Post by The Corinthian on Oct 3, 2009 1:13:04 GMT -4
¤Holtz sits in a gym. Lockers stand empty; the lights are street lights and the setting sun. If he were working out, it was not in the immediate past, as he is dressed in his street gear. His workout gear is, perhaps, put away in the rather stuffed looking duffel bag to his right¤
Holtz: I could, perhaps, rant and rail at the masked man that attacked me.
¤He reaches over and unzips his bag and starts rifling through it¤
Holtz: But, if my experience with mysterious masked men has taught me anything, it’s that I’ll have more opportunities to talk about him in the future. I could talk about Connor O’Shea.
¤He simply laughs and shakes his head¤
Holtz: No. Anything I have to say to Connor I can say with my hands. No, I think I’ll talk about something that, honestly, some people might be surprised I want to talk about.
¤He shoves some things in the bag aside and tosses a title belt onto the floor in front of him¤
Holtz: The AWA heavyweight championship. Oh, no, this isn’t it.
¤He taps the title belt with the tip of his shoe¤
Holtz: This is some indie title.
¤He tosses another belt onto the floor¤
Holtz: Same with this one…
¤He tosses another belt¤
Holtz: …this one…
¤He continues tossing belts onto the floor¤
Holtz: …all of these. I was not dissuaded from my ideals just from my defeat in CWA. See, my actions in the very English pro wrestling promotion hadn’t quite reached all the stateside promotions quite yet. I tore through as many promotions as I could, taking world title after world title, and leaving. Now, at this point I’m sure many of you are groaning. “Oh, lord, is he going to do the saaaaame thing he tried to do last time we saw him?”
¤By now he has stopped throwing title belts onto the floor. He now has a small black bag in his hand, jangling with a metallic rattle when shaken¤
Holtz: No. See, a realization came to me in the middle of one of my speeches about why I was doing what I was doing.
¤He reaches into the bag and pulls out a handful of name plates and throws them onto the pile of title belts¤
Holtz: I was doing what I was doing because of what these things, these…championships are. Useless. Meaningless. People imbue them with this ideal of making someone the best, and I never understood why they couldn’t see what I could see. Why couldn’t they understand that some molded metal on a strip of leather had NO bearing on anything? And then I realized something. No, I didn’t realize I was wrong in my ideal. I realized I was going about it the wrong way.
¤He picks up a random title belt and holds it up¤
Holtz: If I was the only one who could see how meaningless this thing is, then it was up to me to MAKE it mean something. Take the belt, and make the championship live up to my ideals.
¤He throws the belt back down¤
Holtz: See, now that I’ve been in the professional scene for a few years, I can see just how bad everything’s gotten. All this gimmickry, the silly sets of rules, all this concentration on “professional wrestling” has watered down the whole sport, so that the “professional” part is in giant, bold, gaudy letters to the point that nobody can see the goddamn wrestling.
¤He starts to laugh¤
Holtz: And how appropriate that my first match back is in that…joke of a match. Two rings, a cage, weapons…that isn’t a match. That’s a geek show. You may as well make it three rings and expose it all for exactly what it is. But that’s soon to be over. Starting with O’Shea, I’m going to show this place what a wrestler is supposed to be. Not a professional wrestler…a wrestler.
Holtz: I could, perhaps, rant and rail at the masked man that attacked me.
¤He reaches over and unzips his bag and starts rifling through it¤
Holtz: But, if my experience with mysterious masked men has taught me anything, it’s that I’ll have more opportunities to talk about him in the future. I could talk about Connor O’Shea.
¤He simply laughs and shakes his head¤
Holtz: No. Anything I have to say to Connor I can say with my hands. No, I think I’ll talk about something that, honestly, some people might be surprised I want to talk about.
¤He shoves some things in the bag aside and tosses a title belt onto the floor in front of him¤
Holtz: The AWA heavyweight championship. Oh, no, this isn’t it.
¤He taps the title belt with the tip of his shoe¤
Holtz: This is some indie title.
¤He tosses another belt onto the floor¤
Holtz: Same with this one…
¤He tosses another belt¤
Holtz: …this one…
¤He continues tossing belts onto the floor¤
Holtz: …all of these. I was not dissuaded from my ideals just from my defeat in CWA. See, my actions in the very English pro wrestling promotion hadn’t quite reached all the stateside promotions quite yet. I tore through as many promotions as I could, taking world title after world title, and leaving. Now, at this point I’m sure many of you are groaning. “Oh, lord, is he going to do the saaaaame thing he tried to do last time we saw him?”
¤By now he has stopped throwing title belts onto the floor. He now has a small black bag in his hand, jangling with a metallic rattle when shaken¤
Holtz: No. See, a realization came to me in the middle of one of my speeches about why I was doing what I was doing.
¤He reaches into the bag and pulls out a handful of name plates and throws them onto the pile of title belts¤
Holtz: I was doing what I was doing because of what these things, these…championships are. Useless. Meaningless. People imbue them with this ideal of making someone the best, and I never understood why they couldn’t see what I could see. Why couldn’t they understand that some molded metal on a strip of leather had NO bearing on anything? And then I realized something. No, I didn’t realize I was wrong in my ideal. I realized I was going about it the wrong way.
¤He picks up a random title belt and holds it up¤
Holtz: If I was the only one who could see how meaningless this thing is, then it was up to me to MAKE it mean something. Take the belt, and make the championship live up to my ideals.
¤He throws the belt back down¤
Holtz: See, now that I’ve been in the professional scene for a few years, I can see just how bad everything’s gotten. All this gimmickry, the silly sets of rules, all this concentration on “professional wrestling” has watered down the whole sport, so that the “professional” part is in giant, bold, gaudy letters to the point that nobody can see the goddamn wrestling.
¤He starts to laugh¤
Holtz: And how appropriate that my first match back is in that…joke of a match. Two rings, a cage, weapons…that isn’t a match. That’s a geek show. You may as well make it three rings and expose it all for exactly what it is. But that’s soon to be over. Starting with O’Shea, I’m going to show this place what a wrestler is supposed to be. Not a professional wrestler…a wrestler.
