A Wager Fulfilled

[Reya Serra]

A Wager Fulfilled

Patience is a virtue, not one that everyone has in an adequate abundance. Fortunately, I have always managed to keep a very generous supply of it. On more than one occasion during my wrestling career I have sat back, waiting for the appropriate time in which to strike my opponents...

This time is no different though this has been a long time coming, since late last year as a matter of fact. It has taken months of painstaking planning and negotiation by both parties, but finally the time has come.

The match that many, myself included, have been waiting for...

It has been said that good things come to those who wait. Well, the wait has come to an end.

It is time to strike.

✝

“Did you hear me, Reya?” my friend Paxar Vega questions me curiously, raising an eyebrow at me as I sit at the foot of my hotel room bed in Rome, Italy, holding my newly won Phoenix Wrestling International Championship in my hands. “Reya!”

The volume of the shout jolts me from my thoughts, turning my attention towards her. “No, I am sorry, Paxar,” I reply to her apologetically. “I must still be a bit tired after my match at Under The Colosseum Lights. Could you please repeat what you had said?”

Furrowing her brow at me slightly, Paxar repeats herself. “Well, as I said when you weren’t listening, I just got off the phone with President Jeff from APW. Your Survive and Conquer wager match with C.J. Gates is finally on for this upcoming Overdrive in Raleigh, North Carolina.”

“That is most excellent news,” I declare, smiling brightly at her. “Facing him again is something that I have been looking forward to for quite a long time now.”

“I don’t like the idea of you stepping onto his turf to take him on,” Paxar states worriedly. “This is going to be on APW Overdrive. That’s his yard, Reya...and C.J.’s one of the top dogs in that yard. Who knows what shenanigans C.J. could have in store for you on Overdrive...”

“The location of our re-match was one of the terms of our wager we made for Survive and Conquer,” I remind her politely. “Had I been on the winning side of the wager, the two of us would have faced on neutral ground. Instead, Mister Gates was victorious and so was able to decide where this match would take place. I am simply glad that I will finally have the opportunity to face C.J. Gates once more, even if it must be in the federation he calls home. Many others have come and gone without being given such an opportunity. As for shenanigans you spoke of, I am one hundred percent certain there will be none. C.J. Gates is not one to resort to such underhanded tactics. No, it shall be a fairly contested match between two respectful competitors in Mister Gates and myself and I will prove...”

“Prove what, Reya?” Paxar questions, interrupting me as she points at the title in my hands. “You just beat a man in Juan Ramirez who had nearly a year long title reign to win the PW International Title at Under The Colosseum Lights. You’ve beaten the likes of your good friend Adrien Specter and APW stars such as Sally Talfourd. Shoot, you have even beaten C.J. Gates before...”

“Though C.J. was a part of that match in Visionary Wrestling, he was not the man that I pinned to win that match...Hugo Strange was. The one time I did face C.J. one on one in the Championship Wrestling Council Ascension Tournament he defeated me,” I tell her somberly. “This is a chance to prove to everyone that winning that match five person match was no fluke, that I can step into the ring one on one with one of the faces of Action Packed Wrestling in his house and defeat him, to show that I belong in the same conversation with the likes of Mister Gates, Terry Marvin, Level-One, and others in terms of being an elite competitor...”

“My point is that you don’t have to prove that you’re elite to anyone anymore, Reya,” Paxar declares strongly. “The world’s seen you beat Specter...they’ve seen you beat SalTal...and they just got through seeing you beat the Golden Boy and become PW International Champion. They’ve seen you take on the likes of Legacy, Matt Slater, Rowyn Starr, Ja Gi Kyung-Moon, Aurora Jansen and several others...they’ve seen you stand toe to toe with all of them and give your best, never backing down.”

Pausing momentarily, Paxar takes a deep breath, staring deeply into my crystal blue eyes. “You are an elite competitor, Reya Serra Janason. I know it, C.J. Gates knows it, and so does everyone watching you compete. Stop trying to prove what we already know. Have faith in yourself and your abilities and just do what you do best. Bring your A game like you always do, put on a five star match with C.J. Gates that you both can be proud of and walk out of Overdrive with your hand raised in victory like we all know you can.”

✝

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.”

-- Eleanor Roosevelt

✝

There are few people in this business whom I truly respect, so few in fact that I could probably count them all on one hand.

C.J. Gates is one of those people.

Why? Because he goes out each and every match and leaves everything he has on that canvas. He pours every bit of his heart into those matches, no matter who the opponent may be.

Being a man of wealthy means, Mister Gates has had his fair share of opportunities throughout his life to take the easy way out, to take shortcuts to get whatever he has desired...he has not done so, not even once to my recollection.

Sure, he potentially could have bribed any and all of the participants in the recent Test For The Best Tournament, giving each of them riches possibly beyond their wildest dreams. Instead, he chose to fight his way through.

He wanted to earn it.

C.J. wanted to earn that tournament victory, just as he had earned his victory in that same tournament two years prior...just as he earned his Action Packed Wrestling Undisputed Championship reign and all of the other accolades that have been bestowed upon him over the last several years. Unfortunately for him, he was unable to win the Test For The Best Tournament this year but nobody can take away from the fact that his second place finish was legitimate.

Time and time again, C.J. Gates shows the world that he is a tremendous athlete, skilled in ways that even his vast amount of money could not buy. For me, the fact that I am going to be stepping into the ring with him in his home federation of Action Packed Wrestling on the show in which he has been one of its pinnacles in Overdrive...it is more than just fulfilling a wager we had made, it is more than me once again showing that I belong in the ring in his elite company, it is more than a privilege...

It is an honor.

As my esteemed opponent Mister Gates is so fond of saying, it is time to go big...or go home.

Win or lose on Overdrive, I shall be going back home regardless. Therefore, I suppose I will attempt to do the only other thing that I can possibly do...

Go big.

✝

“Go big or go home. Because it’s true. What do you have to lose?”

-- Eliza Dushu