Post by codeapathy on Jun 12, 2022 23:31:16 GMT -5
Laying in the silence
Waiting for the sirens
Signs, any signs I'm alive still
I don't wanna lose it
But I'm not getting through this
Trainwreck - James Arthur
++Life is full of miscommunications, misunderstandings and outright disrespect. The wrestling industry, be it professional wrestling purists or sports entertainment, the same rules apply. We all come from various walks of life and understandably, we won’t all get along. We’re going to clash. We each hold beliefs, standards, creeds and a way of life that is different from everyone else. It is what makes us unique. It also becomes the very cause for discourse and long term animosity. I am guilty of it. We all are. Most often than not, those misunderstandings and things we take personally are mild and have no real impact on our lives. We’re fragile creatures who are prone to take things wrong especially in the age of the internet and social media. It is so hard to convey through text on a screen what our tone or intention is. What starts as a lighthearted or sarcastic reply or post, can quickly be misconstrued (deliberately or otherwise) and hurt feelings, tensions and in extreme cases, slander, harassment and personal threats can escalate. Again, the wrestling industry is not immune. There are racists, homophobes and misogynists. Flat earthers, holocaust deniers, and militants. Womanizers, abusers and addicts. Alcoholics, animal abusers and sexual predators. We will never all get along. There are those people whom I have worked with in the past, dealt with in interactions online, or came by through a friend of a friend whom to this day, I refuse to work with in the ring or acknowledge their existence. I have walked out of shows because a booker thought they would try to test the theory, book me against an unsafe worker, a piece of shit human being, someone on my own personal black list. I would rather be cited as being unprofessional, a bitch, or childish than risk my own well being and peace of mind for a payday that won’t even cover the price of the ticket and hotel, or for a company that seems to think racists or garbage human beings are just “exercising their freedom of speech”. I’ll be 40 in a year and a half. My competitiveness has not diminished mind you, but my common sense and self-preservation has started to outweigh the need for success, championships and high profile matches. There was one other pink elephant that lingered in every room for me, time. How much more time++
////////////////Atlanta, GA - Neurologist - Six Month Evaluation\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Elizabeth: All due respect doctor, I’m not going to go through yet one more round of physical therapy. We both know I am beyond the medicinal benefits of it. The damage is already done. No amount of rehab is going to rewind the clock. Can we just have an honest conversation about the potential road map in the immediate future? I passed the hopeful stage a long time ago, I’ve already achieved acceptance.
++Her nostrils flared as she sat on the stool looking at test results and chief complaints. Her shoulders relaxed as she nodded, agreeing to meet me half way. She set the files aside, turned away from the laptop and moved to the stationary patient chair so she could get comfortable. As she crossed her legs and clasped her long, nimble fingers, she made direct eye contact and I could feel that lump rising in my throat++
Dr. Elise: Liz, you’ve done all you can do to lessen the impact of the moves you take. There is no real easy way to say it but you’re entering the end of the timeline as far as your career goes. That last concussion and neck injury two years ago was the final nail in the coffin. Surgery is an option, but with how much damage has already been done, it may only be a quality of life situation where your career will have to end, but you will be able to enjoy retirement with less pain. The fact that against doctors advice, you continue to work with that bulged disc in the neck hasn’t helped your case either. Let me ask YOU something, why is it important for you to keep pushing yourself? What is the ultimate end goal for you? I’m honestly curious because from where I am sitting, you have nothing left to prove and anyone who doesn’t recognize your worth at this point, darling, they never will.
Elizabeth: Pride. I…
++I leaned forward on the examination table, reached up and pulled my glasses off. Hearing that very word pass from my lips made my lower jaw start to quiver and tears start welling up in my eyes. I knew what was said in the room, stayed there. She deserved the truth. I tried to keep my composure as I sniffled and looked back up to her++
Elizabeth: I don’t want this to be the way it ends. I want to go out on my own terms. My way. Not because some stupid cunt botched her own finisher or because some faux lesbian had a bat fetish and took me out. I have worked so hard TOO hard for this to be the way it ends. I DESERVE to go out MY WAY and no other way. Is that wrong? Am I being selfish? I’m asking honestly…
Dr. Elise: I can see how hard it is for you. You know you’re on borrowed time. I wish I could say this is the first time I have heard such heartbreak but it isn’t. It isn’t wrong Liz. Almost 20 years in the business, so many accomplishments and firsts, anyone who thinks you are being selfish by wanting to go out on your own terms either doesn’t understand or are a part of a group that has wanted you to make your exit for a while. I know I can’t sway your desire and I have no right too, but how do you want to go out? What is it that is preventing you from turning out the lights and going home, satisfied with how it ended? Do you even know?
++I had asked myself that a thousand times. I sat up with straight whiskey in a glass, pouring over memories of my career asking my own self how I wanted to go out. I never could come up with a logical, realistic answer. I just knew anything was better than “life altering injury”. I had thrown countless glassware against the walls, bottles against the hardwood floor, frustrated and enraged because I knew my time was up, and it wasn’t even my own fucking fault. I could have accepted it if I overdosed, botched my own moves and fucked myself, even a car accident I could have made peace with, but I was a victim of ignorance, unprofessionalism and cowardice. I could feel my jaw clenching as I thought these things to myself. She handed me a box of tissues and the wrinkles on her face softened as she realized how much it all affected me, as I tilted my head back trying to get some air, tears streamed down my cheeks++
Elizabeth: Justice. I want justice. Olivia got her receipts. She paid the price for what she did to me and I will never get my hands on that cunt with the baseball bat, not that I would want to lay a finger on her knowing how much a fucking skank she was. Her skin is probably crawling with STD’s. Cera. There is someone though that was complicit and took advantage of the situation with her and he can’t duck me forever. By hook or by crook, my career WILL end with me standing over his broken and bloodied body, satisfied and vindicated while he prays to whatever God he believes in that he would have never gotten involved. Johnny. That is how I want to go out. That is my end goal and I will keep myself together with super glue, paperclips and duct tape if need be just to get there. It is worth it that much to me to risk it all, so he can feel physically what I have felt inside all these years. I know how petty it sounds, how “you get me I’ll get you back” it sounds, but God damnit, he crossed a line nobody should ever cross, all because he thought he should and could but I’M the one whose paid the price for HIS actions all these fucking years. Not him. Not his geriatric running buddy. Not that cunt. Me.
++I was trembling. Anger and resentment pumped through me like adrenaline. I was still staring up at the ceiling trying to pace my breaths when I felt her put her hand on top of mine and squeeze. I lowered my head slowly, trying to reel myself in++
Dr. Elise: Elizabeth, as your doctor I have to advise against this course you’ve plotted. As your doctor, I have to warn you of the long term, permanent risks you are posing for yourself. Brain damage, paralysis, even one more botch or bump like the most recent one could mean you becoming dependent on a life support system. As your friend, as someone who has seen this happen before and will again, I support whatever course of action you deem necessary to take. It’s very obvious that the mental anguish and emotional disparity the events caused you need resolution. No amount of therapy or medication will ever make what happened to you make sense or be okay. Your feelings are justified. Your anger is not misplaced. Your heartbreak is not unsubstantiated. Whatever you need, within reason, to make you comfortable and ease swelling, pain and symptoms, will be done. I will help you as best I can.
Elizabeth: But what about your own career? You’d be putting yourself at risk for losing your license, your reputation. You’ve worked too hard and so long to get to where you are. My plight is not worth your good standing within the medical community, Lauren.
Dr. Elise: Maybe, just maybe, I’m tired of watching careers being cut short due to negligence and politics. Maybe, just maybe, I’m disgusted at men and women, coming in here, week in week out, and me having to tell them that their professional career is over, or that without this surgery or that implant that they will never live a comfortable life. Maybe, just maybe, science and medicine can only go so far and do so much. I never much liked being the bearer of bad news and I like even less that I’m in a position of playing God with other peoples careers and dreams. Six months?
Elizabeth: Six months, unless new symptoms persist. Thank you doctor. For everything.
////Saturday, June 11th. New York City, New York. Offices of Sutherland, Williams and Lyle\\\\
++With the amount of money they charged, weekend hours were expected. Besides, the complaint was theirs not mine, and if I had to give up my Saturday afternoon to hash out some bullshit, so did they. I stood looking out the windows, looking at the city skyline and admiring the view from all the way up there. I hadn’t been in New York in months. Not since FIGHT tower collapsed. Didn’t really miss it. In fact for the most part I had been enjoying much earned downtime and a limited schedule since I walked out of FIGHT. It seemed given such a professional mismatch, me wanting to give OPW one last try and knowing who would be involved, was a mistake. A poor decision on my part. I had my reasons. I also had my reasons for not adhering to the requests of my own agent. He huffed behind his desk, shaking his head at me++
Jamie Sutherland: Well? I’m waiting for this grand explanation of yours. I just don’t understand why you refuse to plug your own title match. You refused interviews, cancelled any that I made, hell I even gave you the option to use your own guy, that liberal dickhead in Chicago, and you still said no. It’s a great match. You’ve went head to head with him numerous times, what makes this time any damn different?
++Silence. Just a little longer. I wanted him to puff out his chest just a little more before I deflated him. He narrowed his eyes at me and pound his fist against the table, the glass top rattling and various objects on top wobbling and bouncing across the surface. I just stared out the window as the sun was beginning to set, arms behind my back, relaxed++
Jamie: God damnit Elizabeth, as far as I am concerned you are in breach of contract! You owe me a god damned explanation for this, pardon my pun, apathy towards this whole match situation. I want it and I want it now! Doesn’t our long professional relationship mean anything to you? I have been your agent for almost ten years! Does everything I have done for you mean nothing? Have I done something to offend you? God damnit say something, anything!
Elizabeth: Have you learned so little about me in those ten years you seem to so easily throw around? How many times have I caved to your whims and ideas, out of respect or duty? How many times did those plans and ideas come at the cost of my happiness or dignity? Have I not earned the opportunity to just once in my career, in a professional capacity, to say no?
++I exhaled and spun around on my heels, facing him. My arm stretched out, pointing directly at him, the sleeve of my chiffon blouse dangling as I did so. With my free hand resting on my hip, fingers snugly wrapped around the waist, I continued, my eyes narrowing and the tone of my voice lowering, becoming more curt as I did++
Elizabeth: How dare you sit there and play the loyalty and professionalism card. Since that’s the road you want to go down, let’s take a trip down memory lane, shall we? Who kept you as her agent, even after the DUI charges? After the hit and run? Who paid for the best lawyers money could buy, to keep you from spending one second in prison? I did. When nobody believed that you hadn’t battered your wife, and called you a monster, who paid for the private detectives to prove your innocence? That’s right, me. I’ve been covering your ass for your failures as a man and a human being all these years. You needed me as a client Jamie, I didn’t need you as an agent, but your family and I go all the way back that outfit in Georgia, so I sided with loyalty.
I have gone through with matches that were WELL beneath me, all because you meddled. You’re a failed booker that couldn’t hack it in the family business so you became the next best thing to a failed road agent, a talent agent. While you’ve hit it out of the park once in awhile, secured some contracts I couldn’t have dreamed of, opportunities that never would have come my way without your last name and the sway you had in the industry, those were far and few between. I have bent over BACKWARDS for some of the hair brained, half assed shit you have come to me with, because I pitied you. Now listen to me and listen to me REAL fucking good Jamie, this is one time I said NO and I mean NO. I will NOT promote the match. I will NOT discuss him. I will not do “my part” and shill something and someone that quite frankly, I’m not interested in.
Jamie: Are you fucking serious?! Not interested in?! It’s for a title Liz! A FUCKING TITLE! Isn’t that the whole fucking goal of the business? Straps? Gold? Dominance? I won’t lie and say you did none of those things. You did. You bailed me out and stuck by me, but pity? Are you for fucking real right now? PITY? I do everything I do FOR YOU!!!
Elizabeth: WRONG. You do everything you do for YOU. To prove you belong in this business, to prove you belonged in the wrestling industry. You do everything you do, because you can’t accept that you ruined your own god damn career, ended someone elses and was pushed out of the fucking business because of that business that happened in Mexico. Don’t think I haven’t forgotten. You willingly botched that piledriver to end Adam’s career. Your hate for him was so strong that nothing else mattered. One of you had to go. Except you didn’t have the sway you thought you did. Your familys last name didn’t quite have the power you thought it did. YOU got exactly what YOU deserved. And you have never felt bad or apologized for it. He’ll never walk again because of you. You robbed him of his career and his whole life, because of a rivalry. No. Don’t even open your mouth. You sit there and listen to what I have to say.
Paul Montuori is as good as me, if not better. Paul Montuori is as successful, if not more than I am. Paul Montuori is as well known as I am, if not more. Paul Montuori, wanted to wave his dick around and thought it would catch my attention and I refused and he has NEVER forgotten. Because how dare I? I had the audacity to offend his ego and was not sorry about it and he will never let me forget because he is, as far as he is concerned, a God amongst men and I made the biggest mistake of my life, by refusing his advances. Since then, every match and meeting has been him, doing the best he can to whittle me down, fuck with my psyche, like a schoolyard bully with low self-esteem. Professionally, I respect him and his craft. He has a tenacity and a drive that, while at times annoying with his insatiable his ego is, is FAR from not deserved. He HAS earned the right to be an annoying, exhausting bilge prick. Still, professionally, I respect him.
PERSONALLY. I wouldn’t be opposed to him stepping off a curb tomorrow and getting hit by a transit bus. He has zero professional respect for me. He’s a glorified bully that makes his name off of rehashing the same shit over and over again, repeating how many times he’s beaten you just hoping it will get under your skin. He’s everything that is wrong with the fucking business currently, but there’s low brow, reddit trolls that glorify him and they watch the product so he keeps relevant. That’s business. It’s how it goes. But let’s get something straight, this match? This was you. This was you seeing a rivalry and you shilled the ratings. You shilled the viewership. You shilled the dream and of course that blue haired fuck would buy into it. He’s all about the money and it's a money match.
One that I…choose not to advertise. It will end the same way it always does and you know what? I’m okay with that. I’m okay with losing to him again. I’m okay with him strutting off with one more strap to add to his collection and menagerie of accomplishments because at the end of the day, my integrity and my self-respect is worth far more than playing that game. I re-signed for Outlaw for personal reasons. Not to get in so deep in a pointless, meaningless rivalry that my own sanity and safety is at risk. If I could have missed the flight here, and pulled the most unprofessional thing a wrestler can do and no show a live event, I would have but I have too much pride. Am I saying I intend on throwing a title match all because I want to wash my hands of this petty bullshit? Maybe I am. Wouldn’t be the first god damn time and we both know it. No, no…I’m not done. You just sit there with that mouth fucking closed. I have more to say Jamie.
My career is over. I’m on limited and borrowed time. He isn’t. I’m not too small a woman to admit he is still in his prime and I’m one botched move away from a fucking wheelchair. He can still go and he is FAR MORE capable of being a champion in any capacity then I am. I know my number is up. I just have a few things left I need to do before I turn off the lights and call it a career. I appreciate you think so highly of me and my ability that you would brokerage this opportunity but Jamie, I can’t. If I never hold a strap again? I would be okay with that. I would feel no less worth than I do now, if I never even got a shot again. I would rather people like Paul and others shit all over me and see me as a failure, a waste, question why I haven’t just fucked off and drank myself to death, than pretend I’m in a position where I can match evenly. You’ve had your head so far up your own ass for so long you never even realized I and my body have been deteriorating all this time. My mental status is questionable at best. Everyday is a cocktail of muscle relaxers, sleeping pills and pain killers. I need cryo therapy and trigger point injections to just keep going. They just don’t know that. None of them do. They already think so little of me for the most part, why give them more ammunition? Why risk one of them taking the liberties to put me out the pasture before I reach my goal?
It isn’t about gold.I don’t need it. My legacy that I built with my own two fucking hands does not hand in the balance of whether or not I am successful in OPW or anywhere else that matter. It is already cemented. I don’t need to justify something, someone, that my heart isn’t behind. I’m walking into the Hammerstien, I’m going to give my best like I do every fucking time I go out there, and I will graciously take that L if I earn it because my time in the spotlight is over. I know the role I play now and I am quite content just letting everyone believe I’m not good enough or I’m too old. I won’t lose sleep at night if I never win another match.
++He was slunk down in his big fancy chair. A sheepish look on his face. I relaxed my stance, lowered my arm and turned back around to stare out the glass panes as twilight was setting in. I watched in the reflection as he got up and walked to the bar and poured himself a stiff drink. The glass clanked as he set it down, finishing it with one shot then poured himself another++
Jamie: I knew you were struggling, but I didn’t know it was this bad. You could have let me in on it. If I had known…
Elizabeth: We both know even if you had known you would be instead trying to blow smoke up my ass and convince me it isn’t that bad. I love you dearly Jamie but you are the type of agent and promoter than you would just as soon as have a guy wrestle to his death if it meant money or ratings. That’s just who you are. A backwoods southern grifter whose great granddaddy was a shiner and whose grandfather got into the wrasslin business because he was one, with the traveling circus. You come from a long line of cons and grifters, it’s in your nature so lets just not kid ourselves. Go on…
Jamie: Fair. And accurate. So tell me Liz why DID you agree to go back? If it isn’t for high stakes competition, there has to be some reason. What is driving you? Do I deserve to know that much?
Elizabeth: Justice. Johnny did to me what you did to Adam all those years ago. It’s why I have not and never will ever let you forget it. This is me going out on my own terms. Technically I shouldn’t even be in a wrestling ring. The risk is enormous, but I keep signing those clauses, agreeing I won’t sue if the inevitable does happen. I work at my own risk and it’s why contracts and dates are becoming fewer and fewer. I’m a liability that most reputable companies won’t touch but Johnny doesn’t fucking care. I truly believe he would sign a fucking midget in a wheelchair if it meant ratings and more cash he could dive into like Scrooge McDuck. Before I walk away, Goddess willing I DO walk away on my own volition, it will be after he’s been beaten within an inch of his life and he regrets ever fucking taking my life and career into his greedy fucking hands. With that said, after the opening of business on Monday I will no longer require your services as an agent. I feel it is best we end our professional relationship now.
Jamie: What?! Liz you have to reconsider. We’ve worked so long together. I can do better.
Elizabeth: No you don’t understand. I don’t need an agent anymore. I can handle the business end myself. God knows I’ve been doing this gig long enough. I’m thinking of your reputation, Jamie. I gave your assistant a list of up and comers that I know could use someone like you. Healthy, fresh faces that need a guiding hand. You’ve been sober for years now. I helped you recover your professional standing and if I am your client if I end up paralyzed or killed in the ring, it will end you. I’m doing it FOR you. It’s the best I can do FOR the ten years we’ve worked together. Don’t worry, the contract will be paid in full. The wire will hit your account Monday morning. I’m paying the whole contract off at once.
Jamie: Jesus Liz, you just signed the new one at the beginning of the year, it’s a two year deal that’s a lot of fucking cash to dispense at once. Just pay the last half of the year if you feel that strongly about it. I’ll donate it to chairty but the whole contract? Fucks sakes…
Elizabeth: I can’t take it with me when I go anyways and a contract agreement is legally binding. If you want to donate it then that is your choice. I just know this is where we part ways. I’m sorry it had to be abrupt like this but, it’s best. I hope you can forgive me…
Jamie: Forgiveness is easy. The thought of losing you like the way you say I could, is hard. Please just…be safe? Don’t risk it. It isn’t worth it..
Elizabeth: It’s worth everything…because it took everything from me.