Post by Deleted on Oct 14, 2017 6:32:45 GMT
Change is the only constant in life. Wrestlin, too. It's the life force of this business. Names come an' go, injuries build up, some folks retire... but they're never really gone. Not fer good, anyway. There's only two things that'll kill ya dead in this game: fear, an' the resistance to change. I look at the names on this card, I look at the entire Pollomania locker room, an' not one of 'em strikes me as the kinda bloke that measures 'emselves by what they can't do. So, let's talk 'bout change. Seems to be the hottest topic of discussion 'round here.
Urs—ahem, Talia an' I have known each other for a good long while, now. I just never knew her as Talia, is all. Still takin' a bit to get used to... but she was one of my first friends in the locker room, back in UKWF. When she was contending for the Title an' I was rockin' the midcard, she made it a point to encourage me, push me to do better. To change for the better. We've traveled separate paths since then, an' it's been a hot minute since I've seen her... but if you don't think we're gonna make our styles mesh to form a stiff-as-fuck lucha libre fusion thing, you've got another thing comin! Like some kinda... lucha... plex.
Corey, make sure to write that down, yeah? Lucha-plex. T-shirts, prolly.
An' just 'cos I've fought Jan van der Roost before don't mean I take him any less serious. Especially since I beat him when we fought before. I think, that night, we both lived up to our reputations, an expectation of high-caliber behaviour in an' out of the ring. We gave Winnipeg somethin' to tell their friends about. Somethin' to go home smilin' with. I quite like Jan, an' I quite liked tradin' shots with him, but to go into another match off the heels of that an' expect the same result? The Rooster's been in this racket too long to have not learned how to change - how to adapt even when the numbers aren't on his side. He's made one hell of a career fer himself, an' it's got plenty to do with change like that. The respect hasn't gone away, an' God am I excited to get to work with him again... but the bar's been raised. Time to sink or swim.
Seems like the bee in his bonnet ain't gonna be just me, though. Not this time, not with Jacob Hammerstein in his corner.
Change... now there's part of it I've never understood. Success is determined by how we treat each other. Money, Titles, 'avin yer name in lights, that's all temporary. Work ethic is the most integral part of bein' a professional wrestler. I've had the luck of meetin' Hammie a number of times, in a number of places, as friends... this isn't the same Hammie. That's the kind of change that's toxic. That's the kind of change that don't do anythin' but drag our work down. Good men goin' sour... the best of us.
Either way, I look at the tale of the tape 'ere, an' the number one threat to Jan ain't an Exocet, ain't a Slice of Heaven, ain't some sick bloody tag moves... it's Jacob Hammerstein.
In spite of all that? I look forward to working with Hammie again. After all, this is our first real-deal match against each other... I just hope that the man I knew before all this hasn't continued to change for the worse.
I can think of loadsa lyrics an' poems an' inspirational quotes on classroom walls 'bout change... pretty sure Man in the Mirror cornered that market, though, so I dunno if I've got much else in the way of self-reflection. I understand what it means to change, I see it in the people I love, the people I've lost... but it gets a lil' blurrier when I try to look into myself. I've done quite a bit in quite a short period of time. I've made so many friends, I've traveled the world... but I don't know if I'm still the same Blaise Fader from Wood End. The same Blaise Fader that so many folks think I am.
I don't know if I've changed enough... or at all. But I do know what I'm capable of in that ring. An' Thunder Bay's 'bout to get real acquainted with that, too.