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Thaddeus Duke · (05-04-2017)

Wednesday, May 3, 2017 | 10:40 PM | Boardwalk Hall | Atlantic City, New Jersey

Thaddeus Duke, fresh off of kicking his friend Dolly Waters in the face, and not at all by accident, walks the halls of Boardwalk Hall. With his hood up and Dolly’s Xtreme title slung over his shoulder, the smile that usually accompanies his facial features is all but gone. This is the same Thaddeus Duke its always been, but at the same time, completely different. He seems to be headed for the exit, evidenced by the bright red exit signs he keeps following. Traffic from Atlantic City can be heard so he’s obviously quite close to making his exit.

Rounding a corner, he runs straight into Paul Heyman.

”What did you do!?” the rather plump former Madness General Manager asks in a rather heated way.

”Paul, not now,” Thaddeus replies, as he walks passed Heyman.

”Thaddeus, those fans love you. They trusted you,” he pauses as Thaddeus stops in his tracks. ”Dolly Waters trusted you, kid! She’s a 13 year old girl! A very impressionable one! She trusted you and you turned your back on her!”

Thaddeus turns around, anger in his face. He stomps back toward Paul Heyman. ”Then tell me Paul, is this what it feels like when you betray everyone that’s ever trusted YOU?”

Paul Heyman’s face reddens.

”Look, one of the reasons I’ve been so okay with no longer lending my advice and tutelage to Dolly Waters is because I know you had her best interest at heart. You’re a young man with a very bright future. I’ve seen that since the day you walked in here. There’s something different about you. You care for people. You care for your friends. You’re in this business because it’s fun for you.

“You obviously don’t do it for the money. I do it for the money. I do it because I’m good at what I do. Betraying my friends, has made me oh so rich. You have a conscience, Thaddeus. I don’t.

“Doing what you did out there tonight, that’s going to replay in your mind over and over and over. I have no trouble sleeping at night knowing full well the things I’ve done and the people I’ve hurt.”

”You’ve literally showed zero interest in anything I’ve done since I’ve been here. Now you show interest?” Thaddeus elects to turn and walk away.

”I’m interested in Dolly Waters, Thaddeus! Regardless of what you think of me, I do care for that girl! She’s like a daughter. A somewhat estranged one, but a daughter nevertheless.”

Thaddeus stops again in his tracks momentarily, then continues toward the exit. He rounds another corner and is immediately bombarded with a Warfare camera and Steve Sayors. Sayors shouts questions and runs to catch up to Thaddeus, only for the young man to shove the XWF interviewer into a wall before finally exiting the Boardwalk Hall.

With the rear door of the Thaddeus Duke limousine open, he tosses the Xtreme title inside, then climbs in himself. Within seconds, the car is in motion. Thaddeus sits quietly, staring out the window. He’s not staring at anything in particular as the bright lights of the shit hole city roll on by. He pulls his phone from the pocket of his hoodie and gazes at a notification: 26 Missed Calls. All of them from Dolly Waters. After clearing the notifications he starts to put his phone back in his pocket but it starts vibrating again. He clicks “answer.”

”Lose my number,” he states curtly before abruptly ending the call.

Again the phone is vibrating, again he answers. ”What the hell did you not understand the first time?”

”MMMMMMMbooooyyyy, ya got yoself a real problem talkin’ to me like dat.”

”Aw shit. I’m sorry LuLu, I thought you were Dolly calling again.”

Lucretia (LuLu) Diamond is a woman Thaddeus befriended on his commercial flight away from Pittsburgh a couple weeks back. They hit it off well and in an odd sort of way, LuLu has sort of become like a mother figure for Thaddeus.

”What’d ya do boy? Ya kicked that poor little girl in the face? And for what? To prove how tough you are? To assert yo maaaanhooood?”

”You saw?”

”MMMMMMhmmmmmmmm,” she replies in her typical unamused black woman way. ”Roosevelt is sooo mad at you. You know he loves Dolly.”

”He’ll understand in time.”

”Booooy, what you thinkin’? I mean fo’ real? This ain’t at all the Thaddeus Duke I met. Not at all like the charmin’, sweet young man that befriended me on an airplane. The same sweet, charmin’ young man that flew me home on his own jet ‘cuz I done fucked up and got on da wrong plane.

“This ain’t you Thaddeus.”

”I didn’t even know you watched the show, LuLu.”

”I didn’t used to. After we met I started watchin’. There’s this young man on the TV that just melts ma heart. Blond headed. Blue eyed. And cute as a button. MMMMMhmmmm if I was only twenty years younger.”

Thaddeus laughs lightly. ”Thanks.”

”That just ain’t you Thaddeus. You’re a good person. Ya got a great big heart. Somethin’s goin’ on in your head and it ain’t right boy.

“I don’t know what else ta say boo. It just ain’t you. You’re not that kind of person.”

”I can’t really explain it right now, LuLu. Tune in to Savage this week. I’ll explain it the best that I can.”

”Boooyyy. I just can’t wrap ma head ‘round this. Dolly… she… she’s high strung and hyper active. But I can see a definite sweetness in that lil’ girl too. Y’all are just perfect together. Young, good lookin’, so good in da ring.”

”Yeah well. That’s over now.”

”You lucky LuLu ain’t there. I’d slap you upside yo head boy.

”Alright boo. Get some rest and we’ll talk again soon.”

”Good night LuLu.”

”Good night sweetie.”

Thaddeus ends the call and places the phone back in his pocket. He returns to staring out the window and not saying anything. Detached and despondent. The smile that usually adorns his face, ceases to exist.

Why did you do it? Thaddeus why did you do what you did to Dolly Waters on Warfare? Why did you kick her in the face and leave her lying in the ring and take her Xtreme championship?

That’s the questions I’ve been hearing from everyone I’ve talked to and ran into in just the short hour or so since the incident. Heyman. Sayors. Even my friend Lucretia. If you’ve logged onto XWF99.com and clicked on this file hoping for answers. Hoping for me to explain why I did what I did then I’m sorry to disappoint you, but you’re just not going to get them.

Not here.

Not now.

This isn’t you Thaddeus. You’re not that kind of guy.

Really?

Do any of you out there really know what’s going on? Do any of you out there in TV land really know what goes through anyone’s mind? What makes them tick? What makes them smile? What makes them laugh? What makes them cry? What makes them do the things they do?

None of you… Not a single fucking person has any idea what its like to be Thaddeus Duke. I challenge any of you to be 3 years old but 18 at the same time. I can say beyond the slightest doubt that not a single person on this planet could do it without suffering a few cracks along the way.

There’s over 7 billion people on this planet and there’s only one person, ONE, that knows what its like to be me. And that’s me. That makes me the most unique fucking person in the universe. There’s 30 or 40 guys and girls on the XWF roster. The vast majority of them are complete wastes of time. Very few are unique enough to tell one apart from the other. They’re your run of the mill cookie cutter professional wrestlers with nothing extremely exciting about any god damn one of them. Nothing really different besides a name. The same old boring stories and the same old “I’mma beat you up good” promos.

Second guess me. Doubt me. Tell me I should be ashamed of myself for kicking that poor little shit in the face. It doesn’t matter much to me. I did what I did, and what’s done is done. There’s nothing that can change that and I wouldn’t change it if I could.

Dolly Waters can leave your minds now. This isn’t about Dolly Waters anymore. This is about Thaddeus Duke. This is about Chris Chaos. This is about Savage. This is about me, not giving any of you what you want.

What?

Not what you were expecting?

Let that be a lesson to you.

Always expect the unexpected.

This is going to be very short. I’m tired and I don’t really care what any of you want from me. Chris Chaos has a one up on me. Chaos is good and there’s no doubt about that. What he fails to realize and a lot of you sheeple out there too, is he’s not nearly as good as he thinks he is. You could probably say that about just about everyone on the roster. Maybe even myself.

Maybe not now, but sooner or later, Chaos is going to find out that I am exactly what I say I am. And that’s just flat out, better than you.

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