PROMO: Home Truths

[Toxxic 0]

“Mike?”

 

Toxxic starts for half a second, then relaxes. Christ, Michael Stephens thinks, I’m forgetting my own name. I’ve been so used to that name meaning Mike Van Siclen... Grinning slightly ruefully he turns back to his girlfriend who is, as is her habit, rewatching the last SWF show on the big plasma-screen TV that adorns the wall of Toxxic’s Sacremento living room.

 

“You know, you watch more of that stuff than I do,” Toxxic tells her, “and everyone in the dressing room knows I’m a vid-head.”

 

“Hey, you get to wrestle it,” Jet - Naomi - tells him. “I just get to watch it. Mind you,” she smiles up at him, “I’m learning from the best.”

 

“You’re too kind,” Toxxic grins back. Jet shoves him playfully.

 

“Wind your ego down, lover boy,” she tells the Brit, “I don’t just mean you.” She presses pause, and the frame freezes with Andrea Montgomery posing with the Holy Pin atop Toxxic’s chest.

 

“Why do you do this?”

 

The question comes from out of the blue, and completely surprises Toxxic. He looks at his girlfriend, ready to make a joking remark... but the look on Jet’s face is inquisitive but serious. His own face must have shown some of his bewilderment at the sudden question, so Jet decides to elaborate.

 

“Spike does it because he loves wrestling and he likes the idea of being a champion,” she tells him. “Sean, as far as I can tell, does it because it’s a way to make big money, the SWF doesn’t bother as much about past offences as the NFL does and,” she smiles wryly, managing to keep all but the faintest hint of irony out of her voice, “there’s a long and glorious history of ex-football players becoming wrestlers.”

 

“Bad wrestlers,” Toxxic points out. Jet shrugs.

 

“So he breaks the mould. That’s still why he does it. I’m in training because quite frankly I can think of nothing more fun that several thousand men shouting my name in unison.” Another grin, showing that statement wasn’t entirely serious. “Plus that fact that from my experience it’s one of the most exciting and fun things you can ever do.” The grin fades slightly as she looks up at him again.

 

“But you know, we’ve been together for what, five months now?” she points out, “and while I know that you’re very good at wrestling, and I know enough about what you do to steal some of your tricks for when I get called up, I still don’t know why you’re doing this. I mean, is it really what you throw around in the SWF? ‘Prepare to be proved wrong’?”

 

Toxxic pauses to think for a minute. For anyone else he’d have fired off a quick answer, some snappy but weighted affirmative that would shut the questioner up and carry just enough menace to make sure they didn’t question further. But for his girlfriend, he wants to be honest.

 

And yet, as he considers things from all sides, things that he hasn’t really addressed during his meteoric rise over the last eight months, he finds that the simple answer really is the correct one.

 

“Yes,” he tells her simply. “It’s that.”

 

“So what happens when you can’t do it anymore?” Jet asks him directly. “If Spike had to retire tomorrow he’d know that he was SWF Cruiserweight and Tag Champion, and at least had people reacting to him in his time here even if they didn’t love him. Sean’s been making the money with his titles, and if he keeps it up at this pace he’s got loads more success ahead. But... Mike, if everything you’re in this for is about you and continuing to prove everyone wrong now, then everything you’ve achieved in the past can’t mean anything.”

 

“Maybe,” Toxxic says. “Maybe. But whether or not you’re right, I’m only 21. I’ve got a long time of being able to do this.”

 

Jet just looks at him for a second.

 

“Do you think that’s what keeps going through Kibagami’s mind?” she asks quietly. “Why he keeps coming back into his thirties, with God knows what injuries behind him? Because he can’t stand the thought of anyone being better than him now, despite all he’s achieved in the past?”

 

Toxxic just stares at her.

 

“Mike, you’re an arrogant, obnoxious, abrasive bastard but I know at least some of it is an act, and I’ve had a blast with you,” Jet tells him. “But I swear to you, if you ever turn into anything like Nathaniel Kibagami you won’t see me for dust.”

 

“And what makes you think that might happen?” Toxxic asks softly. It takes a lot to shake the straight-edger, but his girlfriend has just managed it.

 

“All the things I’ve just said,” Jet shrugs. “Besides, I’ve never seen you like you were against Andrea on Wednesday. The hair-pulling, the headbutts, the guardrail... you’re were pretty damn violent.”

 

“I got a bit frustrated,” Toxxic says, slightly defensively. “It’s not like she was badly hurt afterwards or anything. Anyway,” he continues, “if the main reason you’re doing this is because it’s fun, then when will you stop?”

 

“When it stops being fun,” Jet says, smiling again. “Just like with everything else.”

 

“Well... OK,” Toxxic says, leaving the living room. “And here’s a promise - I will never turn into Kibagami.”

 

Jet watches him go thoughtfully, then presses Play and watches Andrea Montgomery vault up off her boyfriend’s chest and hit a standing Shooting Star Press on the World Champion.

 

“God, that’s so cool...” she whispers, settling further back into her seat.

[janusd 0]

That quote about 'he who fights monsters should see that he himself does not become a monster' comes to mind. Fucked if I can remember it though.

 

Showing the worry~ they have, and rightly so, over the nature of what makes Nathaniel Kibagami tick. And until you start doping up on painkillers and no-selling everything, you'll never be him.

[Guest Horse hockey!]

That quote about 'he who fights monsters should see that he himself does not become a monster' comes to mind. Fucked if I can remember it though.

Nietzsche

 

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

 

and

 

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he doesn't become a monster.

 

Both from Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146