, would want to at least be responsible for performing a task. Would at least desire to be able to say, after they have realized that they need to retire, that they were able to open people's eyes. You will do just that. You will show the world what happens when you spend too much time focused on all the wrong things. You have this persona, this character that you have made for yourself, that you have shrouded yourself in. You have spent time dying your hair, spent time thinking of the perfect way to give kids nightmares, to make sure that people know you are "evil". Hell, I bet you even went through the energy of looking up a Wiccan ceremony or two on youtube, just to be sure you had it down to a T. But what I have been doing, what I have spent my whole life doing, is wrestling. Whether it's in a ring, or on a mat, when I get ready to take someone on, I am at home, I am at my most comfortable. And when I take you on at Heatwave, I will destroy you. In so doing, you will show everyone, from the young men about to lace up their boots for the first time, to all those who have followed what we do their entire lives, that substance always triumphs over style. They will see then, that the only way to achieve anything, the only way to fulfill your dreams, and damn sure the only way to ever succeed in the NAW again is by throwing all your heart, all your passion, into becoming the very best you can possibly be. The very nature of who you are then, Zealot, will help to destroy and eliminate all those like you, when I destroy you. Alex Morgan could not have made a better choice when he lined you up as my opponent for my debut match, because by eliminating you, I will be sending a clear message right from the beginning. You will help that message with your blood, with your shame, in your defeat. If there is any solace in that fact, then know that, as I am achieving my goal, and lifting the entire NAW on my back, the beating I lay upon you will achieve exactly what you had hoped to."
*Weck walks back into the middle of the mat, towards a small cutout in the wall where his radio sits. Just as he nears the device, he stops, turns, and seems to suddenly be shaking with rage.*
"Zealot, if I was you, I would consider this a fucking warning shot! I would advise that you tell me something, anything, to try and dissuade me from feeling the need to absolutely end you in just over a week's time. I am already going to defeat you, Of that you and I can both be absolutely certain. But I would strongly suggest you show me more than I expect from you, or I will be forced to make sure you are too scarred to ever dream of watching another wrestling event again. I expect you to tell me you don't care about my family drama, I expect you to tell me that I will not be able to carry my skill set over against someone like you. Hell, I also expect you to draw a pentagram in the woods in virgin's blood or some other shit. But by doing any of this, Zealot, you will only be confirming what I know, you will be sealing your fate. I want to hear, Zealot, just what makes you think you have the right to get into the fucking ring with me, knowing what I have at stake. I want to know why you think you are worthy of being my first opponent on the road to redemption. You know what I need, you know why I must destroy you. Only in the decimation of men like you can I prove that this is the company of the future, the place where the eyes of wrestling world should rest themselves. My goal is a lifetime in the making, my passion, my will, my determination are culled from the knowledge that, without being on top of this sport, I have nothing. Tell me, what makes your bleached beard worthy of being included in my grand redemption?? I will be waiting for your answer, and I think I have made very clear what I am willing to do, what I need to do, if it is not what I want to hear. Lose a match, or lose a lot more than that, Zealot, those are your options, because I have already lost all I care for, and a man like yourself will not stand in the way of me getting it back!!!"
*James at last reaches the box, and turns the music back on. He picks up the dummy for what will no doubt be another slam as the camera fades to black.*
"Trust me, you and the rest of the NAW will soon know the truth of those stories. Soon enough, everyone watching will understand that they show just how, and why, I need to dominate this company like no athlete has ever dominated before. My name is James Weck, and I will begin my path at Heatwave, begin by taking out a waste who is not worthy of sharing the ring with me, by the name of Zealot. But before I explain to this unfortunate pretender just what awaits him, I suppose I should let everyone know just what the fans, officials, and wrestlers of North Atlantic Wrestling are in store for. After all, you have been so conditioned to expect garbage, so trained that mediocrity is greatness, that I doubt one of you has any idea just what a genesis I am brining with me."
*Weck turns his head for just a second, facing one of the walls. His eyes seem to scan the stories for a few brief seconds before he comes back to us, more intent then before.*
"19 years. For the first 19 years of my life, the only thing that mattered to me was this sport. It was what I had embedded in me from birth, The only activity, past-time, or hobby I ever knew. While Sparkmon was biting Willie Nelson's ankles, while Jenny Smith was feeling "funny" watching her idols on TV, I was on this mat, with this dummy, learning the oldest sport in the world. I was born to do this, or so I'd get told when the old man was taking a break from popping a bottle, or kicking my ass. He was a national champion, and regarded as one of the best coaches around, and I was just growing up, but that didn't matter to him!! Night in and night out, after school, we would be down here on this mat, him showing me just how much I needed to learn if I was ever going to live up to all that was expected of me. I figured out early on, that a social life, a chance to make the kinds of connections that young men make, just wasn't an option for me. When you have been trained your while life to be a fighter, making friends isn't a skill that you easily pick up. Would you have wanted to come over to the kid's house who they say never left this basement? How many parents do you think let their kids hang out with boy whose dad paced him in the car while he ran home from school every day? Not that it much mattered, you see, because friendship would have taken away from the singular focus of becoming the best American ever to lace up a pair of these shoes. And make no mistake about it, I was on my way. Read these articles further, and you will find out about my freshman year at Hillsdale Catholic as a "Crusader", the best program in the state. You will hear how I set a freshman record for team wins, and got within inches of winning state titles my first two years there. Keep going down that wall, and you will read about the utter domination of my last two years, my two undefeated, state championship seasons, of how I was not scored upon for a year and a half."
*James suddenly stands up, and walks over the papers he is referencing. We can see a younger version of him standing tall in the middle of a mat, trophy in hand, in one of them. He turns back to us, his expression darker still, despite what would appear to be a happy memory.*
"And you know, right around that same time, as I was really beginning to make a name for myself, a funny thing started to happen. As I rewrote the record books, and became greater then any Crusader who came before me, suddenly, people began not to be so wary of me. Suddenly, they would try and talk me when I was in class. The girls in school would all bat their eyes at me and try to yell louder than each other at every match, and then revel in telling me it was their voice I heard. Truthfully, when I was on the mat, there was nothing but focused adrenaline in my head, but they delighted in telling me anyway. And, amazingly, the same boy who they all turned their backs on became a young man who was a source of pride for the community. All because of what I was able to do in this sport, all because of my ability to pin another person's shoulders to the mat. When the colleges came calling after my junior year, it was no different. All of their recruiters, all of their boosters, made sure I knew that their school was the place for me. All of the schools in the Big Ten and Big 12, the hotbeds of college wrestling, came to have a very intimate knowledge of what my living room upstairs looked like. Hell, Penn State, the place where I will make my NAW debut, was one of the schools the hottest to get me. I remember their coach tell me, "Nittany chicks love wrestlers di....". Well, you can probably figure out the rhyme, but the point is that they knew I would make their program great. Every voice in my ear told me that if I wanted to realize my dream and get to the Olympics, I needed to be where they were. The truth is, none of them knew just how much I busted my ass, none of them knew that I was dedicated enough to get the job done wherever I was. And as I thought about it, I started to realize that the only way to truly become the greatest legend that United States Wrestling had ever seen was to blaze a path none before me had followed! Wrestlers had been going to Iowa, or Michigan, or Oklahoma, and garnering national and international fame for damn near a hundred years. But I decided to stay home, as it were, to lead the dawning of a new era. I went to Rutgers University to become a Scarlet Knight, a program which at the time had just two All-Americans in it's history. I knew that my tenacity and determination, my excellence, would inspire others to follow in my footsteps, and create a dynasty. When you can not just dominate, but dictate the course of an entire sport, then you are sure to go down in history. And for my first year, everything went so very right! We were a top 25 team, the first time ever for the program! Cruising into the league tournament the clear favorites with me being one of several athletes who we were sure would be moving on to the nationals, it was all coming true! My 32-0 record as I steamrolled into the finals was the culmination of what I had worked my whole life for. Until the man who started it all suddenly made it all come crashing down."
*Weck turns, suddenly, and slams his fist into the wall, putting a crack the width of knuckles through the planks. More perceptive viewers can now make up, just below the clippings, several similar marks going along the wall, and assume that this is not the first time Weck has dealt with the demons he is now.*
"You see, my father, dear old Dan, doesn't view that period in history with the same rose colored glasses as I do. Maybe it was the fact that with me at school, and my mom long gone, he had no one to direct his rage at. Or to run out and grab him another 6 pack. Could have been that I was away and listening my school coaches, instead of his words pounding through my head all the time. It might even be that he was jealous of seeing me reap so many rewards from the sport he was the one who had forced me to pursue, The sport that was once all his. Either way, no victory I had was dominating enough for him, no hurdle jumped high enough. When he used his connections to find his way onto the floor for the finals of that year's EIAA tournament, and I heard people congratulating him on his son's success, it was all I could not to lose it right then. But I knew I was on a journey, a journey that was to end with me winning a national title. Then the match started. As I jumped out to a commanding lead, we rolled out of bounds, and the official threw up two fingers, signaling two points for a takedown for my opponent. It was a bullshit call, and everyone knew it, but I still had the match well in hand, and was set to close it out. Until all of a sudden, Dan Weck was on the mat, causing a scene, berating the referee with swears and spittle as my coaches tried in vain to pull him away. Suddenly, the official turned and said that I was thrown out of the tournament, my glorious dream crashing down around me. Well even though none of you would ever understand it, when you have given everything just to have your dream taken from you, it can cause a man to lash out. And so I did. A left hand dropped the official, and then i heaved my father across the mat, and straddled him, ready to start punching, when I was finally tackled off of him by security guards. About a week later, I got the letter from USA Wrestling, saying that I was banned from competing for them in foreign and domestic competition, and the letter from the NCAA saying I was no longer going to be allowed to be a college athlete came the next day. Do you know what that's like, do any of you watching, know what it means to give your entire life to something, to have every little bit of yourself wrapped up in a goal, and fail because of someone else's mistake? None of you can, because no one of you have ever made the sacrifices for ANYTHING that I made for wrestling!! And all of a sudden, all those hanger-ons stopped calling, all those people who couldn't wait to be seen by me vanished. Hell, even my father, the man who is the cause of all this, moved back to his brother's in Chicago, and left me with this shithole. I suffered a very, very, quick fall from grace, and I feel from a hight that most of you could not even imagine!"
*Weck stops himself for a second, as if to slow his breathing, his rage. He sits back down and takes a sip from a water bottle while he gathers his thoughts.*
"It was a pretty lonely five years here, all by myself. In suburbia, high school sports are king, so it's not to easy to find a job when everybody knows someone who has heard about a fuck-up like mine. And besides, I was a monster, a machine bred for one purpose, to be the very best who ever stepped on the mat. I wouldn't be the right guy to help you get a phone at Radioshack! This room, this place that was once my hell, became my sanctuary, my salvation. Down here was the only place I could show the rage that I truly felt, that I could exercise my demons and convince myself, if only for a little while, that I could still achieve my goal. I thought I would never get the chance to prove all the things I was capable of. Until I heard about a group of wrestlers coming to the University of Connecticut. That was a month ago today, and only a couple hours away, I just had to see it for myself. And what did I see? I saw this sport, the ORIGINAL Olympic sport, being destroyed by men who couldn't hold my jock strap! I saw a man dressed like a rabbit, I saw a man named Trent Brown try to prove he was tough by beating up a crew member, and I saw a main event where the champion, the face of the company, got beat by a man who looks more like he should be fighting for a "Big Mac" from a dumpster than for a title! I was so fucking disgusted, the rage in me wanted to wait outside the locker room and take on every single one of the men inside right then. But then I realized that this was to be another turning point in my story. You see, North Atlantic Wrestling runs shows in many of the very same school who once recruited me, in places where the power players of USA Wrestling are frequent guests. It dawned on me that this was not a coincidence I could afford to ignore, but rather, a chance to grab my redemption by the balls. For the vast majority of you uneducated fans, wrestling is a little bit of a critical point in it's existence right now. The oldest sport on record, the only sport mentioned in the bible, and one of the sports from the original Roman games, is in danger of losing it's spot in the Olympics. All those, like me, who have found redemption from this mat and this mat alone, are in danger of losing the highest pinnacle we could ever reach! And I see now that, just like long ago, the way for me to be remembered forever is to blaze a new path! THAT is why I have come here, to NAW, to dominate. Not because I want to, but because I need to, to get redemption for me in the sport I love, the sport I have dedicated my entire life to. In so doing, in bringing the NAW to kneel down before me, I will not only redeem myself, but redeem my sport. I will show the ENTIRE world that wrestling, at it's purest form, is the most compelling competition mankind has ever thought up, and save it from the biggest defeat the sport has ever known. I will usher in an era where NAW will be seen as where the greatest come to ply their trade, where only the strongest survive. And as the groundswell of those who cannot turn away continues to grow, the world will once again fall in love with this most grueling activity, just as I did, and I will cement myself as the leader of it's revival!!!"
*Suddenly, the most unexpected thing possible for our host happens. He begins to laugh. Not a haughty laugh, or even an amused laugh, but one of grim excitement, and the smile he wears on his face is a sinister match for the noise.*
"And, at last, we have arrived at Heatwave. At last, we have arrived at you, Zealot. After all that I have told you, can their be any doubt that I must destroy you? Can you even question how important it is to my mission to take down a man like you, a man who at his very core, stands in opposition to everything I am trying to accomplish. Hell, the name you choose to have others call you means that you claim to truly understand fanaticism, that you are a man who fancies himself as devout. Well, after all you have heard, can you doubt for a second my devotion to my task? Can you question how badly I need to end the scourge of pretenders like you, if the NAW is going to become what I need it to? Especially, one like yourself, who shrouds themselves in mystery, who can't get the job done when it matters, and who, at the end of the day, is a shining example of of the main reasons that I was so disgusted by this company in the beginning?"
*The anger that James worked so hard to subdue is back suddenly, as he leans forward, making sure to convey the grave seriousness in his eyes.*
"I have heard the rumors about you, Zealot! I have heard that you have been here, and there, and everywhere, that you have been plying your trade with less success than you might want to admit! This name, Zealot, is not the first thing you have chosen to call yourself. So why then, hide your past? Why, when you have accomplishments, experiences, to hang your hat on, would you instead chose to make the world believe that you are a newcomer to the greatest physical activity of all time? It seems pretty simple to me; because everywhere you went before, you couldn't get the fucking job done! Now, brother, I don't give a shit what you did at the local flee market before you got signed to a contract here, but as soon as you touched pen to paper, you became exactly the type of virus I am out to cure. I see people like yourself all around this place, I see people who have been competing for years, and have not yet left their mark. And those are just not the type of competitors, YOU are just not the type of competitor, I can have running around the company I am going to use as my springboard to greatness. If NAW is truly going to grow to new heights, if it is going to springboard me to the recognition I have worked my entire life for, people like you, who wander through life in a haze of mediocrity, cannot be seen as a part of it! I have not not been defeated in the last 3 years I was in competition, I have not been pinned in the last 5! Do not make a mistake and assume that I am a rookie to this sport, Zealot, because I have given more to it then you could ever hope to understand. While you have been hanging posters, hoping to perform in front of 70 people in a Knights of Columbus, I have been working towards becoming an immortal. I promise you, when we get into that ring at Heatwave, it is you who will feel like the greenhorn, you will understand that you have never before competed at the level I am planning to raise this whole company to! I call myself the Incarnation of Determination because, when all is said and done, I will have lit the beacon for the rest of the competitors in this company to follow. We are up first on the main show on July 7th, followed by a slew of title matches. By the time those champions and challengers hit the ring, I plan on them knowing that the bar has just been raised. To do that, I need to make brutal work of someone who has been nothing but average everywhere else, and now comes here, to MY company! I will show them, and you, just what it means when I say that mediocrity need not apply!!!"
*The smile is back. No laughter to accompany this time, but an evil, knowing grin none the less.*
"But don't you worry, Zealot, you will have a part to play. You see, I would imagine someone of your passion, someone who wants to show everyone just how much they care, would want to at least be responsible for performing a task. Would at least desire to be able to say, after they have realized that they need to retire, that they were able to open people's eyes. You will do just that. You will show the world what happens when you spend too much time focused on all the wrong things. You have this persona, this character that you have made for yourself, that you have shrouded yourself in. You have spent time dying your hair, spent time thinking of the perfect way to give kids nightmares, to make sure that people know you are "evil". Hell, I bet you even went through the energy of looking up a Wiccan ceremony or two on youtube, just to be sure you had it down to a T. But what I have been doing, what I have spent my whole life doing, is wrestling. Whether it's in a ring, or on a mat, when I get ready to take someone on, I am at home, I am at my most comfortable. And when I take you on at Heatwave, I will destroy you. In so doing, you will show everyone, from the young men about to lace up their boots for the first time, to all those who have followed what we do their entire lives, that substance always triumphs over style. They will see then, that the only way to achieve anything, the only way to fulfill your dreams, and damn sure the only way to ever succeed in the NAW again is by throwing all your heart, all your passion, into becoming the very best you can possibly be. The very nature of who you are then, Zealot, will help to destroy and eliminate all those like you, when I destroy you. Alex Morgan could not have made a better choice when he lined you up as my opponent for my debut match, because by eliminating you, I will be sending a clear message right from the beginning. You will help that message with your blood, with your shame, in your defeat. If there is any solace in that fact, then know that, as I am achieving my goal, and lifting the entire NAW on my back, the beating I lay upon you will achieve exactly what you had hoped to."
*Weck walks back into the middle of the mat, towards a small cutout in the wall where his radio sits. Just as he nears the device, he stops, turns, and seems to suddenly be shaking with rage.*
"Zealot, if I was you, I would consider this a fucking warning shot! I would advise that you tell me something, anything, to try and dissuade me from feeling the need to absolutely end you in just over a week's time. I am already going to defeat you, Of that you and I can both be absolutely certain. But I would strongly suggest you show me more than I expect from you, or I will be forced to make sure you are too scarred to ever dream of watching another wrestling event again. I expect you to tell me you don't care about my family drama, I expect you to tell me that I will not be able to carry my skill set over against someone like you. Hell, I also expect you to draw a pentagram in the woods in virgin's blood or some other shit. But by doing any of this, Zealot, you will only be confirming what I know, you will be sealing your fate. I want to hear, Zealot, just what makes you think you have the right to get into the fucking ring with me, knowing what I have at stake. I want to know why you think you are worthy of being my first opponent on the road to redemption. You know what I need, you know why I must destroy you. Only in the decimation of men like you can I prove that this is the company of the future, the place where the eyes of wrestling world should rest themselves. My goal is a lifetime in the making, my passion, my will, my determination are culled from the knowledge that, without being on top of this sport, I have nothing. Tell me, what makes your bleached beard worthy of being included in my grand redemption?? I will be waiting for your answer, and I think I have made very clear what I am willing to do, what I need to do, if it is not what I want to hear. Lose a match, or lose a lot more than that, Zealot, those are your options, because I have already lost all I care for, and a man like yourself will not stand in the way of me getting it back!!!"
*James at last reaches the box, and turns the music back on. He picks up the dummy for what will no doubt be another slam as the camera fades to black.*