Post by Michael Callahan on Oct 27, 2012 15:29:51 GMT -4
”This nuclear option is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power.”- Joe Biden
Once again, a quote far further left than Michael Callahan would ever deem appropriate but it's nonetheless one that remains applicable to Sunday's conclusion to devastating warfare that'll reshape the landscape of APW's Asylum brand forever. Careers, rivalries, lives will end within the confines of the black painted blast zone that is the Extreme Elimination Chamber and when the smoke clears, the debris settles and the crowd are radiated with excitement, shock and awe from the demolition they have just witnessed, one man will emerge from this man made disaster, shaken and scarred yet undeniably our world's heavyweight champion. Six men will compete. Only one shall survive One Night in Hell.
And yet everyone's least favourite to win Michael Callahan, thinks he has what it takes to win the whole lot. An hour ago he was standing in a state of the art gym complex in one of Tokyo's many towers after a vigorous work-out. Now having cleaned himself up and re-suited yet curiously not removed the two thick brown strips of combat camouflage face paint from underneath his eyes tired and sleep-deprived eyes he stands at the edge of the roof of this high-rise tower. Leaning against the guard rail he stares down into the blinding abyss of lights that is down town Tokyo, stupefied and amazed by the ceaseless beauty that culture and technology combined have created. It's a once in a lifetime, breath-taking view and yet Callahan can't fully appreciate it.
He has too much on his mind. Too much pent-up rage from his meltdown just an hour ago. Yet his attempt to come up here, clear his thoughts and cool off are proving ineffectual. He feels like he still has something to get off his chest and where better than a Tokyo rooftop to expel your inner anguish?
Michael Callahan: I wasn't going to film this but... sometimes when you get caught up in the moment and try and get everything out as quickly as you can you can't truly expand on the points you're aiming to make and explain properly. Ultimately when it comes down to this the Extreme Elimination Chamber, I can admire that both Phil Atken, Johnny Rebel and Keaton Saint will be very dangerous competitors that I should do everything in my power to avoid making myself vulnerable to but in all honesty, while I want nothing more than to bring home the title with me back to Kelso there are deeper, personal issues underlying that require closure. To settle things once and for all and get the closure I deserve is truly my priority inside this Extreme Elimination Chamber but having the gold in the line is more like the icing on the cake, the seal on the envelope settling matters once and for all.
Callahan's intention is very much to kill two birds with one stone. His two arch rivals, Sally Talfourd and Anthony Bailey both locked inside the chamber with him and Martinez will be the very opportunity he needs for “closure”.
Michael Callahan: Now you're probably expecting me to recite the old classics. The Callahan tradition of using my God-given freedom of speech to slander the unholy Hell out of my opponents. As I say this Jason Kash will be nodding his head like a dashboard bulldog, grunting about how I'm one of those “lying weasel politicians” and to his limited credit, he's very much correct some of the time. I'm not ashamed to say that I do get swept up into the political gears and make ample, almost abusive use of my ability in APW to say whatever I wish about my rivals. Photoshopping pictures of babies into a Sally Talfourd vacation photo at a restaurant and telling everyone that she's a cannibal with flesh for babies. Yes, it's untrue. So why do I propagate these lies instead of dealing with material fact?
Callahan leans on his baseball bat and strokes his chin pondering before turning to face the camera.
Michael Callahan: Because my penchant for the absurd lies is my attempt to connect with my audience. If I accuse Sally Talfourd of being a racist or say that Anthony Bailey is an arsonist who likes to set the homeless ablaze, it's not because I genuinely believe those assertions or am stating them as fact but because it's that kind of zealotic rubbish that encapsulates truly how strongly I despise my opponents. I hate Sally Talfourd as much as I hate racism and as much as I hate the unsolicited torture and abuse of the homeless. So I tell these lies to overexaggerate the extremes of how much I despise these people. Yet tonight is the night where any unspoken words will remain simply that, unspoken. So I will only be dealing with cold hard truth as I tell you for the final time why you should support me in slaying those rotting relics of bad lies.
With ten months of hatred spread across these two rivals it might take a little explaining for Callahan to truly sum-mate his feelings over the power couple.
Michael Callahan: I guess it's only fair given that my problems with Sally Talfourd began almost as soon as I got here that I should start with her. Ohhhhh Sally. Sally Sally Sally. How the mighty have fallen. Y'see Sally, our rivalry... if you so wish to call it that is almost epitomises the way in which social media and the internet is the catalyst for virtually every major rivalry in APW these days. Running your mouth on the internet when you're an APW megastar is almost certainly a recipe for trouble and boy did I find that out in a hurry. Now I don't care for who said what to who and what mean spirited remark from either party begun this but our mealy-mouthed petty in-fighting culminated in that famous incident. You remember the one, don't you? How can you forget?
He harkens of course back to the days of before Rasslemania with his Republican radio show. None of this TV chef nonsense but hard talking with the Suicidal Champion and it provided one of the most memorably moments in Asylum history.
Michael Callahan: Yeah that's right. On the Grill with Michael Callahan. Episode 1. The one where I berated you, humiliated you, laughed in your face in front of “your believers”, the people who still are mesmerised by your “magic” and sent you running backstage with tears streaking down your cute little face. It was perfect. The Asylum before Rasslemania, the biggest show of the year I made APW's only ever female Undisputed Champion walk out because she couldn't handle it. Why? Not because of her fragile ego but because she knew that I could get into her head and start playing some major mind games simply on the basis that I was and still am better than her. Yet she put a brave face on things and continued to take to Twitter to slander me. Tough talk from a woman who couldn't take a harmless grilling on national TV huh?
Callahan sighs and looks back down to the abyss of lights below. His heart dragged down by the heaviest matter in the universe, that of unrequited love.
Michael Callahan: And that's where things got complicated. Somewhere in the midst of my catastrophic break-up and my ceaseless bickering with you I fell for you... and boy did I fall hard. Yet after so much aggression, so much bitterness towards me you couldn't accept that perhaps my bitterness towards you was not another mind game but actually simply a mask for what I was trying to deny to myself. I was beginning to recognise you as an equal. Someone that was on the same level as me, with the same intelligence, the same skills, the same ability to mesmerise an audience. Someone... who I could walk hand in hand with to the ring and change from democracy to monarchy as we ruled as king and queen of Asylum, a true power couple the likes never seen before.
As Callahan reflects upon the heart ache he's surprised but how deep the feelings stemmed for him and as he explains this he flails his arms around theatrically.
Michael Callahan: Even as you beat me to a pulp over a pair of one hundred dollars sneakers that I accidentally ruined, and I DO retain that it was an accident, the attraction only grew and that's when you did it. That's when you finally turned around and shattered my illusion. In the middle of the ring, I tried to explain once and for all what that awful fool Johnny Sykes had prevented me from doing before the match and tell you just how I felt. Yet you couldn't handle it. Maybe you felt inferior, maybe you doubted my sincerity, but you slapped me in the face and brought me crashing back to the grave reality. You were never as good as me, I was always better than you. My broken heart just misguided me down the wrong path and yet with one slap to the face I snapped out of my funk and proved it by choking you out with the Victory Lock, a feat seldom performed in this business.
Sighing once more, Callahan takes a step away from the edge and looks over towards a chain link fence, his back towards the camera.
Michael Callahan: Things have been quiet ever since. We fought in the Defeat the Unknown tournament, a collision closer than before which I won by a narrow margin and occasionally the unwanted comment on Twitter comes my way but that battle we had at Mayhem put it behind us. Now, a world championship opportunity later and you want your final chance that you've still got what it takes. Yet you're in there with me. You've won the chamber once, you won't win it again. Lightning won't strike twice Sally and I promise you that there will be a long day in January before the scars of the suffering I am going to inflict upon you will go away. You will be torn apart in my quest for dominance.
Callahan pauses.
Michael Callahan: Now of course... I must address our dear champion. What more can be said? While I was in the doldrums of being strangely infatuated with Sally Talfourd, the seeds for our still blazing rivalry were only just being planted. I kindly offered you a place within the upcoming Traditional Restoration Initiative, a social campaign to redress attitudes towards wrestling and turn the negative aspects of Asylum around, reinvent the brand and make a lot of money during the process. You politely told me to screw off. Now I can accept rejection. I'm not petty or bitter. What I can't accept is the actions that followed. Over the months, you rampantly abused my generosity by slandering my good name on Twitter, using me as the butt of all your jokes and ultimately your cardinal sin was that you took MY rise to stardom as a self-proclaimed hero of the masses.
Jealousy is a green-eyed monster.
Michael Callahan: After your rejection of me, you escalated beyond anyone's expectations of you. You brought to an end Jason Kash's career defining title reign and by the hand of fate the most cruellest of ironies occurred, the nickname I gave you, “Asylum's Golden Boy” began trending on Twitter. You became THE WORLD, HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIOOOOON! A dynasty, unconquerable, a pop-culture role model for our youth! College educated, street smart and with a great taste for picking out jackets! All the while you're fending off challenges from Jason Kash, Shane Borderland and Sally Talfourd while I'm wrestling with Jair freaking Hopkins. So when I try and take back what's rightfully mine, what do you go and do?
Pause.
Michael Callahan: You decide to make things personal.
Callahan's mind burns with inner anguish at the memories he cooks up.
Michael Callahan: We had an agreement. You were to put that wretched hag Sally Talfourd in her place and in exchange? I'd pull some strings and get Uncle Terrence back onto the street. It was a straight forward exchange of promises and we both made good on them. You rattled Sally with a steel chair and I got your uncle released from Florida's prison system. So what do you do to repay my generosity? You slander my name, deny any responsibility for doing the right thing and then when I personally pay for your uncle to come to Singapore and watch you wrestle? You attack me. Physically accost me without mercy and if it weren't for Terrence, that brawl might not have ended without injury.
Callahan is still nursing a bit of a purple mark around his right eye where Bailey duly hit him.
Michael Callahan: Turns out that punching a man for giving his friend and punchers proud uncle tickets to a show to watch his boy compete isn't quite enough though. So you take it up to the next level and you find my ex-fiance from whatever shelter she's living in now and you use her. You used her like you've used Sally Talfourd and Jair Hopkins and all your other friends to push your way up to being important and you dragged her out in front of the Beijing crowd in prostitute gear to rile me up. Now you tell me that's not an immense overreaction and I will prove you wrong. That's the point where I finally decided that maybe I should roll up my sleeves and show you who's boss Bailey.
He slips off his jacket and does so.
Michael Callahan: Because honestly Bailey? Right now, just thinking about you makes me want to smash something. But with the help of my Edgar Martinez baseball bat I can do far more than just a little breaky breaky smashy smashy. I can end your championship reign, I can end your career, Hell, I can end your very life right before your beady little eyes. When we're both released into the whirlwind of pain that is the Extreme Elimination Chamber, the championship gold is an afterthought to my main objective. Ending your career. Ruining your life the same way you ruined mine. You laid hands upon my woman, played me like a fool and propagated the lies that tore my self esteem apart and almost made me a liberal. That is inexcusable and this Sunday at One Night in Hell? I will unleash everything I have to take BOTH of us out. Our destruction is at hand. You took this situation nuclear and now I plan to annihilate you once and for all. Consider this me hitting the launch button. Good bye, Anthony Bailey.
Callahan swings the bat and smashes the camera. Static fills the screen as Callahan's haunting final warning to Anthony Bailey rings through.
Fade.
Once again, a quote far further left than Michael Callahan would ever deem appropriate but it's nonetheless one that remains applicable to Sunday's conclusion to devastating warfare that'll reshape the landscape of APW's Asylum brand forever. Careers, rivalries, lives will end within the confines of the black painted blast zone that is the Extreme Elimination Chamber and when the smoke clears, the debris settles and the crowd are radiated with excitement, shock and awe from the demolition they have just witnessed, one man will emerge from this man made disaster, shaken and scarred yet undeniably our world's heavyweight champion. Six men will compete. Only one shall survive One Night in Hell.
And yet everyone's least favourite to win Michael Callahan, thinks he has what it takes to win the whole lot. An hour ago he was standing in a state of the art gym complex in one of Tokyo's many towers after a vigorous work-out. Now having cleaned himself up and re-suited yet curiously not removed the two thick brown strips of combat camouflage face paint from underneath his eyes tired and sleep-deprived eyes he stands at the edge of the roof of this high-rise tower. Leaning against the guard rail he stares down into the blinding abyss of lights that is down town Tokyo, stupefied and amazed by the ceaseless beauty that culture and technology combined have created. It's a once in a lifetime, breath-taking view and yet Callahan can't fully appreciate it.
He has too much on his mind. Too much pent-up rage from his meltdown just an hour ago. Yet his attempt to come up here, clear his thoughts and cool off are proving ineffectual. He feels like he still has something to get off his chest and where better than a Tokyo rooftop to expel your inner anguish?
Michael Callahan: I wasn't going to film this but... sometimes when you get caught up in the moment and try and get everything out as quickly as you can you can't truly expand on the points you're aiming to make and explain properly. Ultimately when it comes down to this the Extreme Elimination Chamber, I can admire that both Phil Atken, Johnny Rebel and Keaton Saint will be very dangerous competitors that I should do everything in my power to avoid making myself vulnerable to but in all honesty, while I want nothing more than to bring home the title with me back to Kelso there are deeper, personal issues underlying that require closure. To settle things once and for all and get the closure I deserve is truly my priority inside this Extreme Elimination Chamber but having the gold in the line is more like the icing on the cake, the seal on the envelope settling matters once and for all.
Callahan's intention is very much to kill two birds with one stone. His two arch rivals, Sally Talfourd and Anthony Bailey both locked inside the chamber with him and Martinez will be the very opportunity he needs for “closure”.
Michael Callahan: Now you're probably expecting me to recite the old classics. The Callahan tradition of using my God-given freedom of speech to slander the unholy Hell out of my opponents. As I say this Jason Kash will be nodding his head like a dashboard bulldog, grunting about how I'm one of those “lying weasel politicians” and to his limited credit, he's very much correct some of the time. I'm not ashamed to say that I do get swept up into the political gears and make ample, almost abusive use of my ability in APW to say whatever I wish about my rivals. Photoshopping pictures of babies into a Sally Talfourd vacation photo at a restaurant and telling everyone that she's a cannibal with flesh for babies. Yes, it's untrue. So why do I propagate these lies instead of dealing with material fact?
Callahan leans on his baseball bat and strokes his chin pondering before turning to face the camera.
Michael Callahan: Because my penchant for the absurd lies is my attempt to connect with my audience. If I accuse Sally Talfourd of being a racist or say that Anthony Bailey is an arsonist who likes to set the homeless ablaze, it's not because I genuinely believe those assertions or am stating them as fact but because it's that kind of zealotic rubbish that encapsulates truly how strongly I despise my opponents. I hate Sally Talfourd as much as I hate racism and as much as I hate the unsolicited torture and abuse of the homeless. So I tell these lies to overexaggerate the extremes of how much I despise these people. Yet tonight is the night where any unspoken words will remain simply that, unspoken. So I will only be dealing with cold hard truth as I tell you for the final time why you should support me in slaying those rotting relics of bad lies.
With ten months of hatred spread across these two rivals it might take a little explaining for Callahan to truly sum-mate his feelings over the power couple.
Michael Callahan: I guess it's only fair given that my problems with Sally Talfourd began almost as soon as I got here that I should start with her. Ohhhhh Sally. Sally Sally Sally. How the mighty have fallen. Y'see Sally, our rivalry... if you so wish to call it that is almost epitomises the way in which social media and the internet is the catalyst for virtually every major rivalry in APW these days. Running your mouth on the internet when you're an APW megastar is almost certainly a recipe for trouble and boy did I find that out in a hurry. Now I don't care for who said what to who and what mean spirited remark from either party begun this but our mealy-mouthed petty in-fighting culminated in that famous incident. You remember the one, don't you? How can you forget?
He harkens of course back to the days of before Rasslemania with his Republican radio show. None of this TV chef nonsense but hard talking with the Suicidal Champion and it provided one of the most memorably moments in Asylum history.
Michael Callahan: Yeah that's right. On the Grill with Michael Callahan. Episode 1. The one where I berated you, humiliated you, laughed in your face in front of “your believers”, the people who still are mesmerised by your “magic” and sent you running backstage with tears streaking down your cute little face. It was perfect. The Asylum before Rasslemania, the biggest show of the year I made APW's only ever female Undisputed Champion walk out because she couldn't handle it. Why? Not because of her fragile ego but because she knew that I could get into her head and start playing some major mind games simply on the basis that I was and still am better than her. Yet she put a brave face on things and continued to take to Twitter to slander me. Tough talk from a woman who couldn't take a harmless grilling on national TV huh?
Callahan sighs and looks back down to the abyss of lights below. His heart dragged down by the heaviest matter in the universe, that of unrequited love.
Michael Callahan: And that's where things got complicated. Somewhere in the midst of my catastrophic break-up and my ceaseless bickering with you I fell for you... and boy did I fall hard. Yet after so much aggression, so much bitterness towards me you couldn't accept that perhaps my bitterness towards you was not another mind game but actually simply a mask for what I was trying to deny to myself. I was beginning to recognise you as an equal. Someone that was on the same level as me, with the same intelligence, the same skills, the same ability to mesmerise an audience. Someone... who I could walk hand in hand with to the ring and change from democracy to monarchy as we ruled as king and queen of Asylum, a true power couple the likes never seen before.
As Callahan reflects upon the heart ache he's surprised but how deep the feelings stemmed for him and as he explains this he flails his arms around theatrically.
Michael Callahan: Even as you beat me to a pulp over a pair of one hundred dollars sneakers that I accidentally ruined, and I DO retain that it was an accident, the attraction only grew and that's when you did it. That's when you finally turned around and shattered my illusion. In the middle of the ring, I tried to explain once and for all what that awful fool Johnny Sykes had prevented me from doing before the match and tell you just how I felt. Yet you couldn't handle it. Maybe you felt inferior, maybe you doubted my sincerity, but you slapped me in the face and brought me crashing back to the grave reality. You were never as good as me, I was always better than you. My broken heart just misguided me down the wrong path and yet with one slap to the face I snapped out of my funk and proved it by choking you out with the Victory Lock, a feat seldom performed in this business.
Sighing once more, Callahan takes a step away from the edge and looks over towards a chain link fence, his back towards the camera.
Michael Callahan: Things have been quiet ever since. We fought in the Defeat the Unknown tournament, a collision closer than before which I won by a narrow margin and occasionally the unwanted comment on Twitter comes my way but that battle we had at Mayhem put it behind us. Now, a world championship opportunity later and you want your final chance that you've still got what it takes. Yet you're in there with me. You've won the chamber once, you won't win it again. Lightning won't strike twice Sally and I promise you that there will be a long day in January before the scars of the suffering I am going to inflict upon you will go away. You will be torn apart in my quest for dominance.
Callahan pauses.
Michael Callahan: Now of course... I must address our dear champion. What more can be said? While I was in the doldrums of being strangely infatuated with Sally Talfourd, the seeds for our still blazing rivalry were only just being planted. I kindly offered you a place within the upcoming Traditional Restoration Initiative, a social campaign to redress attitudes towards wrestling and turn the negative aspects of Asylum around, reinvent the brand and make a lot of money during the process. You politely told me to screw off. Now I can accept rejection. I'm not petty or bitter. What I can't accept is the actions that followed. Over the months, you rampantly abused my generosity by slandering my good name on Twitter, using me as the butt of all your jokes and ultimately your cardinal sin was that you took MY rise to stardom as a self-proclaimed hero of the masses.
Jealousy is a green-eyed monster.
Michael Callahan: After your rejection of me, you escalated beyond anyone's expectations of you. You brought to an end Jason Kash's career defining title reign and by the hand of fate the most cruellest of ironies occurred, the nickname I gave you, “Asylum's Golden Boy” began trending on Twitter. You became THE WORLD, HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIOOOOON! A dynasty, unconquerable, a pop-culture role model for our youth! College educated, street smart and with a great taste for picking out jackets! All the while you're fending off challenges from Jason Kash, Shane Borderland and Sally Talfourd while I'm wrestling with Jair freaking Hopkins. So when I try and take back what's rightfully mine, what do you go and do?
Pause.
Michael Callahan: You decide to make things personal.
Callahan's mind burns with inner anguish at the memories he cooks up.
Michael Callahan: We had an agreement. You were to put that wretched hag Sally Talfourd in her place and in exchange? I'd pull some strings and get Uncle Terrence back onto the street. It was a straight forward exchange of promises and we both made good on them. You rattled Sally with a steel chair and I got your uncle released from Florida's prison system. So what do you do to repay my generosity? You slander my name, deny any responsibility for doing the right thing and then when I personally pay for your uncle to come to Singapore and watch you wrestle? You attack me. Physically accost me without mercy and if it weren't for Terrence, that brawl might not have ended without injury.
Callahan is still nursing a bit of a purple mark around his right eye where Bailey duly hit him.
Michael Callahan: Turns out that punching a man for giving his friend and punchers proud uncle tickets to a show to watch his boy compete isn't quite enough though. So you take it up to the next level and you find my ex-fiance from whatever shelter she's living in now and you use her. You used her like you've used Sally Talfourd and Jair Hopkins and all your other friends to push your way up to being important and you dragged her out in front of the Beijing crowd in prostitute gear to rile me up. Now you tell me that's not an immense overreaction and I will prove you wrong. That's the point where I finally decided that maybe I should roll up my sleeves and show you who's boss Bailey.
He slips off his jacket and does so.
Michael Callahan: Because honestly Bailey? Right now, just thinking about you makes me want to smash something. But with the help of my Edgar Martinez baseball bat I can do far more than just a little breaky breaky smashy smashy. I can end your championship reign, I can end your career, Hell, I can end your very life right before your beady little eyes. When we're both released into the whirlwind of pain that is the Extreme Elimination Chamber, the championship gold is an afterthought to my main objective. Ending your career. Ruining your life the same way you ruined mine. You laid hands upon my woman, played me like a fool and propagated the lies that tore my self esteem apart and almost made me a liberal. That is inexcusable and this Sunday at One Night in Hell? I will unleash everything I have to take BOTH of us out. Our destruction is at hand. You took this situation nuclear and now I plan to annihilate you once and for all. Consider this me hitting the launch button. Good bye, Anthony Bailey.
Callahan swings the bat and smashes the camera. Static fills the screen as Callahan's haunting final warning to Anthony Bailey rings through.
Fade.
