Post by Dean Wolf on Nov 30, 2019 5:06:55 GMT -5
Centereach High School
Centereach, NY
2000
Mark: ‘Sup, Danny?
Fuck.
They cornered Dan Dexter (Wolf) in the instrument storage room off to the side of the band room again. He had spent days practicing how to disassemble his saxophone in under 10 seconds so he could get out of there before they found him, but no matter how fast he was, they always found a way to trap him.
He stands up and can feel the presence of Mark Castellanos, Joe Fager, and Chris Swenson behind him. He turns around. Mark is stocky, with arms that look like as thick as train rails. Joe is tall, muscular, and decked out in Wu-Tang clothes. Chris is the ever present jock, dressed like he’s in an Abercrombie & Fitch ad, but with the attitude of a sadist.
Daniel: Guys, can we take a break from this today?
Mark and Chris begin surrounding Wolf while Wolf walks over near the light switch. Everybody else in the band has cleared out and there’s no sign of the band teacher, Mr. Schmidt, lurking close-by anywhere.
Mark: You know, we could, Danny, but that just wouldn’t be any fun for us, and that’s what this whole thing is really about. It’s about fun.
Daniel: Fun at my expense.
Mark: Yeah, that’s true, but in this life, some people have to be the victims and some people have to be the victimizers. You, my friend, are a victim. You’re weak, you’re scared, you’re gutless. People of your kind are meant to be taken out. It’s called...aw shit, I forget. Chris?
Chris looks at Daniel like a predator looks at its next meal.
Chris: Survival of the Fittest.
Mark: That’s right, Survival of the Fittest. Our kind, the strong kind, is fit. Your kind is not; so it’s our job to eliminate guys like you for the good of the human race.
Daniel closes his eyes and resigns himself to the fact that he’s about to get pummeled. Mark looks over at Joe and nods his head.
Joe: Lights out!
Before Daniel can call for help, Joe turns off the lights and the three start beating on him. When the lights come back on after half a minute, Wolf is found on the floor, clutching his side and covering his face. Mark, Joe, and Chris can be heard laughing as they leave the room.
Centereach, NY
November 29, 2019
Joe and Chris, newly reunited, pull up to a dilapidated house. The weeds in the yard are overgrown, there’s a mountain of junk piled up next to the garage, and the car in the driveway, a rusted, beat to shit Pontiac Grand Prix, looks like it should be taken off the road immediately.
Chris: Fuck. Look at this place. Do you remember it looking this bad?
Joe: No. I mean, his dad died not too long after high school, but you’d think that if he still lived here, he’d be the man of the house and take care of the place.
Chris: You’re serious when you say he hasn’t left this house since high school? I mean, I live with my parents, but I at least leave the house to go to work and shit.
Joe: Nope. He hasn’t seen daylight in almost 20 years.
They stare at the sad state of the property for a few more seconds.
Chris: Alright, we’re not the fucking Property Brothers. Let’s do what we came here to do.
Both men exit the care and walk up the path that’s pockmarked with broken cement. Joe, trying to recapture his glory years in his Wu-Tang hat, almost trips as he walks towards the house. They reach the porch and knock on the old metal door. A short, older Ecuadorian woman in an apron answers. Joe and Chris recognize her as Mark’s mother. She speaks through her broken English.
Mrs. Castellanos: Hello?
She looks a little nervous to see two fully grown men at her door as the sun is going down. Chris tries to appear non-threatening with a smile.
Chris: Hi, Mrs. Castellanos. I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Chris and this is Joe. We used to be friends of Mark’s back in high school.
It’s obvious that she doesn’t remember (nor is it clear if she understands what he’s saying) but she just nods her head anyway.
Chris: Is Mark home?
Mrs. Castellanos: Um, eh…
Chris: ¿Está Mark en la casa?
Mrs Castellanos: Oh, sí, sí, un momento, por favor.
She walks away.
Joe: When did you learn to speak Spanish?
Chris: You pick it up after 20 years at the car wash.
They wait another minute before she finally returns and opens the door.
Mrs. Castellanos: Todos ustedes entren, por favor.
They enter and look around. The inside of the house doesn’t look much better than the outside. Cracked walls, torn carpets, the smell of smoke and mildew.
Mrs. Castellanos: Um, uh, downstairs.
She points towards an open door with stairs leading down. It’s dark down there, but they can tell that some kind of light is flashing.
Chris: In the basement?
Mrs. Castellanos: Sí, sí.
Chris: Okay. Gracias.
Joe and Chris cautiously head down the stairs. When they reach the bottom, they see a sofa chair across the room. The light flashing in front of the chair is a television.
Chris: Mark?
For a few seconds, there is no answer, just the sounds of a soccer match on Univision.
Chris: Um, it’s Chris Swenson. And Joe Fager.
Joe: ‘Sup, Mark?
Joe also thinks that using words like “‘sup” will also bring him back to the glory days. A voice from the chair speaks.
Mark: What the fuck do you guys want?
Chris: Um, how you doin’, man?
Mark: What do you care? You guys haven’t come to visit me since 2002.
Chris: Yeah, we all seemed to have lost touch after high school.
Mark: Yeah, whatever. You haven’t answered my question.
Chris: Uh, yeah. We, uh, wanted to know if you wanted to get a little payback.
There’s a delayed response as the question intrigues Mark.
Mark: Payback on who?
Joe: Dan fucking Dexter.
Another pause. Unlike Joe, who froze with fear when Chris first uttered Wolf’s birth name, Mark tightens his grip on the arms of his chairs, digging his nails into the fabric, almost like he wanted to claw the stuffing out of the chair.
Mark: There’s a lightswitch at the bottom of the stairs. Turn it on.
Chris looks to his left and sees the switch. He flips it on.
Mark: You want to know if I want payback on Dan Dexter?
He spins the sofa chair around. Joe and Chris wince when they see the face that stares back at them, a face still suffering from the scars that Dean Wolf gave it almost gave it 20 years ago.
Mark: What the fuck do you think?
Same Day
APW Studios
San Diego, CA
This is it. The last promo before the biggest match of Dean Wolf’s career, the last chance to sell the match between himself and Smith Jones. However, what he plans on saying isn’t about selling tickets or subscriptions to Netflix. No, this is about telling Smith Jones that his attempts to end Dean Wolf’s career have fallen short and will continue to fall short. This is about showing the fans that the faith they’ve had in Dean Wolf the last five months will not be for nothing. This is to show everybody that no matter what obstacles knock you down, you can always get back up and keep fighting.
Dean Wolf stands in front of a black backdrop while sitting on a stool. He looks down. He’s in a very contemplative state, trying to concentrate on the message he wants to deliver to the man that has become his main rival over the last two months. It’s crazy. Who would have thought that these two guys, who first fought on July 1 after failing to qualify for the inaugural Junior Heavyweight Championship match the week before, would be meeting at the biggest show of the year for the World Championship? It’s funny how things work out.
Producer: Okay, places everyone!
Wolf looks up at the camera and gets himself ready.
Producer: In 5, 4, 3…
He holds up two fingers, then one, then points at Wolf.
Wolf: You know, I came into APW five months ago and I had the same goal that I’ve always had in professional wrestling: to be a world champion. It wasn’t in the cards for me when I first got here. All the attention was on Masuda Jubei and Braxton Locus.
Jesus Christ. It feels like they were here forever ago.
Anyway, those two guys were the stars when APW started. They were the two top wrestlers and they were the ones getting the shot at the World Championship. I was okay with that. I knew that I hadn’t done anything to deserve a world title shot right off the bat. I was surprised that I was in the running for a junior heavyweight title shot in my first match. My career had starts and stops all over the place. I always had the potential to be a world champion, but I never showed it. I kept fucking my career up.
So I was fine with waiting in the wings, waiting in the background until the time where I could finally claim a shot for myself. In the meantime, I did everything I could to show that I was the best in APW. I won the One Big Brawl in Atlantic City and I won the Hardcore Championship. I showed everybody that the guy they saw four years ago kicking ass at War XIV was still around and he was finally going to fill that potential he hadn’t filled before.
Since then, I’ve spent every minute here in APW proving myself more and more, trying to make my case as to why I’m the best and why I deserve to be the World Champion. I’ve put on some of the best matches that APW has showcased, especially my epic hardcore brawl with Spartan at Ascension. I’ve put my effort into every single match I’ve been in. All my sweat, all my blood, all my effort has gone into proving why I am the best. I’ve raised the profile of the hardcore division and my Hardcore Championship, a title that people thought probably was just a garbage title and would just be part of a fun sideshow. I, along with my opponents, have made hardcore must see TV. We’ve made it the reason why people come to the arenas. I have done everything I’ve had to do to get out of the background, to make people notice me and my ability to be the best.
Now, I’m finally in the position that I’ve wanted to be in my entire career: the main event of the biggest show of the year, fighting for the top prize.
And if I don’t win at Omega, if I don’t walk out of Miami as the World Champion, then everything I’ve done the last five months will have been for nothing.
I know people are going to say to me “That’s not true. Everything you’ve done has not been in vain. Look at everything you’ve accomplished. Don’t say that it’s been for nothing.”
You know, people that have that positive outlook on life, I envy them. I wish I saw the glass half full like they do, but I’m just not that way, and when it comes to my career, I’m an all or nothing person. For me, it’s win or bust.
I’m not the kind of guy to say that it’s not about the wins and losses. A lot of people in this business say that. “It’s not about the wins and losses. Are you having a good time? Are you putting on a good show for people? Are you putting on a good promo? Are you entertaining?” That’s what some people think we wrestlers should think about rather than wins and losses. Well, you know what? If it’s not about wins and losses, then why the fuck are we all here?
I tell you what, I didn’t get into this business to have a good time and collect a paycheck. If I just wanted a paycheck, I could have gotten a job at McDonald’s. If I just wanted to have a good time, I could have just stayed in my apartment and jerked off all day. I’m here because wrestling and fighting are what I do best, and when you want to be known as the best in anything, you need to achieve the top accolade. The top accolade in this business is the World Title. I’m not stupid. I’m not going to delude myself into thinking that the Hardcore Championship is the top title in APW. I’ve done everything I can to make my Hardcore Title as prestigious as I can make it and it’s done wonders for my life and career, but the truth of the matter is, it’s not the World Championship. If it was, it’d be positioned that way. There is one inch that separates the prestigiousness of the Hardcore Title and the World Title.
I’m thankful for being the Hardcore Champion, and after Omega, I will continue to defend my title with honor, no matter what happens inside Hell in a Cell against Smith Jones. I just don’t want to be the guy who’s always the supporting act, the guy who’s perennially in second place. There have been legends in the past who were known for holding a regional title in a territory, or a secondary title in a national promotion, and that was their claim to fame. They won that championship, they made it mean something, and that’s their legacy. But there’s always that question that people ask: “How come that guy never won the World Championship? Why were they always playing second fiddle to somebody else” They’re always seen as the guys that could have been great World Champions but just never were.
I don’t want to be that guy. I don’t want to be the guy that people wonder why I could never achieve the top prize in APW. I could be the APW Hardcore Champion until I retire and all I would be known for would be making the hardcore division and the Hardcore Championship great, but I could just never win the big one. For some people, that’s fine. They can live with that. I can’t. I have to be the best. I have to be known as the best. I have to be the top guy. I have to win the top prize. That’s just the way I am. That’s the way my mind has always worked since I entered professional wrestling. Second-best just will not do.
In fact, losing to me is almost like death.. Sure, I’ve lost and I’ve come back from those losses, but the feeling of losing is like something precious being taken from you. When I lost the Hardcore Title to Spartan at Alpha Showdown, there were a few days where I didn’t know if I was going to bounce back from that loss. I embarrassed myself in front of the whole world. I win the Hardcore Title in one of the biggest brawls of all time and put myself on the APW map, and 15 days later I lose it because I let ZMAC fuck my head up. Then, ZMAC tried to reel me in on social media and I took the bait and looked like an even bigger fool. I didn’t want to come back from that, but I had to because there were too many times in this business where I got frustrated and quit. I couldn’t let that happen again. Still, I never wanted to feel that way again. I’ve been running from that feeling since it happened, which is why I have done nothing but train and study tape and prepare for every match like it was in fact the main event of Omega. It’s why I haven’t lost a match since Alpha Showdown. I am not so much obsessed with winning as I am not losing.
Now, I’m in the big spot, and I’ve got the general manager of this company hoping that I embarrass myself on the biggest stage of them all. If I give her what she wants, it would be more devastating than that loss to Spartan because now I have five months worth of accomplishments rather than four weeks. I made my case as to why I should be the #1 contender for the World Title. Even Irina admitted it, as much as she wanted to deny it.
With all the momentum behind me, I’ve built up so much hope and promise. I’ve dreamed about the moment when the match ends and the ref raises my hand and I hold the World Title high in the air and it’s strapped around my waist. If I lose, that dream goes away. Everything I’ve done won’t matter. All the matches I’ve won, including the two against Smitty, won’t matter anymore. Winning the Hardcore Title- twice- won’t matter anymore. Even though I love this Hardcore Title, all the work I’ve put into making it a coveted belt won’t matter anymore.
The only thing that matters is me walking away with the World Title. If I don’t, everything I’ve done since June will have been a waste.
An alert goes off on his cell phone.
Director: Cut!
Dean Wolf: Ah, shit. Sorry, guys. I thought I silenced this fucking thing.
He pulls out his phone to turn it off but sees a notification that at first shocks him and then causes a slight smile to beam across his face. A warm feeling wells up in his chest.
Oh my God. I can’t believe it.
