Post by Kelsey Spencer on Mar 25, 2016 17:29:00 GMT -6
Friendship. What does that even mean? Is it something based on mutual respect and trust? Or is it just some fabrication for deceitful people to use and get what they want?
What if it’s the latter? Am I really that gullible?
What if it’s the latter? Am I really that gullible?
“I don’t care what you do, to be quite honest. I’m heading home.”
That’s the end of the most recent conversation I had with Miss Saint if you could call it that. The word “conversation” implies equal input from both sides, yet it was more just me listening and her prattling about herself and what she thinks is wrong with me. She could talk all day and barely manage to scratch the surface on that front, I guarantee you.
The bottom line is Miss Saint wasn’t too pleased with the way I handled the lead-up to my match against Nicole Evans last Breakthrough. She has a thing against vlogging -- you tend to let your walls down and show the audience a more vulnerable side of you, which completely goes against her training. She wants me to be ignorant, cold and ruthless -- three things I most certainly am not by nature.
She’s also mad at me for the moonsault I performed in my match -- I may have been a little off with my aim, but it was still enough to get the win. It just makes no sense; she gets mad at me for winning when I use some high-risk, high-flying style move, but gets mad when I can’t pull off a victory when I avoid that style. It’s like no matter what I do, I’m always the one in the wrong.
Reminds me of a certain authority figure in my life who had the same mentality.
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Cornubia, Queensland, Australia
October 2005
Cornubia, Queensland, Australia
October 2005
I was sitting in my storage unit-sized room, with a dodgy dollar store lamp illuminating the immediate area around my bed. I sat hunched over, cramming for my final exams; I was roughly a month away from graduating high school, without a clue as to what I would do come January. All I knew was that I needed a high OP in order to keep my parents happy -- mainly my father, who was really strict when it came to my schoolwork.
Note: OP means Overall Position. I think it's similar to the SAT Scores...
On the opposite side of the room, resting on my desk was the cheapest, chunkiest piece of junk television set you’d ever see in your life. Just off to the side, not quite sitting on the desk properly due to lack of surface space was my portable DVD player, hooked up to it with clunky AV cables -- the whole set-up cost me around $200, which was a lot of money for me back then.
Blaring through the shoddy speakers -- which would make that buzzing noise any time a sound over 10dB happened -- was the commentary and audience from a classic 1980’s wrestling DVD I had acquired in the months prior. I’d been a wrestling fan for the better part of a year by this point but never been able to own anything because of my parents’ utter disdain for the sport. Luckily, I met a friend through Phys. Ed class who was a massive wrestling fan as well, and he offered to sell me that DVD for a reasonable price. The rest is history.
That DVD helped me through many lonely nights. I’m sure you know by now that I’ve never really had any friends; when other kids my age were going out partying on a Friday or a Saturday night, I was at home, quietly reading or studying. I developed social anxiety, and when I couldn’t sleep, I’d flip on that DVD and it would fix the issue. I guess it just got my mind off everything going on in my personal life.
“What are you doing?!” a displeased, bellowing voice snapped me from my work. My heart raced as my eyes darted towards the doorway, where I caught the silhouette of my entering father. As he lurched into my room, VB stubby in hand, his attention shifted to the television, where he screwed his face up in the same manner a young child who had just tasted brussels sprouts for the first time would.
“I’m just studying,” I sheepishly answered him, raising my book slightly as if to display my sincerity. He raised his arm and pointed a single finger to the television set. His fist trembled with rage as he grunted.
“You’re watching this wrestling garbage?!” He exclaimed, clutching his beer so hard that I thought it was going to break.
Wide-eyed, I brought my knees to my chest, giving my book a bear hug. “Oh, well, yeah…” I responded shyly. “It helps me concentrate.”
“Switch it off!” He demanded with authority. I scrambled for the remote, powering it off as if my life depended on it. “There will be no more of that trash under this roof… You hear me?!”
“Sorry, sir,” I tearfully apologised as he angrily left my room, slamming the door behind him so hard that it knocked my debate team trophy off its shelf, shattering it to pieces.
I cried myself to sleep that night. The next morning, I waited until I knew he was passed out in a drunken mess before I slipped out to school.
Loganholme High School -- or, as some have ever-so-cleverly dubbed it, “Bogan Home”. It was never a lavish school, nor was it a crud hole like other schools I’d been to, but it was what it was. That’s where I’d spent the majority of the years leading up to that time, and I’d done relatively well in athletics and academics there -- State-Level Round Robin Winners for Volleyball in 2003, school record for 200 metre track, the aforementioned debate team trophy -- which, aside from that wrestling DVD, was probably my prized possession.
I went through the motions, not wanting anyone to see anything different… As if they’d notice anyway. As I was messing around with my locker, adding and removing textbooks in preparation for the next class, I bumped into probably the only person who actually gave a crap about me in those days.
“Hey, Kelsey!” She greeted me with her big bug-eye glasses and braced-teeth grin.
“Hey Annie,” I replied, pushing through my personal mental anguish to force a smile to my own face. Annie Kenzie was one of… I guess you’d call her a “geek”. She was often the target of bullies and kids less intelligent than her, but at the end of the day, she’d always have a peppy attitude and a spring in her step. She knew how to avoid letting it get to her.
And she was also like a bloodhound when it came to sniffing out sorrow in others.
“What’s wrong?” She asked. She’d already caught the scent.
“What are you talking about? I’m fine,” I tried to downplay it. But she wasn’t about to be thrown off the trail.
“Kelsey, if there’s one thing I know about people, it’s knowing when they’re upset about something. So, I ask again -- what’s wrong?”
Annie and I weren't friends, per se; we were just acquaintances with a mutual understanding. We never hung out on weekends or outside of school, we just spoke to each other now and again because nobody else wanted anything to do with us. We were the weird kids.
I looked to the left, then the right. With no-one in the vicinity, I deeply sighed and pulled her aside.
“I’m scared that I won’t be able to become what I want after high school,” I quietly confessed to her.
“You’re nervous about the OPs?” She incorrectly guessed. “I know it’s scary, but you’ve been studying non-stop. I know you’re going to do gr--”
“No, it’s not the OPs I’m talking about,” I interrupted her. Annie’s expression changed to one of more concern as she listened intently. “...I want to be a professional wrestler.”
I was telling this to someone who despised pro wrestling, or any kind of sport, for that matter. I could see in her eyes that her mind was ticking; she wanted to say something supportive but had no idea how to talk wrestling.
“You should do what makes you happy,” she decided to tell me. “If wrestling makes you happy, then you should do it.”
“But I can't. My parents hate wrestling with a passion, especially my dad… There's no chance they'd ever let me go away to some wrestling school…”
I watched as Annie collected her books from her locker, fixing up her glasses as she did so. Shutting the door emphatically, she turned to me for one last thought: “It's your life, Kelsey. You should live it the way you want to.”
That thought stuck in my mind for the remainder of the day -- she was right, my life was mine to decide. If I wanted to gamble my entire future on the possibility that I may become a professional wrestler in the future, then that was going to be my choice to make.
But then, I never really had faith in my abilities as an athlete. Sure, I had an impressive list of achievements to my name, but most of those were as part of a team. What if I failed? I'd be throwing away so much more than just a chance at a tertiary education; my entire life would change. I lacked the confidence to take that risk.
On the walk home, I had what I thought would be my life for the next five years mapped out in my brain -- I would graduate, go to university, get my degree, and then try out this wrestling thing at the ripe young age of 22. That way, if my career as a grappler failed, I'd have a fallback. Sounds reasonable? Sensible?
I had no idea how quickly my plans would be altered.
Arriving home, I took one look at the driveway, and my heart sank to my overly-worn sneakers. Littered out the front of my house were pieces of tech junk… But, on closer inspection, you could see it was my whole bedroom set-up; my crappy TV, its equally-crappy speakers, my portable DVD player that barely worked… Everything I had worked so hard to pay for, all destroyed. My father must've thrown them from the balcony in a drunken rage, and they smashed on impact with the cement.
In case you hadn't picked up on it by now, my dad was a raging alcoholic, and had been for my entire childhood. He'd sit and drink daily, usually just so he could feel a buzz because he was that miserable. And he was a mean drunk; I'd seen him throw my mother across the kitchen when I was a child. He'd destroy things that angered him; once torching my mum’s car because he felt it was costing them too much money in fuel.
Seeing me watching wrestling the night prior must've pushed him over the edge. He hated wrestling, therefore, he needed to destroy it. As I sifted through the debris with tears in my eyes, I saw the one thing I was hoping I'd never see -- my 80’s Wrestling Collection DVD disc, smashed into broken shards of what it once was. I’d left it in the player, and it had seen its demise that day alongside it. My father had managed to destroy everything I held near and dear to me in a span of 24 hours, without so much as a second thought.
That was a defining moment of my life, the exact moment I had made up my mind, once and for all. I took one last look at the house I grew up in, pivoted 180 degrees, and walked away without ever looking back.
That was almost 11 years ago. My father and I still haven't spoken. I don't have the stomach for it, I wouldn't know what to say. He destroyed my world and brought it crashing down around me... On the other hand, he is solely responsible for the advent of Kelsey Spencer, the Professional Wrestler. Without his attitude, I would never have been driven down this path; I never would've run away from home, dropped out of high school, skipped university and began training to wrestle at 18 years of age.
But in saying that, I've become everything he's ever hated.
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Kelsey’s Vlog
The camera quickly switches on, with an easily noticeable wind blowing fairly hard against the phone’s speakers. A rugged-up Kelsey is visible, wearing a beanie, scarf and snow jacket. She’s hastily walking down what seems to be an empty street; not a single car in sight.
“So you’re probably wondering what’s going on here,” she addresses the camera, clearly uncomfortable with the situation she finds herself in. “It’s currently 2 a.m, and I’m in Windsor, Ontario for Nothing Else Matters.”
She shifts the camera slightly, panning it to confirm what was already apparent to the viewer -- there aren’t any pedestrians or any vehicles to be seen. “So, it’s pretty much a ghost town out here.” She moves the camera back to herself. “I’m not complaining about that, though. See, I couldn’t sleep, so I came out here to clear my head.
Kind of a mistake, on my part. This is my first time in Canada -- well, second, if you include the latest Breakthrough. To be honest, I’m not used to the cold weather -- back in my hometown in Australia, snow wasn’t even a second thought. But here, it’s snowing almost all the time, it’s nuts!”
She coughs into her hand, giving the impression that she’s coming down with a cold. She looks to the right, then the left as she crosses a road, even though it’s probably not necessary at this hour.
“Nothing Else Matters is gonna be a huge night in my career, and I’m pretty pumped for it,” she confesses, picking up the pace as the icy wind blows harder than before. She eventually decides against vlogging for the time being, deeming it not worth getting frostbite over, stating: “I’m gonna put this on hold for now while I head back to my hotel room, I’ll be right back.”
The video goes black for a split second, before opening again with a shot of Kelsey, this time, dressed in a tank top -- clearly she’s in her heated hotel room.
“Okay guys, so I’m back, and I’m in my toasty hotel room… Much better than outside, which is blowing a blizzard right now…” She adjusts the camera to show the window for a second -- where snow can be seen falling rapidly at an almost 45-degree angle -- before returning the camera to herself again. “...I’m so glad that I’m back inside, you have no idea how freezing it is!”
There’s a moment of silence as she remembers what time it is, and puts her hand to her mouth. From this point forward, she speaks at a lower volume so that she doesn’t disturb others staying at the hotel, but also loud enough that she can easily be heard on the recording.
“Sorry, it’s...incredibly late here… I just wanted to make this short vlog and address a few concerns you guys had about me, and what’s next.
So, as a lot of you may know, Miss Saint was going to have me picked up and driven here for Nothing Else Matters. But apparently, as I’d come to learn later, she decided it wasn’t worth her time seeing as she hadn’t been booked on the show. Rather than still come pick me up, she’d leave me stranded, alone, without a mode of transportation. I tweeted out that I had no idea how I would make the trip, and that I may miss the pay-per-view.
But, as you can clearly see, I did make it, and it’s all thanks to the least likely of people. Zahara Matisse saw my tweets, and much to my surprise, offered to not only drive me here but let her stay at her house until it was time to leave. Even after the horrible, mean things I said to her, she put all that aside and helped someone in need. If you’re watching this, Zahara, from the bottom of my heart; thank you.”
The lighting on the recording brightens, slowly adjusting as she walks around the apartment. The sound of boiling water makes it clear that she’s in the middle of cooking something just out of shot. She looks between what she’s doing and the camera on the phone as she continues to speak.
“So, what’s next for Kelsey Spencer? Well, the much-anticipated match with Valerie Beasley, of course. A large chunk of the VoW audience is gonna be tuning in to see Vallie whip my butt, and with good reason -- I’ve been nothing but a spoiled brat lately, I deserve nothing less. At first, I wanted nothing to do with her; I saw what she did to Miss Saint a month or so ago, I watched as she got madder and madder each passing day that she didn’t get her hands on me… Who in their right mind would still willingly step in the ring after witnessing that?
Well, it seems I have no choice. It looks like -- even though I’ve given this company half a dozen high-quality matches -- that I’m still being treated like an outsider. I’m not invited to the press conferences, I don’t get booked to make personal appearances or do interviews… I just show up, do my job, and leave. So it didn’t come as a shock that they pushed for this match to happen, even when I explicitly expressed my concerns about it.”
She closes her eyes and shakes her head.
“I’m trailing from the point here. I know that I’m probably going to get my butt kicked in this match. Valerie’s not gonna hold back -- and not that I’d ever expect her to -- but I’m sure I’m a special case at this point. Karma’s coming after me, and it’s using her fists to deliver its message.”
She smiles slightly.
“I’m okay with that. Really, I’ve learned to accept it. That’s your game, Valerie; you’re a badass chick who throws punches now and asks questions later. You’ve got the potential to be one of my greatest rivals, and I haven’t necessarily been fair to you… I’ve been given you some false, phony version of what someone else wants me to be.
Not anymore. At Nothing Else Matters, you’ll be stepping into the ring with me -- the real me. The very same Kelsey Spencer you’ve all seen glimpses of in my matches with Zahara Matisse and Nicole Evans… You’ll be seeing in full-blown form at Nothing Else Matters.
Like I said, I understand that I’m probably gonna be decimated beyond recognition once Valerie gets her hands on me… But if I'm going out, I'm going out swinging. I’ve spent my entire life trying to live up to someone else’s expectations, adjusting my own personality to fit in with what everyone else wants me to be. But no more; I’m done with that.
From this point forward, I’m gonna be me.”