Post by Berlin Anderson on Sept 3, 2014 22:52:40 GMT -6
Back to Minnesota.
Mankato was another unusually small city with no larger metro areas very close, but unlike most such cities, it felt very connected to the outside world. The usual small-town looks for being unusual were rare, many more people recognizing him as being part of the touring wrestling promotion in town. He wasn't really sure if it was the city being more aware of what was in their midst or his own rising stock, but it felt good regardless.
He hadn't been booked in VoW for awhile. The first week of silence, he'd thought perhaps somebody in management had just taken notice of the match against Maxwell Soloke. He'd tweaked his leg pretty good in that, fought through it, but obviously a bum pin would hinder his wrestling style-- maybe they'd given him a week off to recuperate. In a constant weekly schedule with the company that he hadn't totally settled into yet, it was a welcome respite.
Then the second week had rolled around, and again he wasn't on the card. It was about that time he'd started to wonder if he was going to continue to have a job. Just when he'd split off from his backup income, this. He'd been wavering between wanting to say something, to take initiative... and not wanting to be that one guy who complained when he didn't have a constant spotlight. He'd decided to wait a third week, see if there was something, and to his relief, there had been.
All the same, it left this hovering unsafe feeling in its wake. There was either something to prove here, or...
"Professional wrestling. You know what I love about it?
"It's an open stage.
"From its roots in carnival sideshows on up, it's been a sort of fight-based form of vaudeville. It thrives on variety, the best of its companies have had something for every interest. From hardcore and Japanese deathmatch types, to technical European and Canadian styles, to brawlers, to lucha and aerial. Big men, small men, women, dwarf wrestlers. Big personalities have always thrived here. It's a brotherhood. You get stories of overcoming adversity here, the only other fighting competition I can think of that has had the equivalent was the golden age of boxing.
"Despite that, you still get people who want to distill it down, to define what is 'real wrestling' and what isn't, split off the unusual for a narrow subset. I've seen Brett Carson do a bit of that, interspersed with his crosshairs on the Xcel Title.
"I've had these types try to goad me into fighting a straight-up technical match just to prove I can, and I've been tempted to do it a time or two. Show I can trade headlocks with the best of them, show that a suplex or a DDT can be just as dangerous as a flipping dive-- God knows they've probably resulted in at least an equal amount of broken necks. It's dangerous because it's a fight, because even if you're not aiming to cripple or kill someone you're still looking to harm them in other less-permanent ways.
"I don't do it, because the smarter part of my head with less pride says it's really just them trying to lure me into a fight on their terms. I'll never be a heavyweight, speed is my advantage and it's not something that's ever likely to change; cardio's something that almost every wrestler needs at their disposal. No one will ever know more than I do about what I'm capable of, and using it to its full extent is something that's just as much 'pro wrestling' as grounded chain grappling.
"If you want a shot at that belt, Brett? You gotta get through me first. See you soon."
Mankato was another unusually small city with no larger metro areas very close, but unlike most such cities, it felt very connected to the outside world. The usual small-town looks for being unusual were rare, many more people recognizing him as being part of the touring wrestling promotion in town. He wasn't really sure if it was the city being more aware of what was in their midst or his own rising stock, but it felt good regardless.
He hadn't been booked in VoW for awhile. The first week of silence, he'd thought perhaps somebody in management had just taken notice of the match against Maxwell Soloke. He'd tweaked his leg pretty good in that, fought through it, but obviously a bum pin would hinder his wrestling style-- maybe they'd given him a week off to recuperate. In a constant weekly schedule with the company that he hadn't totally settled into yet, it was a welcome respite.
Then the second week had rolled around, and again he wasn't on the card. It was about that time he'd started to wonder if he was going to continue to have a job. Just when he'd split off from his backup income, this. He'd been wavering between wanting to say something, to take initiative... and not wanting to be that one guy who complained when he didn't have a constant spotlight. He'd decided to wait a third week, see if there was something, and to his relief, there had been.
All the same, it left this hovering unsafe feeling in its wake. There was either something to prove here, or...
"Professional wrestling. You know what I love about it?
"It's an open stage.
"From its roots in carnival sideshows on up, it's been a sort of fight-based form of vaudeville. It thrives on variety, the best of its companies have had something for every interest. From hardcore and Japanese deathmatch types, to technical European and Canadian styles, to brawlers, to lucha and aerial. Big men, small men, women, dwarf wrestlers. Big personalities have always thrived here. It's a brotherhood. You get stories of overcoming adversity here, the only other fighting competition I can think of that has had the equivalent was the golden age of boxing.
"Despite that, you still get people who want to distill it down, to define what is 'real wrestling' and what isn't, split off the unusual for a narrow subset. I've seen Brett Carson do a bit of that, interspersed with his crosshairs on the Xcel Title.
"I've had these types try to goad me into fighting a straight-up technical match just to prove I can, and I've been tempted to do it a time or two. Show I can trade headlocks with the best of them, show that a suplex or a DDT can be just as dangerous as a flipping dive-- God knows they've probably resulted in at least an equal amount of broken necks. It's dangerous because it's a fight, because even if you're not aiming to cripple or kill someone you're still looking to harm them in other less-permanent ways.
"I don't do it, because the smarter part of my head with less pride says it's really just them trying to lure me into a fight on their terms. I'll never be a heavyweight, speed is my advantage and it's not something that's ever likely to change; cardio's something that almost every wrestler needs at their disposal. No one will ever know more than I do about what I'm capable of, and using it to its full extent is something that's just as much 'pro wrestling' as grounded chain grappling.
"If you want a shot at that belt, Brett? You gotta get through me first. See you soon."