Biceps Branigan: So, I'm here with XWF superstar KnightMask...and this is pretty unusual, cause normally, you never really make public statements, you don't cut promos, far as I can tell, you pretty much just eat, train, eat, train...

KnightMask: Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. And study tape, from time to time. This day and age, you have to.

BicepS Branigan: So, in this case, you're breaking form because you actually came to ME for the interview. Before we get to the reasons for that, I want to ask you about your recent trip to Ronnie Wilkins' gym, assuming that the rumors are true on that.

KnightMask: I compete for Warfare, the same brand that's home to Chris MacBeth. Last time it came to exchanging holds with him, I wasn't able to finish him...and last week, I think we all saw what MacBeth did to Peter Gilmour's arm. I've got a great group of guys in Slam Master's gym...but the fact is that Wilkins just might have the best submission game in our business. I've already got a bad knee...and when MacBeth gets that armbar, he cranks it...he doesn't wait for the tap and he doesn't let go. The more mat time I can get with a guy like Wilkins, the sharper I'm going to be for MacBeth when the time comes that we meet on the mat again. And the fact is that next time, I'm not going to have two other guys in the ring to bail me out...or a stipulation that bars submissions as a means of victory. I mean, you want to go toe-to-toe with The Hulk, get as many rounds in with the Juggernaut as you can.

Biceps Branigan: So Wilkins is as good as his rep?

KnightMask: Better. But I already knew that.

Biceps Branigan: Alright, so now, getting to what this interview was supposed to be about, you wanted to respond to some comments Ben Crane made, right...?

KnightMask: Usually, I focus on studying an opponent's moves and fighting style and not their words. But in Benjamin's case, he said some things that caught my attention. He said he heard that I engaged in prayer and that it didn't make sense, because there was no God, essentially. He also said that his religion was comic-books...and that Joker was an essential part of Batman, Venom an essential part of Spiderman, something like that.

Sounded in a way like a Manichean philosophy, although, a Manichean worldview is naturally a theistic worldview, in that it believes in the existence of good and evil which in turn requires the existence of a Higher Power who would be a legitimate source of moral authority.

Biceps Branigan: I have no idea what you just said. I just want to let you know that, KnightMask.

KnightMask: Sorry, I was a philosophy major. Part of the reason I don't have a normal job, I guess. Point is, if Benjamin Crane's religion is comics, then perhaps he's not a very pious observer. The idea of a symbiotic relationship between Batman and the Joker wasn't introduced until Alan Moore's The Killing Joke, in the 80's. And besides the great Brian Bolland artwork, that comic-book sucked. Even Alan Moore thought so. That's one of the few things I can agree with him about. And Batman had already been fighting crime since the 30's at that point. And the fact is that, Batman comics were actually better before then.

You want to talk about Batman, Benjamin? His defining moment didn't come in Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns or in Grant Morrison's Arkham Asylum. Don't get me wrong, that stuff is great for coffee house intellectuals. But if you want to get at the core of what makes Batman special, go back to the 70's, when he dueled Ras Al Ghul to the death beneath the desert sun. Ras had destroyed Batman's network, he'd left his friend Ling with nearly every bone in his body shattered. Ultimately, he left Batman to die in the desert, poisoned by a scorpion sting.

If all Batman was was a moist robot, as some atheist philosophers like to call humans, he would've been done at that point. But the fact is that he was more like a moist autobot, Ben. He had a ghost in his machine...a will, a mind, a spirit...that went beyond the limits of his body...that wouldn't be defeated by exhaustion or dehydration....that got up...walked across that desert...walked straight through Ras's camp of assassins...straight to his tent...and leveled him with one, single blow.

His greatest enemy that day wasn't Ras Al Ghul. It was the Dark Knight himself. It was his own limits, his own frailties that he had to grapple with and had to defeat.

But there's an even better example than that, an example provided not by an Alan Moore or a Brian Michael Bendis...but by Steve Ditko and Stan Lee, involving none other than Spiderman himself. Every comic fan knows that Spiderman's super strength reaches its limit at 10 tons. So when the Master Planner, who turned out to be Doctor Octopus, left Spidey buried underneath 100's of tons of machinery while a leak in the roof slowly filled the room with water...the fact is that the web slinger finished, at least on paper. But after at least three pages worth of struggle beneath the machinery, Spiderman, thinking of Aunt May, whose life depended on him escaping and of Uncle Ben, whom he'd failed previously, Spiderman was able to, in one great effort that took up a whole frigging page to illustrate, heave that machinery off of him.

He defied the 10 ton limitation, Crane. He did it because he was inspired by a cause greater than himself...by his love for his Aunt, by his sense of duty to his fellow man. He did it because, if people are essentially flesh and blood machines, well then there's a ghost in the machine. A ghost that can push that machine past muscle failure, past pain, beyond perversion, beyond addiction, past fear and cowardice...maybe not all the time, but sometimes and those moments are what all of us, in the gym, on the mat, in the ring...are looking for, whether you know or not, whether you want to admit it or not.

I know who imbued my machine with that ghost and I am eternally thankful to Him for my unbreakable soul.

Win, lose or draw Ben, one wrestler to another, one fan to another, my copy of Amazing Spiderman 33 is yours. After I xerox those pages I described and tape to the wall of my gym that is, because its something every athlete needs to see. Whatever you think of me, Ben...I hope you read it. If you never believe me on anything else, believe me on this.