Threaded Mode | Linear Mode

ALIAS · (06-21-2022)

CALAMITY CUP 1 // LEGACY

FORGED IN BLOOD, ETCHED IN BONE
THE SACRIFICE, THE WAR WE KNOW
I CAN FEEL IT IN MY VEINS
LACED WITH GOLD, BUT RICH WITH PAIN
DO YOU WANT IT?
DIE FOR IT
NOTHING IS EVER GIVEN TILL YOU WORK FOR IT
THE CHOICES THAT WE MAKE ECHO ETERNITY

⬋⬈⬋⬈⬋⬈

The air around him seemed so stale, heavy, all-consuming. It was as if he was submerged beneath thousands of pounds of water, and no matter what he did, he wasn’t able to gain any traction. Everyone moved on. Like the little sycophant crowd they were, they all moved on without him, stepping into companies like Level Up and appearing on a video game related show that showcased all of their skills. In just an instant, everything that made him him was gone, and here he was, left picking up the pieces of a shattered life that he once loved more than anything.

It was always like this. Every time. He put so much of himself into his companies, hoping, praying, believing that if he did everything in his power, they would succeed. Go to whatever they told him to go to, be the person that they needed him to be. The company pushed him, and he made the company the prominent picture of perfection that he could. Oh, everyone worked together on the roster for that. You didn’t have FIGHT without the names of the people that traveled together like a pack of wolves, salivating at the bit and praying that they would succeed when the lights were on them over and over again.

It was a repetitive cycle. All he wanted was to be a part of something, to matter to people. It was something that he’d been deprived of from childhood, and over and over again, it happened. The people he worked with, the coworkers he sought to involve himself with. It wasn’t just about representing the company, it was about trying to build some form of camaraderie with the rest of the company. Somewhere he belonged. He’d forged friendships with some of the best, but he wanted his worth to matter. He wanted to stop being that kid that hung back, waiting for someone to say something so he felt calm enough to join in.

Dickie Watson, the Calamity, the Molotov, the fuckin’ unbeatable champion who held tightly onto that strap that was synonymous with his name for the entire run of the company, was fucking terrified of being left behind.

It was pathetic, wasn’t it?

He found himself like this too often. Lost in his own thoughts, lost to the world around him. His heart beat quicker within his chest, his lungs didn’t seem to fill with enough oxygen, and he could feel his blood pulse frantically between his ears. His pectoral muscles couldn’t quite expand enough and contracted tighter, putting pressure prominently against his torso. His eyesight was a blur, fuzzy and the darkened figures of what he knew were people passed in front of him, stopping briefly before moving on.

What was he doing?

Where was he going?

Why now?

He’d been doing okay since the loss of FIGHT! NYC. For about two seconds, he’d been bored, but quickly signed with CU:LT and after that? EWC. Both were companies that had been established for some time, which was something that he wasn’t used to doing, but nevertheless, he found himself working in both. He hadn’t defeated the rest of the gamut when it came to a gigantic clusterfuck of an elimination match, but at the same time…Dickie didn’t quite give a shit about winning that and pointed that out – he didn’t want to be in some random ass tag team that didn’t make any sense to him. And while he’d spent a good amount of time plugging broken CDs into people’s bodies – which was fun, he wasn’t going to lie – it wasn’t anything to write home about.

Not that he had a home.

Perhaps that’s why he was in the predicament he was in.

“Mate. Mate, oi! What the fuck, aye? Dickie!”

He could hear him, the semi-nasally Australian accent that wasn’t quite Steve Irwin Incarnate coming from the much deeper voice of his hetero life best friend and the other half of The Commonwealth, Aiden Reynolds. But he wasn’t exactly certain where it was coming from, or how far away.

A sharp slap across the side of his head brought Dickie out of his panic attack, although it was probably not the best method Aiden could have used. But nevertheless, it worked. Dickie’s eyesight became clearer and the fluorescent lights that lit up the main floor of the gym instantly burned his eyes as he came out of his reverie. He shook his head slightly, rubbing the side of his head beneath the mass of hair that he’d refused to cut.

“Motherfucker.” He swore.

“Don’t go all Walkin’ Dead like then,” replied the Australian, shaking his head. “You’ve been doin’ that a lot lately. Dollarydoo for your thoughts, eh?”

In all fairness and reality, Dickie didn’t want to go over any of his woes. He had too many of them to keep bothering Aiden – or anyone else for that matter – with them. He frowned, shaking his head, and headed for one of the bench press machines to sit down and take a breather – or really, try to get as much air as he could back into his lungs. He knew what brought it on now, as his memory started coming back to him after it froze worse than a brain freeze. The constant reminder than he didn’t have a home…well, it sat on his mind. He missed FIGHT. He missed the company, the lights, the candor, and he hated that the people within it were just so willing to up and let it die. It left him and so many others with nowhere to go, and again, he seemed saddled with a championship that was worth nothing.

He wasn’t respected. He wasn’t feared. He was just another fucker in the breeze, and the thought killed him because he knew he was better than that.

“Mate, you’ll get back on your feet,” Aiden didn’t really need Dickie to tell him. That was how close their bond was. “I mean, it wasn’t like the last place we left did any favors for either of us and lookit what you did after you bounced: what was your reign?”

“Two-ninety-three.” Dickie ran a hand through his hair as he replied dryly, without a hesitation, without any breath.

“You spoken to him since?”

Silence.

New Status Quo, the team that had very much run a majority of the time in FIGHT! NYC, had effectively been silenced with the final night of The Thrill and the Agony. Shawn Warstein, a man familiar to the XWF, and Dickie hadn’t spoken in months now. He kept telling himself perhaps it was for the best. But that didn’t mean it didn’t sting. Respect was earned that night, on either side of the coin. But it was Dickie who, in the end, began and ended FIGHT! as its only reigning Empire Champion.

A feat that everyone had tried to tear him down for.

A feat Dane Preston had tried to tear away from him.

Oh no, Dickie hadn’t forgotten. The Cannabis Cup, only a month away now, seemed like it was coming up fast. Dickie was scheduled in the Cup itself, and within the first round was a rematch of epic proportions. Everyone, all the fans and the commentators and the people throwing out hype said the same thing: they wished it was later on in the card, because that was how powerful this match was going to be. Dickie Watson versus Dane Preston was a marquee match, and was certain to gain an attractive following. After all, the last time that they’d been in the ring together left Dane comatose and Dickie beaten and bruised.

Dane had a vendetta against Dickie. Dane needed this to be his time, his retribution, his win so that he could erase the bullshit of his past and go about saying the same thing he always did: he and the people he traveled with – family, friends, enemies, rivals – moved like a sycophantic unit to the same company over and over again, not trying to fit in, but simply overlaying themselves over the rest and forcing the rest of the company to follow suit. He needed this to not be his finality.

The same people Dickie fought for and against over and over again, trying to be the best that he could be and left him behind.

Again.

For a moment, he wished he had NSQ to speak to about this. He wished he had the company that he’d been the face of for just a little under a year. For a moment, he wished that he had the camaraderie of the men and women that would have his back going into this match. Just for a second, a moment, a piece of time. But no. He would stand alone, just as he’d always done, raise his chin upwards and go in with the fuckin’ fearless attitude that he’d always and would always have. Nevertheless…

It was now he was forced to admit that he was a cornered lone wolf. He had none of it, and simultaneously, despite the panic, despite the feelings, despite the paranoia that lived in his brain, he knew what he had to do. He would face this demon so to speak, and he would do it with that famous give zero fucks smirk that he wore. The Cannabis Cup ensured that Dickie would be given a fair shot, but he would have to contend with a man that blamed him for the failure of his own lifetime. Dane wanted this match, lived and breathed for the opportunity to right his wrongs against Dickie. To prove he could defeat him like he got lucky that one time.

But Dickie?

He didn’t want to right a wrong.

He wanted to fucking bury it in the ground, cover his tracks and leave it for good.

⬋⬈⬋⬈⬋⬈

THE DARKEST NIGHTS, THE BITTER COLD
LIVE OR DIE, OUR TRUTH BE TOLD
I CAN HEAR IT IN MY CHAINS
A REQUIEM FOR BETTER DAYS
AND I WILL FEAR NOT MY DEATH OR DESTINY
BECAUSE DEATH FEARS ME
WHAT WILL I BECOME?
FORSAKEN OR BELOVED?
TOO FAR AWAY TO TOUCH?
WHAT WILL I BECOME?

⬋⬈⬋⬈⬋⬈

You got this all figured out now, don’t you, friend? You’re a smart cookie, the Phoenix, the Fixer, the man who changed himself at least forty times over the past year as he tried to reinvent himself to stick around with the masses. The boom was lowered with a rattling crash, and just before you were able to walk into the pretty light at the end of the tunnel, a cringing voice in the heavens said they didn’t want you to be able to atone for your failures at life just yet. So they left you like…this. A psychosis separated simply to avail yourself of the fact that you fucked around and found out all in the same moment and time.

Should I suspect you to do the same thing you did before and have done for the past however fuckin’ long you’ve been kicking? Come into this, hackles raised, mouthing off at any moment, any time. Biting off more than you can chew, yet still acting like nothing affects you. Your losses are stacking up at Level Up, and the only reason anything goes well at New Frontier is because it’s all about who you know and who’s running shit in a company filled with lackluster talent and the repulsive dredges of this industry who have been repelled from corner to corner seeking asylum for their bitchass movements. I expect you to fully spread your legs open and divulge all the history of your life, who fucked who, bringing about all the men and women in your life that you think are completely relevant to your needs, while ignoring everything else that goes on around you in a daze of your own fucked up little psychotic rant.

Did you think it would be the same ol’ thing, Dane? Think you learned all about Dickie Watson from our last match? Let’s remind the rest of the fuckin’ field what happened in those promotionals. Not only did you spend a fucking eternity calling me a fuckin’ moron, you equated my reign as a lucky charm, and then told me that I waltzed right in like I fuckin’ owned the company when I did the one thing that you all failed to fucking do, and that was actually remember that this is a career, and that FIGHT wasn’t a place to air your personal soap opera with JMont and whoever else felt like they needed their dick sucked. Now, contrary to popular belief, you guys, especially you, like to paint a picture that tells a story of you all being saviors.

Whining about who brought us in, or what Taco Bell gave you the shits, puts a lot of victim mentality on non-victims. I’m not gonna be like you and the rest of the people you surround yourself with and not own my failures. I have plenty of them. I have trust issues, I have a self-esteem complex that drives most people bonkers. But there is one thing that you will never see from me, and that’s Victim Creation.

I’m not a victim.

I’m a fighter, a brawler, a man who raises his fists and tells the rest of the world exactly what I think of them and accepts the consequences of my actions. I was the champion of the company you labeled as yours for nearly three hundred days. You promised the world you would rid it of the scum that was Dickie Watson, the scourge of the Earth for daring to remind you fuckers of what you did to get us to each and every single event that happened in FIGHT! NYC, – you know, the ones that you went, “Oh yeah, that’s right” on.

You? You have a reason for every single one of your failures. JMont this, Fix, this, Phoenix this, Stratford this, Montuori this…

Motherfucker, a year ago, I came into FIGHT! NYC with respect floating through my bones for all of you. I was fucking terrified to face any of you because I knew I was facing some of the best in this industry. Roll those tapes back. Save for PMont, who tried to be on my dick for all of the shows, I treated everyone with respect until I wasn’t. But I knew what I was getting into. I knew that if I failed that I would need to recalculate and figure out where I went wrong. Not create excuses, not build up a fucking list of the reasons why I fucked up. I learned from my errors in the ring – and honestly, in the grand scheme of things…

Roll the tape back.

You got in a nice superkick and dazed me to get a three count.

Congrats.

I nearly ended your fucking life.

One of these things is not like the other. But let’s not get it twisted. There’s no way that you and I are one and one. Perhaps singles, yes.

But how many times were we pitted against one another? The stable wars, both Blood Moneys. Our names were booked against one another. I won. Remember, it was New Status Quo who was never eliminated. It was New Status Quo and me who weren’t defeated at Ascension. All in all…three more times that Dane Preston failed to end the career of Dickie Watson after proclaiming to the heavens that he would.

Did you forget that like you forgot Shawn earned his match against me? Or were you sitting backstage with your cronies, bitching about that too? Listening to you complain about Sebastian Everett Bryce, Thaddeus, literally anyone who has notoriety to their name, gets old. Just like this vendetta you have against me for beating you fair and square. Since you want to equate the entirety of the Hearst Tower blowing up on me and I’m also the reason for the cage falling on you, you know. I picked up on those as I was reviewing your tapes for the remainder of the year. Should be a new personality for you – The Storyteller, only every story has a bit of the truth and a whole bunch of lies.

I can forgive you for a lot, Dane. Pride sucks when you’re someone as narcissistic as you, and it can absolutely blind you. I can forgive you for that, I can forgive you for being a fuckin’ murderous twatwaffle when it comes to me, and I can forgive you for calling me stupid when I knew exactly what I was doing. I didn’t care back then that you had an MMA background or you’d gone to prison. I knew what was good for me, and that was making sure that your friends weren’t going to get involved in the fight that was between you and me. I played to my strengths – the rest of my chosen family are fucking deathmatch fighters. But I can forgive you for all of that.

But there is one thing that I cannot.

Dane, you underestimated me.

I suspect you will do that again.

Dane Preston and whichever software version he’s running at the time – hey, why don’t we have more than one personality since we can’t get the original to function correctly besides pressing control-alt-delete in the first place – doesn’t do well when thinking of others. Very self-absorbed, very apropos for the moment, because as is expected, he’s going to make this the rematch of the century. And he’s going to have the upper hand, right? Dickie Watson, to Dane Preston Personalities 1, 2, and 3, hasn’t changed. Hasn’t evolved. Has stayed the same since he left the poor sap lying in a puddle of his own blood after Dane made great pains to tell him he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing.

Wow, it’s almost like I knew what I was doing then.

You see, when I put that Deathmatch within a Cage, I didn’t give a flying fuck if you lived. I cared about my championship and surviving with it still in my hands afterwards. And it’s the same for this match. This isn’t FIGHT! This has nothing to do with the championship that all of you coveted for so long. But it does have to do with a challenge, and I will be damned if I let you succeed against me EVER again.

Isn’t it lucky that the Cup’s randomizer put us here again? Lucky that we get to settle our own scores…but…that’s the thing, Dane.

Let’s not forget who continues to rest in whom’s head. After the tower collapsed, the cage collapsed, when you were teetering on the edge of life and death, after all of it…I moved forward. Blood Money II came, and you were so far behind me that I didn’t look back. I didn’t sit there and ruminate on what happened, how I could have done better, what I needed to adjust. I didn’t sit there and salivate at the bit like a dog who hadn’t gotten their bone in a few weeks when I saw this match.

I saw it, I reviewed some more recent tape, and I looked at it with fresh eyes. This isn’t a deathmatch, this isn’t a cage, and we’re fighting at the Rabbit. But this? The only thing you may want, Dane, is my head on a stake, but me? I’m looking at this as an opportunity. An opportunity to get my brand out there, \ to succeed where the greats have succeeded. To walk where the best tread, and win a tournament against some of the best in the industry. And just like before…I’m not about to let you underestimate me again.

Just because I don’t have a home, Dane, doesn’t mean I don’t have a legacy that I’m trying to build. An era. A memorable time where my name is synonymous with fear, with notoriety, with everything that a champion carries with them. I’m not unbeatable, but I want it to be known that it is fucking difficult to do because I am that vicious, that fuckin’ good that people fear facing me. Just like I feared facing all of you when I stepped into FIGHT!

I’m not a fool, Dane.

I’m not a fuckin’ idiot.

I know you’re coming for my throat, and I know you’ll stop at nothing to ensure it’s slit from side to side. You’ll say you need this far more than I do so that you can live with yourself and your friends in your head. I know that. You’ve never been quite able to accept the events of the 31st of December, never been able to accept that it was truly you who lost that night. You’ve never admitted it, understood the gravity of it, and learned from it. You think if you put a new spin on it, with a little bit of a different view from one of your head-y pals, people will forget. They’ll worry more about how safe you are, if you’re okay, if all of you and your friends are appeased.

I don’t care.

I truly do not give a royal fucking shit if you’re assuaged in any way.

I don’t go for anything less than the throat, Dane, and you know that. So you can hardly expect for me to come into the Cannabis Cup on the first night and fuck myself over just so you don’t get in your feels. I need this, mate. I need to feel alive and this is the only way that I know how. While you and everyone went off to your own companies, I was left with no one and nothing. This is how I know that none of you, no matter how much you sit there and say you respected me once upon a time, never accepted me for who I was and what I did. I am a competitor. A fighter. A damned demon when I need to be. And this is the moment that I have to remind everyone in this cup of who I am, what I stand for, and what I can do.

This is only about proving a point. I’m not interested in rehashing this over and over again. There needs to be a finality for us both to move forward. That finality comes in defeat.By moving forward and defeating you again, it will only strengthen the point that I came into FIGHT! so long ago with.

I don’t need anyone to support me to do the job that I love.

This is business, Dane, and I suggest you start remembering that when it comes down to the nitty gritty details. It’s my duty to inform you and everyone else that no, the Era of the Calamity will only be over when I say it’s over. And right now? Regardless of the loss of FIGHT!, it’s not over. It’ll never be over. Not until I breathe my last, and that’s not any time soon – I know, how pitiful for you.

Do me a favor though, Dane.

Don’t underestimate me.

Or actually, do. Do underestimate me.

Just so I can say “I told you so” once again.

⬋⬈⬋⬈⬋⬈

I’M NOT AFRAID TO STAND UP, FISTS UP
NEVER GOING TO GIVE UP
I’M LIGHTING, NO FEAR, JUST ADRENALINE
JET BLACK, HEART ATTACK, THUNDER FOR A SOUNDTRACK
WHAT KIND OF SCARS WILL YOU LEAVE?
WHAT KIND OF BLOOD WILL YOU BLEED?
WHEN FEAR SETS STAGE FOR DEFEAT
WHAT WILL YOUR LEGACY BE?

WORDCOUNTER.NET: 3997

Threaded Mode \| Linear Mode CALAMITY CUP 1 // LEGACY
Author	Message