Public Service Announcement
Apr 19, 2023 19:11:28 GMT -5
Max f'n Daemon, "Cholo" Giovanni Santana, and 1 more like this
Post by Spencer Adams on Apr 19, 2023 19:11:28 GMT -5
4/10/23
BAAAAADMON! BAAAAADMON! BAAAAAADMON!
The moment was never supposed to make me nervous. For weeks leading up to Brawl, I felt invincible. After all, I was THE guy. I’d spent five years on the top of the mountain as “Mr. AW” and in a lot of ways, I got comfortable in my role as such. What I didn’t take into account was those final seconds before walking through that door and how I would feel in uncharted territory. Would I be received differently than I was for years prior? Would there be hard feelings among the general wrestling audience with one company’s longest lasting pillar jumping ship to another promotion?
My heart was beating out of my chest just minutes ago, but just as they always have, it’s those surrounding me who brought me the peace that I needed. Once again, it was them who kept me upright and looking forward to the moment and the task at hand with a simple, clear mission statement.
Do here what I did there.
Holy shit! That was incredible!
One of their voices, a higher pitched, feminine tone cut through the arena’s residual applause as we made our way back up and out through the sea of roaring attendees. The applause continued as we parted through the arena’s outer ring.
I think we all know the answer, but what’s next?
Spencer: I actually have somebody I need to see.
"Fellow Americans, it is with the utmost pride and sincerity
That I present this recording, as a living testament and recollection
Of history in the making during our generation"
Ladies, gentlemen, and those beyond the binary who consider yourselves members of the WGWF universe.
Allow me to reintroduce myself.
Not in name, but in the meaning and that it carries. Prior to being pushed away by a crooked regime in a company that I once called home, I was someone who took pride in building a home for more than just myself. I took an idea and did everything I could to make it bloom into a monopoly and in a lot of ways, it was that. The big money contracts, the sponsors, the massive arenas. I took pride in being a major contributor to making AW go from Vice to CBS, because as someone who used to not be looked at as a franchise level talent, erasing any last bit of doubt around me meant everything.
I’d built a home where I met some of the most standup people I’ve ever known and forged friendships that will last a lifetime outside of that ring. I watched talent evaluated as having a midcard ceiling grow into something more, because I did that shit in year one in AW and set the tone. I smashed through that glass ceiling like Mario with the fucking super hammer, because of the chip that others left to grow on my shoulder dating back to my rookie season in the business. AW was where I met my fiance and the mother of my daughter and yet, I still chose to walk away?
Why?
Why the sudden change in heart from someone who’d spent every single solitary second of screen time claiming they bled yellow and blue?
Because WE can be more than that.
When the out of touch blowhards in the FOs show us just how out of touch they are, we must take a stand. We must be willing to act drastically and throw it all away and bet on ourselves once again. After all, I’ve done it before. What’s to stop me and those who back me in my corner from ascending to the top of any promotion we want to? What’s to stop Spencer Adams from flourishing despite not receiving the kind of attention that a “safe pick” or one of the many members of Page’s band of merry misfits do?
Absofuckinglutely nothing.
I’ve been met with the verbal noogies and burials and dug that much deeper in response and it takes a Hell of a lot more than some Peter Vaughn shitposts or angry fist shaking across the proverbial street to stop me from doing whatever it is that I choose to do in professional wrestling. I’ve had a foe try to disparage me while they occupied the lowest possible spot on the totem pole and clapped back with a facebuster into the bottom of a dumpster. I’ve weathered the storm against stable after stable, even if I was the only one there to weather it. I had someone try to put me on the shelf permanently and I responded by taking him from rafter height into what just seconds prior, resembled a stage. On Monday, there’s no “outsider” in Spencer Adams.
You want to shut that door?
I’m booting that motherfucker open.
3/12/23
For the first time in days, I was alone. After managing to shake off pre-show interviews and appearances, I executed due diligence in securing a quiet place. My friend, Jonny Cedrone, was carrying on with his own duties and obligations in pursuit of AW’s United States Championship. My children and my fiance, all three keeping each other preoccupied through my own request to isolate. I kept the details of the backstage bum rush mostly to myself, feeling admittedly paranoid about the motive and reasoning for their presence in the first place.
I’d like to give the benefit of the doubt and be able to assume that this is harmless and nothing to be concerned about, but I’d been through too much to let my guard down completely. In both my personal and public lives, I’d been a target on more than one occasion. Was this some grand scheme by a few die-hards who drew up a few X’s and O’s or was I being targeted by people who saw something to gain? Every single word question one could muster up served as a spastic series of delays for what should be a focused and confident train of thought and for some time, I’d almost lost the reason I was in a Nashville arena to begin with.
With the locker room door locked and the lights off to draw less attention to the makeshift hideaway I’d made for myself, I found my eyes transfixed on the front of the VHS tape. A series of anxious exhales pushed through flared nostrils and what I’m sure were visibly worn emotions. The words “PLAY ME” written in oddly positioned, silver Sharpie on the front seemed to taunt me as they stared back. Shaking off the desire to stall myself out, I pushed up to my feet and walked to the video cart to insert it. With a couple of dull clicks and a mild whirring, it came to life.
In the minds of many in that locker room, Spencer Adams is a question mark.
I’m here to present you all with the exclamation.
I see your “You haven’t been in THIS sort of territory before” and raise you an “I’ve been everywhere both good and bad” with a side of “You’re about to fuck around and find out”. For almost a decade now, I’ve been the guy to consistently feed every single person who stood across the ring from me their own tongues. Building up, humbling “peers”, tearing down who and what needs it, and leaving this industry better than it was prior to the opening bell. The way I see it, this isn’t “Spencer’s first match”, this is all of yours. Though why this? Why does Spencer Adams choose this as a starting point? Why does someone in their first week want to captain a team and lead a squad of actual locker room members after making it clear that pen won’t get put to paper to join this roster officially?
Because you need it.
I’m here for better influence.
That’s me recognizing you.
That’s game recognizing game.
I’ve been in the shoes of someone like Brooke Blakely, doing every little thing I could to build on a solid foundation of athleticism and make a name for myself. I see why she’s popping up everywhere she can. It’s the mixtape approach, a sign of urgency? Of desperation? Up for interpretation, but that hunger can take you a long way…or it can send you straight to the Sun with charred wings, because you never really took the time to learn the art. We see it time and time again in this line of work. Knowing the value of yourself? That’s priceless. That’s a fucking weapon in the hands of somebody who knows how to use it,
I figured out the hard way, trial by fire and what not. Being tossed to the wolves as a rookie only opened my eyes up further. This will simply be me passing down experience, a bit of necessary role reversal. I see good in Brooke as I can with any greenhorn with an honest workrate and sparkle in the eyes, but good needs to experience adversity. We’ll let her decide whether pressure makes diamonds or dust. Embrace the former and leave the latter in the rearview mirror where it belongs. That’s wrestling when stakes are involved.
That’s wrestling when Badmon is involved.
Hell, I’ve been in the shoes of someone like Lexi Gold. Battling your own ever evolving mental ailments while subject to the public spotlight is no easy task. It eats at you, nibbles away at every little bit of safety and security you have left and taking control can feel like an uphill battle. That’s before even taking into account the mounting losses. I’ve been there and done that as well, but stubbornness and adrenaline makes for one Hell of a cocktail. I took what should’ve kneecapped me and made it look easy. I took mortal qualities and molded them into something Godlike in that ring.
I can relate to someone like Cholo probably more than anybody else in the back. Keeping that sense of identity and who you are at your very core, carrying that with you from city to city? In a world full of put on type motherfuckers, Cholo lives his people and his culture. That’s the sort of quality that can be the difference between a star and THE star and the brightest spotlights often challenge us to leave identity behind in favor of the one that it wants to assign us, the boxes they want to shove us into.
That’s not just reality when you’re Cholo or Spencer in this battle royal, that’s every goddamn day. When you live that level of truth and you live it to the level of success that brings gold your way, you’ve given anyone who opposes you that much more to dissect. “Love’s gonna get you killed, but pride’s gonna be the death of you, and you and me”. I’ve spent my whole fucking career with that exact target on my back and wouldn’t change a bit of it for the world. Identity was the fuel for people to drag me to the lowest lows, but it’s also what has taken Spencer Adams to the highest of highs.
These people, their most triumphant qualities?
All Frankensteined traits held by yours truly.
I’ve been these people and if I haven’t been these people, I’ve fought for my life against these people.
The archetypal exterminator, Damage must be treated the same as every Damage that came before him in the career of Spencer Adams. The difference maker? The equalizer? It’s the fact that for him and people like him, all of this is recreation. When you’re sub six feet and two hundred pounds soaking wet, you have to take this as something more serious. It’s what makes the big boys fall and stay down and don’t worry, I’ll come back to the replays when the night has concluded at which point, I will celebrate to the tune of the rewind button and that big fucking dope helplessly turtle posing. No princess, no drafting rights, and the same net zero rizz he entered with.
I’d hesitate to categorize Big Pun under the same banner, only because of the way that certain distractions can act as rope and cement dragging him to the bottom of a river like a mobster movie punchline. This is someone who is on record caring less about what’s at stake and more about walking away from a rivalry with a felony and a Heath Ledger grin like it equates to a win, the absolute fucking dunce. With a major opportunity right in front of his face, his source of fixation is going to be what keeps Pun helpless from bell to bell.
I’ve seen people like Krow who depend on pro wrestling as a source of rehabilitation and redemption. Krow needs WGWF. He needs it, because it will help exorcize his rougher qualities as a human being. He needs the competition to redirect moves that would previously put him in hot water, so that he can change roles for the first time in a long time, to shake the title of ex-con and re-establish himself in this world as a contributor. He’s on the ropes and looking to squeeze answers out of the industry, because he desperately needs it to.
People like Krow, these have been friends of mine. These have been allies and tag team partners who I’ve stood beside while a lot of personal ups and downs ran them through the ringer. These are the people I break bread with and some of them I'd waged war against prior. Standing tall over Krow is as much a test for him as it is for me, a test of where his breaking point is and if this is really the right outlet for the man to transform himself into something other than another tally for the dickheads banking on recidivism.
Hell, I haven’t just fought guys LIKE Mac Bane, I beat the man’s ass himself in AW back at Evolution last year. Big, tall, strong and absolutely a bitter cog in a machine that’s given him buyer’s remorse and a bunk liver. With his best years objectively behind him, time is only a bleak reminder of the fact that if he had to put the boots down today, the lasting impression would be more associated with the company that he’s kept than it would him. While Mac Bane may be unapologetically himself, but he’s still a branded man. In a different world, I might even like the guy, but the overwhelming feeling here?
Pity.
Pity that immediately gives way to embarrassment when shifting focus over to Mike Mason, a man straight out of the LA Johnny Stylez school of moving through this line of work like a Kid Rock fan in the year of our Lord, 2023. The challenger to Cholo’s coveted strap comes into our showdown coming across less like a well oiled machine and more like ChatGPT spat him out into the CCPE arena like you typed in “Create a current day Facebook user” and Mike Mason was the best that it could do.
Fucking clown shoes.
I’d be willing to give some amount of credit solely based on not sucking the corporate teet, but that would require that same teet to actually desire nurturing him in the first place. I’ve been here for all of a single Brawl and I can tell you that there’s nobody here I loathe harder than Mike fucking Mason and I’m willing to bet money on my not being alone in my sentiments. If there’s one person whose failure will have me tent pitching on Monday, it’s the angry man who yells at clouds, because it’s everybody else’s fault that he’s painfully mediocre and aggressively licking boots.
I’ve gone week to week with eyes in the back of my head, because I had to worry about the most nefarious business this had to offer. Winning gold, righting ships, AND shooing away the likes of #BeachKrew, of Philidor, of Jill Park and Torture himself. People like Fred, like Caedus, like Vaughn? This is nothing new. This is another day spent at the office for Badmon Adams. The real challenge is being any of the three and finding yourself trying to navigate around somebody who is more persistent, more laser focused on the task at hand.
I know the Fred Debonair brand of journeyman prize fighters, because I spent years pushing them out of the company I called home every single time they’d pop up for a cup of coffee and Grandpa Simpson their way out the front door the second they realized that Spencer Adams is really that good and that the house he built wasn’t so easy to crack the top of the rotation in. Now, I’m here doing the same. Putting my money where my mouth is and PROMISING Fred and everybody else that anything they can do, I can do better.
My main hope out of all of this is that number two in this equation is either Fred himself or someone who picks them up when it’s time for the kickball lineup of WGWF talent to come down for the selection process. I want to see the smug look fade and watch the hair on his head go flat when I inevitably call on the Rascal King to come and take up that much more rent free real estate in the mind of The Kingdom simply because I’m that fucking petty and want to use one of the WGWF loyals’ least favorite sons frustration to send a message.
I’ve seen the most capable competitors in the sport, people like Jim Caedus, willingly reduce themselves to something more disputable than what was shown at a career peak. Jim credits Chris Page with pulling him out of obscurity and taking the defibrillator paddles to his chest, failing to realize that he’s locked himself into not even being the number one underneath the list of cosigns. Doesn’t exactly scream stone cold killer, but I digress. I’m not standing here saying anything that Jim hasn’t already said himself, am I? I can’t think of anything more depressing than going from a gulp inducing presence to a coattail riding mercenary, because you needed to pick me up? Awh, the cross section of world class impotence and copium dependance.
Depressing, huh?
Still, I recognize the bridge troll in Jim and not taking eyes off the ball around him. I understand the importance of snuffing him out before he can do the same to me. Cut the head off the snake before it has the chance to bite you, right? Shoot for the insecurity, keep myself tuned in knowing what he’s capable of. That’s the key to my survival, to my prosperity in a ring with the man. Luckily, none of this is for him and he knows it and if left the sole survivor of the CCPE, Jim will crumble.
The one I’m looking forward to throat fucking the most though? The world champion. After all, I wouldn’t be doing my existence in WGWF justice if I wasn’t at the neck of its top talent. This is the opportunity to make the single biggest statement of any debut in the history of this company. Taking down Peter Vaughn means this company nestles up under my thumb. It means opening up the blinds and showing the few good decent people lacing up boots here that help has arrived.
Dwarf the past.
Topple the present.
Invigorate the future.
I’m coming for ALL of it.
WE are coming for all of it.
3/12/23
With the crowds largely dispersed around the arena, I was left with only the cold of night dragging across the sweat of my skin. My eyes darted through the area around me, trying to maintain vigilance.
Over here.
I pivot towards the darker shade of an outer wall where a group of about a dozen ski mask donning figures takes a calm step forward, matching my own eggshell walk.
We’re not here for trouble. Swear on it.
Spencer: What do you want?
We want to help you.
Spencer: ….With what?
We’ve watched you fight this fight, trying to turn this company into something that it’s not. The effort is appreciated, it really is. For a long time, we shared your same optimism. Is it possible? Who knows..but what we do know is that you’ve done more than enough for a company that doesn’t give a damn about you. Not the fans, we get it. Believe me, but I mean..
How many more? How many more Philidors is Torture going to take a check from? How many more of HIS talents is he going to throw under the bus for the short term in favor of some adopted nepo baby project?
Spencer: What are you proposing?
Who says you have to work for anybody?
Spencer: Well..
What do you think about Las Vegas?