Post by Santy on Aug 1, 2017 20:55:08 GMT
(Lacklustre showing this time. I can only apologise, been feeling rather rotten the last few days. Better to come soon though, I hope!)
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Beneath the abyss.
A question I am sure has come across the minds of many of you, and by you, I mean the festering buzz of anticipation that rattles the arenas I walk and the compete within. I doubt many truly care what kind of man lies beyond the attire and the action, that is the role I play, the role assigned to me when this solution of theirs finally took shape. It was my idea of course, a dream I had once imagined in a previous life, when my only concerns were joy, love and peace.
That man would be a disappointment for you all.
I have always been a quick learner, and I knew the minute I got your reaction, the minute I did what I do and you all let my rage flow through you. It can’t be a naive, young minority, born on the wrong side of a line his people had no say in, who despite this treats the life he was given as a gift, rather than a shackle. It can’t be him drowning in the abyss of hatred that this mask I wear has come to represent.
I can’t say who I am exactly, the mirror only shows me what you all see, with or without the warped mask that Garcia and his colleagues battered into place for me.
So the question that I am sure has crossed your mind, I can assure you, frequently floods mine.
This sport was intended as a relief, a vessel for my frustration, a means to escape what I can never be freed of. And as Garcia often points out, I’m not suited to Yoga pants. I am not sure he truly believes I am suited to wrestling either, but he perseveres, he keeps the seas calm when I lose myself in the storm. But I see it in their eyes, his and Marko’s, more so than the others who simply fear me. Neither man is afraid of what I am, simply what I represent about the world that we live within.
A product of your freedom. Not yours specifically, most of you are as trapped as I am. But I am a reality the world rarely wants to see, except here. In the arenas, and halls, and gymnasiums, that is where you free yourselves.
I have come to learn of other avenues, such as social media.
Truth is, we all have a monster within us. The only difference between me and every man and woman in the seat is I have seen too much death to fear it, been broken, beaten, stripped and moulded into a weapon that I can never fully wield, and have no place in this world other the eye of the storm.
Garcia has been tasked with handling me, he is a guard without a uniform, and a pension, but he is not my ally. He does not interfere to ensure victory, or oversee every facet of my training.
I stand alone within the abyss. A fate I am both destined for and accepting of. But here in Phoenix Wrestling, there is always someone who stalks the perimeter, always someone curious of what lies within, or courageous enough to test their will against it.
Some have proven themselves, or at least one has. Her flame burned brighter than most. But for men like Ryan Graves, there is nothing there for them but annihilation.
That is the face you will see beneath this mask, Ryan Graves, Oni Kamigawa, and a thousand others who never saw the bright lights under the coliseum. One of them was my brother, and one of them is the man I once was.
After Graves, there will be more. There will always be more. They made sure my hunger is never sated.
They made me.
They murdered me.
They demolished the world and within its hollow remains I hunt, I collect, I punish.
Ryan Graves, welcome to your abyss.