Post by A.C. Smith on May 19, 2012 13:38:27 GMT -4
(We open today's scene in a spacious gymnasium, where we see a slew of athletic-looking males on several different basketball courts. Games are in full-swing, as is the heavily-accented trash talk. One would guess we're in New York, and a large banner at the top of our screen saying "New York Police Department Athletic League" confirms it.
After we scan across a few courts, we see a three-on-three, point-per-basket, half-court game featuring the Big Apple Asskicker, A.C. Smith. Smith's team has the ball, with a scoreboard behind the basket reading "9-9," and the voice of an official is heard loud and clear.)
Referee: "Next bucket wins!"
(Despite his 6'8” height that may make him more commonly seen banging bodies in the low-post, Smith brings the ball to the top of the key and scans the floor while keeping his dribble going with his right hand.)
A.C.: "Iso! Iso!"
(His two teammates in the corners of the court nod, and each man darts across to the opposite sides of the court. The momentary indecision of the defense is noticeable, and after A.C. shakes his man with a sweet crossover, one of the low-post defenders has to help the man who was beaten off the dribble. This leaves one teammate wide open in the corner.
A.C. notices this, and fires a no-look pass while careening towards the basket. The teammate catches it and goes up for a baseline jump shot in the same fluid motion. His opponents look on, and are helpless to stop it from swishing through the net.
The scoreboard changes to reflect the 10-9 victory. The customary handshakes follow the game-winning shot, but rather than stick around in the tradition of winners keeping the court, a sweaty Smith walks off the floor and into an adjacent locker room. He takes a deep breath before sitting down on a bench in front of the old gray lockers and stripping off his sopping-wet white shirt.
Rather than a face of exultation after a close win, Smith's face might as well be an expressionless block of granite. A few drips of sweat fall from his forehead down his pectoral muscles, and he wipes more off with the back of his left hand before opening his mouth to speak.)
A.C.: “Normally, I don't like to brag about it, but I've invested a portion of my yearly income to the Police Athletic League here in the city ever since I left the NYPD. It's important for officers to get a chance to let out some steam and have some fun, all the while keeping their senses razor-sharp. At this facility in particular, there are basketball courts, boxing rings, batting cages, and a ton of state-of-the-art weight equipment.
Why do I bring this up two days before Mayhem, you ask? It's simple, really. You cannot be as successful as I have been in life without the skills I've learned, honed, and refined right here. Most importantly, you realize you need to keep your head on a swivel at all times, knowing what's going on around you every second of every day.
I've lived my life on the basis of going as far as I can with the tools I'm given. I never needed to cheat, never needed to go behind people's backs, and the lessons I've learned over a long career on the force and in the ring bear that out. And that's something I think is lost on my fellow competitors. They all want to win, but they don't understand that to do that, they need to understand that everything I've ever done shows the Ball Room Brawl is tailor-made for me. And everyone else in this match is too impressed with THEMSELVES to notice the 6'8”, 275-pound roadblock standing RIGHT THERE.”
(We see Smith roll his eyes as a few more drops of sweat roll over them from his eyebrows down to his cheeks.)
A.C.: “First, we have Yarmouth. I've seen what he brings to the table. It didn't impress me coming into this week, and that hasn't changed one bit. His trainer beat the crap out of him with a kendo stick, and his response was...to headbutt a trash can and kill whatever brain cells were left inside his head? Yeah, because THAT'S an intelligent way to prepare for one of the biggest matches of your life. Good luck winning the match where you're seeing three of everyone else in it and the strategy from your boneheaded trainer is something along the lines of, 'Hit the one in the middle!'
Then there's Dita Morgan. A very nice-looking woman, to be sure, but one whose focus is in question. I mean, she spent a good part of her interview with Hannah Storm talking about how, if the match came down to her against her old buddy Assassin, she'd have no problem going up against him. Um...I'm not quite sure how to put this, Dita, but Assassin isn't IN this match. And the REASON he's not in this match is because I beat him from piller to post last week on Overdrive.
I have reservations about hitting women. But four other people in this match don't. And when you don't even KNOW who you're up against at one of Action Packed Wrestling's seven biggest events of the calendar year? Well, then how can ANYONE consider you a serious contender to WIN your match?”
(Smith shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders.)
A.C.: “People seem to think that Yarmouth and Dita Morgan are the real weak links in this match. They might be in the discussion, but there are a few others whose minds don't compute basic concepts. For example, Billy Pepsi thinks he's dealing with a bunch of elementary school students who won't call him out for shoving big facts under the rug. So in true Billy Pepsi fashion, I'm going to go through all of his big points, one by one, and make things so simple that even an eight-year-old that's never seen a wrestling match in his life would be hard-pressed to find a reason for him winning the Ball Room Brawl.
I've come far from living up to my own hype? All I've done, in my two matches on Overdrive, is DESTROY the two people upper management put in my path. Can't do much more than that, right? I'm my only fan? Millions and millions of fans around the world, including the ones that couldn't have been happier to see me return to the ring several weeks ago, would beg to differ. I offer nothing exciting to APW? Obviously, upper management thinks otherwise considering I'm on one of their seven biggest money-making shows of the calendar year. It's a weakness that I don't deal in deception? Far from it. The rest of my skillset is so strong that I don't need to rely on, as he mentioned, hitting people with a frying pan like a ninja like some sort of a crutch. What I bring to the table is so solid in all areas that I don't NEED to sneak-attack people to be the six-time World Champion that I am. And my determination to fight fair being my undoing? I've got 10 years of experience to prove that line of reasoning wrong.
As you can see, Billy Pepsi threw an awful lot of shit at the proverbial wall earlier this week, hoping that something, ANYTHING, would stick. Nothing did.
Billy, I know you're watching. Let me ask you a question I know you won't be able to answer without more than a little spin: What's going to change this week from when I kicked your ass from piller to post on Overdrive? To win this match, you'll have to knock me out. You can pull your quasi-psychiatrist act and break me down from all angles with your big mouth, but ultimately, your bite needs to be just as bad as your bark. I've seen your bite. And judging by it, you're probably on a liquid diet, because even with you fresh and me having taken some of Assassin's shots, you couldn't TOUCH me. I hit the Police Lineup, and when you had every chance to get back in the ring for round two, you didn't want to. This Sunday, there'll be nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide. Your revisionist history and deluded way of viewing everything will catch up to you in a painful way, and you'll only have yourself to blame when you come to your senses in a Montreal hospital.”
(Smith reaches behind him with his right hand and pulls one of the steel lockers open. He flips the sweaty shirt over his shoulder, and it lands with a 'plop' in the locker before he shuts the door and continues.)
A.C.: “Anyway, enough about people that don't exactly like cold hard facts...oh wait, Johnny Sykes is in this match, too, isn't he? Crap. This is the guy who we're all supposed to bow down to after an interview he did with a, ahem, disk jockey operating something resembling a radio station from his mother's basement. And obviously, this DJ wasn't very good at interviewing people, considering he didn't really ask any hard and fast questions. He acted as one of the most dangerous people an overconfident wrestler can surround himself with, a 'yes man.' Because of that, I stick by what I said earlier in the week, which was that there's a big difference between talking the talk and walking the walk.
He was shocked that I was, um...butt-hurt...over his comments. What Johnny Sykes needs to understand is that I've been around this business way too long to treat it as a game. It's my life, and it has been for the past decade. If you say the stuff Sykes said about making sure I was one of the first ones eliminated, you need to be prepared to face the consequences, which are me being motivated and at the top of my game. He thinks he was right in his assumptions of me, but he keeps leaving out one huge detail.
I'm not counting him out of winning the Ball Room Brawl because of ego. I'm counting him out of winning the Ball Room Brawl because he's just not ready for the match. He's more concerned that I'm apparently grumpy and obsessed with my own ego than developing a strategy to knock me out. And now that the little punk has gotten my attention, I simply won't allow that to happen.
Allow me to quote one of my favorite movies of all-time, John Wayne's 'Big Jake.' Johnny Sykes, let me make sure you understand something. If anything happens, anything at all, your fault, my fault, nobody's fault, I'm going to take your head off. No matter what else happens, and no matter who else gets killed, I'M going to take YOUR head off. Simple as that. And you know why, Johnny? It's not because I THINK I'm one of the best in the world at what I do. It's because I've SHOWN it, time and time again, winning six World titles, headlining matches all over the world for 10 years running, and generally doing all the things you haven't done yet and won't do until you get a long-overdue attitude adjustment. You may have had a chance in this match if you'd flown under the radar and let your actions do the talking, but no. Instead, you're making yourself a REALLY easy target, one consumed by your own desire to knock off the biggest dog in the yard. And this Sunday in Montreal, you can bet your last dollar that I'll be taking dead aim right at it.”
(Smith hasn't blinked or taken his eyes off the camera lens since he brought Sykes up, and his face gets the slightest tint of red on it as he finally relaxes his eyes for a moment. After a sigh, he continues.)
A.C.: “And then we have Nick Watson. A man so inept in his rush to judgment about me that he's probably spent the last few days in hiding talking to himself, saying, 'Self, how could I have allowed myself to do that?' It's the oldest mistake in the book, judging me based on a stereotype I'm not anywhere CLOSE to, and it's one that's cost several prominent wrestlers any chances they had of beating me in high-pressure situations.
Just because I'm 6'8”, 275 pounds, and stronger than just about anyone else on the roster DOESN'T mean I'm a big, dumb oaf, and there's evidence to back that up. I was one of the finest amateur wrestlers New York City had to offer. Could've wrestled at the collegiate level, but went to the police academy instead and became the best damn cop the homicide unit had ever seen. For four years, I went into situations where I was outnumbered not by guys in suits and ties, but by hoods with automatic weapons in their pockets and booby-traps to trigger explosions in the house if I took one bad step. But I never did. I lost a lot of blood those four years, and they may as well have named a medical wing at Mount Sinai after me, but I always got my man, and I always went back to work the next day looking for the thugs that were still out there.
When that part of my life ended, I turned to the world of professional wrestling. And I didn't excel simply because I was stronger than everyone else. I became one of the biggest stars in the world because I could back my strength up with a mind that was always two or three steps ahead and a skillset that included a ton of amateur experience. I didn't always win the first matches of my big rivalries. But I never made the same mistake twice, and I always came back to stand tall when it mattered the most.
When the book gets written on my career years from now, the word 'stereotype' won't be involved. There's never been anyone with the background I've had, the trauma and tragedies I've endured, and the will to keep fighting when nobody would have blamed me for walking away. Nick Watson, you'd benefit from a few history lessons. Because those that don't learned from their mistakes are destined to repeat them, and the way things look right now, even with all the promise you have, you're coming into the match with exactly the WRONG ideas of how to take me down.”
(Smith rises up to his full 6'8” height, but not before grabbing a blue gym bag at his feet and slinging it over his shoulder.)
A.C.: “I came back to wrestling because I knew I still had the talent to be great at it. I didn't need the money, didn't need the fame, and most certainly didn't need to deal with the bullshit, much of which has been provided by my opponents this week.
But once that bell sounds, and when all the talking is over...THAT, ladies and gents, is when the cream truly rises to the top. Unlike my opponents this week, all of whom are in various states of 'wrong,' all I've done this week is deal in logic. No 'yes men,' no comedy skits, and no misconceptions needed. With me, what you see is what you get. It's worked for me for 10 years now, and it's gotten me places I never dared dream of when I first stepped into a wrestling ring in 2002.
And it's what's going to help boost me up the ladder here in APW. The Ball Room Brawl match at Mayhem this week is the first of its kind, but on Sunday night in Montreal, I'm going to make sure it's memorable for other reasons. I'm going to put Watson, Sykes, Pepsi, Yarmouth, and Morgan in the rear-view mirror, in what's my first step back to the top of the business. I've been there before six times, and this match is perfectly-suited to help me get closer to it again. Lady and gentlemen, good luck on Sunday.
Because you're sure as HELL going to need it.”
(Smith walks past a row of lockers and towards the showers in the back of the locker room. He reaches his hand into the first shower, and we hear the water begin to run as our scene fades to black.)
After we scan across a few courts, we see a three-on-three, point-per-basket, half-court game featuring the Big Apple Asskicker, A.C. Smith. Smith's team has the ball, with a scoreboard behind the basket reading "9-9," and the voice of an official is heard loud and clear.)
Referee: "Next bucket wins!"
(Despite his 6'8” height that may make him more commonly seen banging bodies in the low-post, Smith brings the ball to the top of the key and scans the floor while keeping his dribble going with his right hand.)
A.C.: "Iso! Iso!"
(His two teammates in the corners of the court nod, and each man darts across to the opposite sides of the court. The momentary indecision of the defense is noticeable, and after A.C. shakes his man with a sweet crossover, one of the low-post defenders has to help the man who was beaten off the dribble. This leaves one teammate wide open in the corner.
A.C. notices this, and fires a no-look pass while careening towards the basket. The teammate catches it and goes up for a baseline jump shot in the same fluid motion. His opponents look on, and are helpless to stop it from swishing through the net.
The scoreboard changes to reflect the 10-9 victory. The customary handshakes follow the game-winning shot, but rather than stick around in the tradition of winners keeping the court, a sweaty Smith walks off the floor and into an adjacent locker room. He takes a deep breath before sitting down on a bench in front of the old gray lockers and stripping off his sopping-wet white shirt.
Rather than a face of exultation after a close win, Smith's face might as well be an expressionless block of granite. A few drips of sweat fall from his forehead down his pectoral muscles, and he wipes more off with the back of his left hand before opening his mouth to speak.)
A.C.: “Normally, I don't like to brag about it, but I've invested a portion of my yearly income to the Police Athletic League here in the city ever since I left the NYPD. It's important for officers to get a chance to let out some steam and have some fun, all the while keeping their senses razor-sharp. At this facility in particular, there are basketball courts, boxing rings, batting cages, and a ton of state-of-the-art weight equipment.
Why do I bring this up two days before Mayhem, you ask? It's simple, really. You cannot be as successful as I have been in life without the skills I've learned, honed, and refined right here. Most importantly, you realize you need to keep your head on a swivel at all times, knowing what's going on around you every second of every day.
I've lived my life on the basis of going as far as I can with the tools I'm given. I never needed to cheat, never needed to go behind people's backs, and the lessons I've learned over a long career on the force and in the ring bear that out. And that's something I think is lost on my fellow competitors. They all want to win, but they don't understand that to do that, they need to understand that everything I've ever done shows the Ball Room Brawl is tailor-made for me. And everyone else in this match is too impressed with THEMSELVES to notice the 6'8”, 275-pound roadblock standing RIGHT THERE.”
(We see Smith roll his eyes as a few more drops of sweat roll over them from his eyebrows down to his cheeks.)
A.C.: “First, we have Yarmouth. I've seen what he brings to the table. It didn't impress me coming into this week, and that hasn't changed one bit. His trainer beat the crap out of him with a kendo stick, and his response was...to headbutt a trash can and kill whatever brain cells were left inside his head? Yeah, because THAT'S an intelligent way to prepare for one of the biggest matches of your life. Good luck winning the match where you're seeing three of everyone else in it and the strategy from your boneheaded trainer is something along the lines of, 'Hit the one in the middle!'
Then there's Dita Morgan. A very nice-looking woman, to be sure, but one whose focus is in question. I mean, she spent a good part of her interview with Hannah Storm talking about how, if the match came down to her against her old buddy Assassin, she'd have no problem going up against him. Um...I'm not quite sure how to put this, Dita, but Assassin isn't IN this match. And the REASON he's not in this match is because I beat him from piller to post last week on Overdrive.
I have reservations about hitting women. But four other people in this match don't. And when you don't even KNOW who you're up against at one of Action Packed Wrestling's seven biggest events of the calendar year? Well, then how can ANYONE consider you a serious contender to WIN your match?”
(Smith shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders.)
A.C.: “People seem to think that Yarmouth and Dita Morgan are the real weak links in this match. They might be in the discussion, but there are a few others whose minds don't compute basic concepts. For example, Billy Pepsi thinks he's dealing with a bunch of elementary school students who won't call him out for shoving big facts under the rug. So in true Billy Pepsi fashion, I'm going to go through all of his big points, one by one, and make things so simple that even an eight-year-old that's never seen a wrestling match in his life would be hard-pressed to find a reason for him winning the Ball Room Brawl.
I've come far from living up to my own hype? All I've done, in my two matches on Overdrive, is DESTROY the two people upper management put in my path. Can't do much more than that, right? I'm my only fan? Millions and millions of fans around the world, including the ones that couldn't have been happier to see me return to the ring several weeks ago, would beg to differ. I offer nothing exciting to APW? Obviously, upper management thinks otherwise considering I'm on one of their seven biggest money-making shows of the calendar year. It's a weakness that I don't deal in deception? Far from it. The rest of my skillset is so strong that I don't need to rely on, as he mentioned, hitting people with a frying pan like a ninja like some sort of a crutch. What I bring to the table is so solid in all areas that I don't NEED to sneak-attack people to be the six-time World Champion that I am. And my determination to fight fair being my undoing? I've got 10 years of experience to prove that line of reasoning wrong.
As you can see, Billy Pepsi threw an awful lot of shit at the proverbial wall earlier this week, hoping that something, ANYTHING, would stick. Nothing did.
Billy, I know you're watching. Let me ask you a question I know you won't be able to answer without more than a little spin: What's going to change this week from when I kicked your ass from piller to post on Overdrive? To win this match, you'll have to knock me out. You can pull your quasi-psychiatrist act and break me down from all angles with your big mouth, but ultimately, your bite needs to be just as bad as your bark. I've seen your bite. And judging by it, you're probably on a liquid diet, because even with you fresh and me having taken some of Assassin's shots, you couldn't TOUCH me. I hit the Police Lineup, and when you had every chance to get back in the ring for round two, you didn't want to. This Sunday, there'll be nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide. Your revisionist history and deluded way of viewing everything will catch up to you in a painful way, and you'll only have yourself to blame when you come to your senses in a Montreal hospital.”
(Smith reaches behind him with his right hand and pulls one of the steel lockers open. He flips the sweaty shirt over his shoulder, and it lands with a 'plop' in the locker before he shuts the door and continues.)
A.C.: “Anyway, enough about people that don't exactly like cold hard facts...oh wait, Johnny Sykes is in this match, too, isn't he? Crap. This is the guy who we're all supposed to bow down to after an interview he did with a, ahem, disk jockey operating something resembling a radio station from his mother's basement. And obviously, this DJ wasn't very good at interviewing people, considering he didn't really ask any hard and fast questions. He acted as one of the most dangerous people an overconfident wrestler can surround himself with, a 'yes man.' Because of that, I stick by what I said earlier in the week, which was that there's a big difference between talking the talk and walking the walk.
He was shocked that I was, um...butt-hurt...over his comments. What Johnny Sykes needs to understand is that I've been around this business way too long to treat it as a game. It's my life, and it has been for the past decade. If you say the stuff Sykes said about making sure I was one of the first ones eliminated, you need to be prepared to face the consequences, which are me being motivated and at the top of my game. He thinks he was right in his assumptions of me, but he keeps leaving out one huge detail.
I'm not counting him out of winning the Ball Room Brawl because of ego. I'm counting him out of winning the Ball Room Brawl because he's just not ready for the match. He's more concerned that I'm apparently grumpy and obsessed with my own ego than developing a strategy to knock me out. And now that the little punk has gotten my attention, I simply won't allow that to happen.
Allow me to quote one of my favorite movies of all-time, John Wayne's 'Big Jake.' Johnny Sykes, let me make sure you understand something. If anything happens, anything at all, your fault, my fault, nobody's fault, I'm going to take your head off. No matter what else happens, and no matter who else gets killed, I'M going to take YOUR head off. Simple as that. And you know why, Johnny? It's not because I THINK I'm one of the best in the world at what I do. It's because I've SHOWN it, time and time again, winning six World titles, headlining matches all over the world for 10 years running, and generally doing all the things you haven't done yet and won't do until you get a long-overdue attitude adjustment. You may have had a chance in this match if you'd flown under the radar and let your actions do the talking, but no. Instead, you're making yourself a REALLY easy target, one consumed by your own desire to knock off the biggest dog in the yard. And this Sunday in Montreal, you can bet your last dollar that I'll be taking dead aim right at it.”
(Smith hasn't blinked or taken his eyes off the camera lens since he brought Sykes up, and his face gets the slightest tint of red on it as he finally relaxes his eyes for a moment. After a sigh, he continues.)
A.C.: “And then we have Nick Watson. A man so inept in his rush to judgment about me that he's probably spent the last few days in hiding talking to himself, saying, 'Self, how could I have allowed myself to do that?' It's the oldest mistake in the book, judging me based on a stereotype I'm not anywhere CLOSE to, and it's one that's cost several prominent wrestlers any chances they had of beating me in high-pressure situations.
Just because I'm 6'8”, 275 pounds, and stronger than just about anyone else on the roster DOESN'T mean I'm a big, dumb oaf, and there's evidence to back that up. I was one of the finest amateur wrestlers New York City had to offer. Could've wrestled at the collegiate level, but went to the police academy instead and became the best damn cop the homicide unit had ever seen. For four years, I went into situations where I was outnumbered not by guys in suits and ties, but by hoods with automatic weapons in their pockets and booby-traps to trigger explosions in the house if I took one bad step. But I never did. I lost a lot of blood those four years, and they may as well have named a medical wing at Mount Sinai after me, but I always got my man, and I always went back to work the next day looking for the thugs that were still out there.
When that part of my life ended, I turned to the world of professional wrestling. And I didn't excel simply because I was stronger than everyone else. I became one of the biggest stars in the world because I could back my strength up with a mind that was always two or three steps ahead and a skillset that included a ton of amateur experience. I didn't always win the first matches of my big rivalries. But I never made the same mistake twice, and I always came back to stand tall when it mattered the most.
When the book gets written on my career years from now, the word 'stereotype' won't be involved. There's never been anyone with the background I've had, the trauma and tragedies I've endured, and the will to keep fighting when nobody would have blamed me for walking away. Nick Watson, you'd benefit from a few history lessons. Because those that don't learned from their mistakes are destined to repeat them, and the way things look right now, even with all the promise you have, you're coming into the match with exactly the WRONG ideas of how to take me down.”
(Smith rises up to his full 6'8” height, but not before grabbing a blue gym bag at his feet and slinging it over his shoulder.)
A.C.: “I came back to wrestling because I knew I still had the talent to be great at it. I didn't need the money, didn't need the fame, and most certainly didn't need to deal with the bullshit, much of which has been provided by my opponents this week.
But once that bell sounds, and when all the talking is over...THAT, ladies and gents, is when the cream truly rises to the top. Unlike my opponents this week, all of whom are in various states of 'wrong,' all I've done this week is deal in logic. No 'yes men,' no comedy skits, and no misconceptions needed. With me, what you see is what you get. It's worked for me for 10 years now, and it's gotten me places I never dared dream of when I first stepped into a wrestling ring in 2002.
And it's what's going to help boost me up the ladder here in APW. The Ball Room Brawl match at Mayhem this week is the first of its kind, but on Sunday night in Montreal, I'm going to make sure it's memorable for other reasons. I'm going to put Watson, Sykes, Pepsi, Yarmouth, and Morgan in the rear-view mirror, in what's my first step back to the top of the business. I've been there before six times, and this match is perfectly-suited to help me get closer to it again. Lady and gentlemen, good luck on Sunday.
Because you're sure as HELL going to need it.”
(Smith walks past a row of lockers and towards the showers in the back of the locker room. He reaches his hand into the first shower, and we hear the water begin to run as our scene fades to black.)
