Post by Spencer Adams on Sept 23, 2023 22:26:15 GMT -5
I’d stayed somewhat distant from the group the last couple weeks. Even with Mia, the conversation had managed to die down to a near standstill. Maybe the shape shifting Adilene was right. Maybe I had made myself too vulnerable in ways I shouldn’t have. Not always in the biggest or most damning ways, but in minor ones as well. My SWF debut went well all things considered, but I still found a Dave Kang shaped wrench thrown into the mix, which provided just enough Hell to successfully flush away what could have been an even better first outing with the company. Was I the fool for expecting more out of the situation?
Was I cosplaying the clown as I watched a string of misplaced trust come back to bite me in the ass? In a lot of ways, my “liberation” from where I’d spent a half decade etching my name into history books had been and still is proving the right move, but maybe I could make it a bit easier on myself. Admittedly, I’ve leaned on others. Not so much to succeed in the ring, but to cope outside the ropes with many of life’s curveballs. After all, calloused skin only goes so deep.
It’s not like I’m “alone alone”. I have allies and family, but perhaps I was doing too much and playing Icarus in these situations. When will enough be enough for me? When will I ever be content enough to call those I know I can trust as the point where the conversation stops? I have my safety nets in place, so why must I charge headfirst through life? I’d begun to wonder whether it was the madness of years prior. Maybe this was just who I was. Maybe I’m someone who doesn’t know how to live safely or normally. I mean, how do you work comfortably until you’re able to ride off into the sunset when all that you’ve known the majority of your life is sabotage passed off by others?
Security: He’s ready for you.
Spencer: Thanks for the permission.
I shoot a playful smirk his way, but the black shirt-clad guard seems largely unamused as he declines to reciprocate and instead simply swings the office door open, bringing one of WGWF’s latest additions into view.
Smash: Spencer Adams.
He stands up, extending his right hand solemnly.
Spencer: I’ve said it before and the sentiment still stands..just because I won’t sign a contract, it doesn’t mean I’m not going to show up and show out for those people when opportunity presents itself. Booked or not, they deserve my attention, even if I don’t feel the same about everyone pulling the strings.
Smash: I assume you know why it is I asked to meet with me, yeah?
Spencer: To see if you can butter me up and net me for the company yourself?
Smash: Spencer. The draft is coming up on our heels, on my heels. There’s a lot of talk between brands on who will or won’t be available when that time comes and naturally, your name has come up. Partially due to what you bring to a wrestling ring and partially, because there’s concern that if a brand were to draft or are even able to do so for that matter..would Spencer Adams show up to help that brand achieve what they want to achieve. You follow?
Spencer: I left my home turf behind because of fuckery and I can’t lie, I’ve seen a lot of the same pop up around here. Whether it be with the Mont mafia, Page, or Rotten…I know this shit can get seedy. It adds fuel to the fire. It gives me reason to maintain freelance status for as long as I deem necessary, if not the rest of my professional career. If you guys want to know whether or not I’m a flight risk, let it be known that as long as both shows have a fanbase with demand for me to show up, then there’s no reason for you or anyone else to worry about what Spencer Adams is going to do. Does that answer your questions?
Smash: I think so..
Pushing up off my thighs like exiting a white function in Wisconsin, I turn towards the door and offer a final rebuttal with my back turned.
Past the other side of the door, I pivot and stop inches from collision into a weathered looking man covered only in a pair of leather pants riding up towards his calves.
Without a second thought, I head off towards the in-house seamstress, an abrupt retort shouted out behind me.
Caught off guard, I rotate my head ninety degrees to the left.
?: Nothing..it’s nothing.
Solo status.
You know, I’ve spent near equal parts of my career to this point busting ass both in the singles lane as well as the world of tag team wrestling and I think for a lot of pressure, there’s certain pressures that come with each. Out here, when it’s just you and someone else who is looking to take you out of the equation to put meals on both their own table and those that will come generations after they themselves have moved on from the world of the living, that’s when most men and women start to perspire. THAT is when the pressure applies itself.
Under the circumstances presented, you have two options and two options only. You either crumble and go the route of grains slipping between the cracks or you become a fucking diamond. Staying in the middle, letting yourself turn stale and idling when action is called for is never a choice and yet, people seem to think it is. Middle of the pack now, above it tomorrow, right? As fucking IF. The world stays moving with or without the individual. It doesn’t wait for someone to become more. It expects excellence or failure at the snap of a thumb and middle finger.
What I see looking at the field, looking at a tournament whose name is pulled from the front office windbag who swears up and down that this company is something other than a self succ service for him, is a whole lot of “What the fuck are you doing here?” I see a mixed bag and I’m forced to reflect, to compare this rodeo to ones I’ve found myself battling through prior. I think about entering a year ending debate settler at sixteen and zero and finishing 2022 with twenty wins coming out the other side of AW’s Turmoil tournament as the undisputed face of the landscape.
Regan Voorhees?
Down, because she couldn’t bring promise and potential
Dionysus?
Down, because obviously.
Sam Kidsgrove.
Down, because grit is a quality that eluded him.
Downfall.
Down, because the killer found someone who can’t be killed.
Mark: Getting antsy, ain’t ya?
Leaning forward over the back of a folding chair that appears a size too small for his frame, Denir’s oiled forearms bulge out seemingly over the top of one another. He flares his nostrils and wrinkles his forehead, a certain distaste rolling off his voice as he opens his mouth.
Mark: You know, maybe you’re right.
Denir: I am.
Mark: It’s all part of the vision, Den. You trust the process, don’t you? I doubt you’d be here if you didn’t.
Denir: I trust money.
Mark: Fair enough. You and I both, baby. That’s why we have to go about things a little different around here. I can’t just let the bull loose in the china shop and tell him to have at it. Remember, if we want to gain something out of this business, we need a business left to gain something from.
Denir straightens his posture and shoots lasers Mark’s way.
Denir: You tell me this man, he is the key. You say to Denir that Spencer Adams makes us richer. If you are wrong-
Mark: I won’t be. He’s proven. He’s done it already for pie faced schmucks who have been a lot less deserving than you or I.
Denir: If you are wrong, you will not make to plan B.
Mark: The Turks want your fuckin’ head and clearly, you need guided through this sport if you’re hoping to hang around here for more than a cup of coffee and a couple of dry tugs. When I tell you that I understand what you could do here, you’d be smart to understand that you and I both know what you won’t.
In something adjacent to Rampage Jackson on The Ultimate Fighter, Denir stands up from his chair and mule kicks it back across the room before driving a fist through the center of a door and renders it unusable, walking through the arch as a few arena staffers look in quizzically.
“Don't go, gotta know, please don't run away
I'm a murderer, what can I say?
Don't go, gotta know, please don't run away
I'm a murderer, what does that change?”
So.
Del.
How are we feeling tonight?
This match is without a doubt the biggest not just of your career so far, but depending on how you respond to the result of it..maybe the biggest you’ll ever have. That’s not to say that it’s gonna be your last. I see the pride in you and recognize that chip on that shoulder is pretty well secured to its base, but have you given proper thought to what a next step could look like? Nobody with a shot at longevity in this industry enters a match thinking they’re not taking it, but let’s say you do.
Spoiler alert: You will not.
…but let’s say that you were to.
If “Iconic” Dubois were to pull out the upset of the century against the betting odds favorite to take the trophy and add it to a case that’s been overcrowded long before I stepped foot in a WGWF ring, what would follow? Could you do it again or Hell, could you stomach the fact that if you lose, it will have all been for nothing as you watch another hopeful take away a moment you convinced yourself weeks ago belonged to you. See, it’s easy to be the guy for one night or even to manage a win or two against fellow prospects as you have.
In the words of Dre..
“Remember, anybody can get it
The hard part is keepin' it, motherfucker.”
The pro wrestling faithful, those who have stuck by my side through thick and thin, they’ve watched for years now as the million Dubois’ who came before you stepped up to claim the throne and were reduced to a heap and thrown back outside the castle grounds. I stood amongst those folks and done away with them time after fucking time, because when it comes down to it..most of you aren’t willing to be that guy. You want to be Spencer Adams..just without the target put on your head and the baggage that comes with being Spencer Adams and truthfully, even with the will..you don’t have the way.
You can’t rap your way past the most direct speaker and most proven doer inside the squared circle, because at your core, you’re a whole lot of dressing on an otherwise bare ass plate. I spit fact and back it up while for the last couple months, you’ve tried to pedal mid verses that feel less from the heart and more like Bobby Shmurda scared away all the hoes at Epic Records and decided to scoop your goofy ass up and manufacture every word that comes out of your mouth at a fucking board meeting.
You’re “nice”.
I’m mean.
This business is mean.
You’re not meant to meet those snakes.
1. Because you won’t outrun them.
2. Because you’re not worth the antivenom.
Don’t get me wrong, I consider myself to have been fortunate to this point as well. Most folks who have been in the positions I have, they haven’t ended up on fate’s good side and with the monsters who have come knocking at my doorstep the last decade, it’s a miracle I’m not walking down to that ring on prosthetics. So..when Spencer Adams, who has been through the ringer enough times to make the calculator read “error” and still come out the other end mostly okay, tells you to take your ball and hug it and kiss it and tell you how much you love it…listening would be the best decision you’ve made since signing on that dotted line.
Because John Cable can elbow you to long term amnesia.
Outcast has been places you don’t want to go.
Kim Pain is coming off the type of blood feud you could never shed your own for.
Mac Bane would lobotomize you for a crumb of further success.
Cyrus Riddle can ruin your life.
Ragnarok goes by the moniker he does for a reason.
..and that’s just me scratching the surface.
Anytime I come across a rookie who still has that sparkle drowning out their pupils, I issue a challenge to prove me wrong, because nine times out of ten, you motherfuckers fall apart at the seems the second you’re yanked or shoved in a direction that you’re not comfortable with. Aside from the goofball aesthetics and pick me ass bitch energy, your name is simply the latest to be scribbled at the bottom of that list and when I look at those who have come before you and those who are bound to come after, optimism escapes me.
Call me jaded or dickish, but I’ve very seldom been wrong and I don’t think you’re ready to be used and abused like you think you are. I don’t think you’re READY to step into the spotlight and be forced to be THE guy in a space where people are going to hate you for it..to want to snuff your theater kid ass out if you so much as dare try to take what they want away from them. While praise and glory may lay on the opposite end of all of these trials, you’re not prepared to drag yourself to a checkpoint on one good arm and you and I both fucking know it.
I call myself Badmon, because what I navigate is a bad place and I look damn fucking good doing it. Spencer Adams is composed, confident, and proven. I’ve managed the career that I have not because I’ve tilted my chin up at people on the pedestals before me and told them I was coming for them. I got there by kicking them in the fucking knee caps with one motion and making it a two piece against the temple in the next like “fucking” is my middle name. Go ahead, Dubois. Want in one hand and shit in the other. I’ll bawl both of mine up into fists and take exactly what I want out of this match. You be the dreamer, buddy. Have at it, because as for myself?
I’m going to achieve it.