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Juice - Centurion - 07-19-2019
------June 21, 2019------
Centurion: Just one bunch, BAM, right in the throat!
(The cackling sound of laughter follows Centurion’s drunken exclamation.
We open up inside The Irish Pub in Atlantic City, where Centurion and his soon to be daughter-in-law, Erin Morgan, sit at the bar with drinks in front of them. Erin has an empty beer pint glass in front of her, as Centurion has an empty highball glass in front of him. The clock behind the bartender says 12:30 AM, and few patrons remain within the bar. Centurion is leaning in towards Erin as if he’s telling her a secret, but his voice is as loud as anything in the pub – perhaps the only thing now as loud as Centurion’s voice is Erin’s drunken laughter.
The bartender doesn’t seem to care – he walks over with a bottle of Connemara and fills Centurion’s glass before grabbing Erin’s glass and pulling another beer from the tap and handing it back to her.)
Erin: Why don’t you just punch out the mother fucker? He took your business.
Centurion: I’d love nothing more then to take him under the boardwalk and beat him with a rubber hose, but there are rules against those types of things, and Lattimore and his crew – they know I’m in town and they know I’m coming for them, so I’ve been heavily watched by the local PD and the sheriff’s office.
Erin: Well…you know what they say.
(Centurion picks up his glass and arches an eyebrow. Erin picks up her glass as well, and goes to toast Centurion.)
Erin: Fuck da police.
(Erin hits her glass against Centurion’s and takes a large sip. Centurion just shrugs and takes a sip of his whiskey before setting it back down on the bar. Erin turns her chair to face Centurion as she keeps a death grip on her pint of beer.)
Erin: So you’re just going to live in a dingy old gym until you die?
Centurion: Pfft, of course not. I plan on getting my house back the moment I get enough money. The county owns it now. Luckily, my ex wife took pretty good care of the place when I left, but it’s been empty for a couple of years now. I can’t imaging the county looking to get top dollar for it.
Erin: If Lattimore was looking to ruin your life, why doesn’t he just buy it?
Centurion: Doesn’t think it’s worth the investment. I put way more money into the place than what it’s worth today, and the property is on an old quarry mine. I did some really great things with it, like resodding the place and whatnot, but no business wants to build on it, so they can’t get it rezoned, and no one who lives in the city wants to spend that kind of money when new houses are being built for half that. It’s unfortunately what plagues a lot of these old cities. Properties were sold and houses were built when the value was way up and people wanted to live there, but after the economy collapsed, those with the means left the city, leaving mainly low income families to fend for themselves. If families decide to return, they do so in new developments – basically, away from the “riff raff”, otherwise known as black people and immigrants. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that “identity politics” it only a thing liberal talk about in elections. It’s everywhere. It’s economic. It’s the reason why inner cities school have twice the amount of children and get half the funding as suburban schools. “Economic anxiety” was a nice code word for white racists in Ohio to justify their hate. You know who has economic anxiety? The people living in these cities being left behind, and those are primarily…
(Centurion looks over to Erin, who has since turned her bar stool back. She is nodding, but her attention is focused on the television, which is playing crime drama that no one can hear. The bartender, however, is fully enamored with Centurion’s diatribe, as he has his hands folded under his chin while leaning against the bar.)
Bartender: You should run for president.
Centurion: Don’t give me any ideas. (taps Erin) Were you listening to me?
Erin: Not really. I’ve heard this all before. You seem to forget WHY I’m here…or, to put it another way, WHO I’m here for. These soap box stump speeches are pretty much a nightly occurrence for Nellie. She’s an organizer for Bernie…
(Centurion lets out a “blehhh” sound as the word “Bernie” leaves Erin’s lips. He takes another sip of his whiskey as Erin looks over at him, with a combination of confused and annoyance.)
Erin: You don’t like Bernie?
Centurion: Bernie is all talk and no substance. He says all the things that get white college kids all happy, but there’s no actual plan behind them. Anyone who likes Bernie but doesn’t like Elizabeth Warren is just being sexist.
(Erin takes a big swig of her beer before setting it down and turning to Centurion, finger pointed towards him, ready for the debate.)
Erin: Warren is another corporate Democrat beholden to big corporations…
Centurion: Oh, pashaw! Everyone is beholden to big corporations. They’re politicians. If you don’t think Bernie is going to sell himself out the moment he becomes president then you’re just being naive. Take it from someone who knows pretty much everyone in the Senate – ALL of them have corporate interests, ALL of them are lobbied, and ALL of them are beholden to somebody. You won’t get anything done if you weren’t. You HAVE to find a candidate who can actually get shit done – not one that sells you a fantasy.
Erin: Fine. Who are you for?
Centurion: Haven’t decided completely, but I’m heavily leaning towards Biden…
(Erin wretches and looks as if she’s going to vomit on the bar. Centurion arches his eyebrows in an annoyed manor.)
Centurion: Oh, I forgot, your generation suddenly hates Joe Biden after making memes out of him for 8 years.
Erin: We don’t “suddenly” hate Joe Biden. We accepted him as Vice President, but he’s always been kind of creepy and weird. With so many other candidates in the field, I don’t see how ANYONE can vote for someone who has such a long reputation of horrible ideas!
Bartender: I like Kirstin Gillibrand.
(Erin and Centurion both stop and look over at the bartender. They stay silence for a few seconds before they both shrug their shoulders.)
Erin: She’s alright.
Centurion: Yeah, she’s cool.
(Just as Centurion and Erin go back to the debate, the front door of the bar opens, and in walks Walter Crowe, the designated driver for the evening. He has a disappointed look on his face, though that is pretty typical for him over the past 20 years. Centurion notices Walter and raises his arm before letting out a “AYEEEE!!!”)
Centurion: Walt! Hey buddy! Come meet the chick that’s boning my daughter!
------I'm like chardonnay, get better over time------
Shit happens.
I know I’m not being philosophical here, but it’s true, especially in pro wrestling. Things happen that you don’t expect to happen. It’s a dangerous and unpredictable sport. So while I did not go into the match last week expecting to hurt Big D or have any intentions of putting him on the shelf, well…
Shit happens.
I won’t apologize for winning the match. I won’t apologize for doing what I had to do. I will say that I hope Big D recovers. He’s one tough son of a bitch, and the only thing I could do to keep him down was put him through the announce table. I’m not going to act remorseful, though, because I did what he would have done, and what any wrestler would have done, had they been in that same situation. It was a routine spot. I’ve hit the 1000 Mile Slam on countless opponents and put them through tables, but this is the first I can remember – at least, the first in a VERY long time, where someone got pretty messed up because of it.
I will say, though, that I genuinely like Big D…or, at the very least, tolerate him. He’s not a bad guy, and he’s trying to go about the business the right way. He got on my nerves a little bit, but we had a match to figure it all out. That’s how it goes.
So if that’s what I am like with people that I’m actually pretty cool with, what’s going to happen to people I actually hate? Well, Fuzz is going to find that out at Leap of Faith.
Make no mistake about it, I hate Fuzz. Despise him with every fiber of my being. And it isn’t one of those “he said some bad things about me so I hate him” kind of deals. No, this is 15 years worth of resentment kind of hate.
The term “XWF originals” gets thrown around a lot. People call James Raven an “XWF original”, meaning he was around in the old school. That’s hilarious to me. James Raven was a baby when I first stepped foot in an XWF ring, and that was two years after Fuzz first gave it a go. No, WE are XWF originals. We’re as old school as you can get.
But don’t go thinking that makes us kindred spirits or anything. Fuzz and I, while coming from the same wrestling background, are two completely different sides of the coin. I spent most of my career as a good guy. I wanted the crowd to cheer me. It was only in my later years when I became a grizzled, jaded sack of shit that I lost favor with the audience, but for most of my career, I wanted to do things the right way and be the kind of wrestler younger folks could look up to.
Fuzz, on the other hand, always wanted to be the bad guy. He relished in it. That cocky, arrogant demeanor you see now? That’s always been there. He started his career that way. If anything, later years Fuzz has become more subdued. He’s always been an asshole. So to say we’ve never really gotten along, well…that would be an understatement.
And yet, for as long as we’ve known each other and how often we’ve been in the same federation as one another, we haven’t shared the ring that much. Two big matches that I can remember- the famous “legend maker” match where I defeated Fuzz to become an official XWF legend, and a match for the XWF Universal Title, where Fuzz was able to best me. I’m not going to say this is some kind of rubber match, because I’m sure there were other matches in there that I’m forgetting – don’t screw around with concussions, kids – but those are the biggest matches that I can think of, and those were both over a decade ago.
But even back then, when we were beating the unholy hell out of each other, I didn’t hate Fuzz as much as I do NOW. Back then, it was about glory. It was about winning titles and climbing the ladder to open up more opportunities. That’s just part of the business.
Now? Now that’s not necessary. I came back to the XWF to test my skills against the newest crop of talent. I don’t need to open new opportunities for myself. I don’t need to climb the ladder, and neither does Fuzz. Our legacies are in tact. We can both walk away from this business forever and not worry about whether or not we’ve accomplished all we’ve need to.
So when I came back, and Fuzz decided to attack me after my first match in my comeback, he made a statement. He wasn’t interested in glory – he just wanted to put me down. He wanted to let me and the world know that I wouldn’t be able to move on with my career without taking out Fuzz. Message understood.
Fuzz can say whatever he wants, by the way, but don’t believe a word of it. He tries to tell people that it wasn’t him that attacked me at March Madness. He talks in cryptic tones about what he wants and who he fights for. It’s all bullshit. He fights for himself, and what he wants is to be the only “old bastard” on the roster. More importantly, he wants to put me down for good, which is handy, because my goal is awfully similar.
That’s why a submission match is perfect for us. It’s definitive. Someone is going to have to tap out due to pain inflicted by their opponent. That’s a hell of a statement. That’s putting your pride aside in favor of your own wellbeing. For two old, stubborn bastards like us, that’s against our very nature, especially when you flat out hate the person you’re in the ring with. Tapping out to Tony Santos? I was fine with, because I still have more matches in front of me, and I have a lot of respect for Santos. To tap out to Fuzz? I can’t think of anything more soul destroying. I’m sure Fuzz feels the same way, as well.
I’m not interested in doing a “dream match” tour. I’m not interested in having every match at every pay per view be against wrestlers who just wouldn’t go away when they should have. So far, though, that’s all it’s been. I fought Jack Nation and put him away for good. I took out the Graves Family, because someone had to. I fought Team WGWF. And now I’m fighting Fuzz. I’m honestly tired of it. This isn’t why I came back.
It’s why I need to win this match. If I don’t, then every old foe from over the years will seize the opportunity to come back and fight me. They’ll see me as an injured veteran – someone on their last legs. Anyone I beat will think it’s the perfect time to “get their win back”. I’ll be getting challenges from Chasm and Gecko and whoever else the XWF forgot about. That’s not what I want. I want to be fighting for championships. I want to go one on one with the best wrestlers of this generation.
Fuzz? He doesn’t really care. He’s pretty much retired as it is. He had one chance against Tony Santos, couldn’t beat him, and now he’s ready to pack it in and walk away. It was never about “testing himself” for Fuzz. It was about eliminating the old dudes and bullying the young ones. Since neither of those things has happened, and neither of those things are likely to happen, Fuzz has nothing to do. This is likely his last match…as long as I can take him out.
I do find it rather hilarious that Fuzz decided to break away from Chris Page. Not because they couldn’t work together – that was obvious from the start. What was hilarious was Fuzz’s excuse for doing so. He called Page an “egoist”. He said Page is “all about himself”. All of this is true, of course, but Fuzz made it sound like none of those traits define him, when in actuality, it’s exactly what Fuzz is like. It’s actually why Page and Fuzz couldn’t work together – not because they have DIFFERENT personalities, but because their personalities are exactly THE SAME. Page needs pawns. He needs people who are willing to put themselves in harms way in order to achieve glory for the all mighty Chronic. That’s not Fuzz. Fuzz wants to fuck people up and stand over their broken bodies, and he doesn’t care if it’s me or CCP or anyone else, for that matter.
It also explains why he and Noah Jackson get along so well. Noah is basically Fuzz, only younger and with a ridiculous accent. Don’t get me wrong, if Fuzz were to stick around for a while, Noah would absolutely turn on him and destroy him. That’s how this story always ends – the person you mentor eventually becomes better than you and puts you in the grave. The only reason James Raven never did that to me was because he didn’t need to. He was given his opportunities without me putting up a fight, mainly for my long term health.
I’m not looking forward to this match. I am looking forward to having Fuzz out of my hair forever. I am looking forward to moving on with my career. I am looking forward to the guttural sounds that will come out of Fuzz’s mouth right before he taps out. Most importantly, I am looking forward to having Fuzz meet his…
FINAL FANTASY!