Post by america on Jun 21, 2020 22:04:58 GMT -5
“Don’t mourn for him, son. The devil got him.”
My daddy always told me that we owe what we have to god above all else.
He made the world around us and we should treasure the gift we were given. He told me that above all else, we must be righteous for it is unto the hands of the righteous that the Kingdom of Earth will be returned on the day Christ comes back for us.
I’m a lot of things.
I been a farmboy.
I been a wrestling champ.
I been a mixed martial artist.
I been a professional wrestler.
Every last bit of it comes second to the fact that I am a loyal servant of god.
So tell me.
What am I to do when faced in the ring by a couple’a devils?
America was snooping.
He knew he shouldn’t. His daddy told him all the time that all that curiosity would get him in trouble. Had a whole bit about dead cats. Callie James told him that was out of context. That the cats came back ‘cuz of satisfaction and his dad was an idiot. America pulled Callie James’ pigtails until she let a tear sputtered apology out from her lips. Ain’t no one who could call his dad stupid. He didn’t hit her though. God didn’t like it when you hit a lady. Daddy said so.
Harrison James was in the driveway again. He’d been in the driveway a lot lately. His son Ethan recovered from the beating America gave him just fine, but the James family couldn’t seem to let it go. That suited America just fine. He wasn’t much for thinking, but if they wanted to fight, he could fight until the sun went down on the Texas sky. He’d keep fighting through blood and grit until he couldn’t stand anymore if he had to. He’d keep fighting until there was nobody left to fight.
His daddy was a fighter too.
Every day he fought with Harrison James in the driveway. He didn’t use his fists. He told America that once he got bigger, you couldn’t use your fists to fight anymore. That cowards didn’t have the spine to settle it like men. That laws meant throwin’ hands could get you thrown away. America didn’t understand why they had to obey any laws but god. When he told his daddy that, he got a gentle smile. ‘I couldn’t say myself.’ his daddy would say and buy him an ice cream.
Talking about his childhood years later with a friend in college, America would be told his childhood was an anachronism. That his upbringing had no place in a modern America. That it wasn’t civilized. America just laughed when they said that. ‘What’s civilization anyway, but a bunch ‘a men walkin’ round pretending to be anything else?’ he’d said. It didn’t fly as well with his freshman philosophy professor who failed him in the course in the end, but Matt O’Connell nodded like it was something profound as he took another deep hit from the bong.
Harrison James wanted to take America’s family farm. That’s what daddy said when America asked what they were fightin’ about. He’d heard them yelling ‘bout loans and collateral but America knew those were just weasel words. He knew that the James family would do anything it took, use any of the coward’s laws to take what America’s family broke the skin on their hands for. They were cowards and the only recourse of a coward is the rules.
America heard it before he saw it.
The gunshot.
He saw Harrison James drop to the ground in a mess of blood and flesh.
Empty.
His daddy dropped the shotgun. America could hear the sound of boots climbing the front steps. Heard his daddy on the phone. ‘Hello yes. I…I was attacked…I need police and an ambulance…’ The words got fuzzier and fuzzier, like they were far away. America looked at the body of Harrison James. He looked into eyes devoid now of any soul or life behind them. He thought of the livestock. He thought of Callie.
Then he felt the bile rise in his guts and America vomited into the bushes behind the house.
This place is a fucking wasteland.
Riley Denton here to give you an update.
APW is populated by the dumbest motherfuckers alive.
I have to be honest here, I thought this would be harder. I made a whole manifesto, ready for a weeks long campaign to get each and every title shot signed, sealed, and approved. I expected nothing but cowardice in the face of greatness beyond your wildest imaginings. If I’d known all it would take is prodding the thin-skinned champion on social media, I’d have taken a longer weekend.
I’ll throw it out there.
Steven Osbourne. Man Made Gods.
If you’re as fucking stupid as your vulture of a world champion, step up to have your titles taken.
Zaigon Carter will happily provide a red carpet to your defeat.
…
I’ll let you simmer on that.
In the meantime, let’s see what we have this week. Mr. Carter has to deal with the very fool who signed away his title over ego and a man who hasn’t outgrown his obsession with 300. Spectacular, really. I trust that even after receiving his lashes, my employer will have these well in hand. Meanwhile America is faced with a triple threat scenario of his own.
The rat daughter of a cult and the coward who held the world title here and squandered it.
Excellent.
I will have you know Jubei, I don’t believe in fairy tales. There has only been one man to die and come back to life and I assure you, you aren’t in his league. No, I look at you and I see someone who was afraid. You were afraid you couldn’t hold onto your precious championship. Afraid that you’d end up losing it and become just a footnote in history. Admittedly, faking your death is a creative solution to the problem. It might even have worked. The man who only death could defeat is a hell of a line, after all. But you just couldn’t leave it alone.
It gnawed at you that you were known more as a tragedy than a wrestler. That your little ruse defined your legacy more than your reign did. You had to come back. You had to show them that it wasn’t a fluke. That you deserved the accolades which rang in your head. That you could have defended that belt until the end of the world. That you were a deserving champion.
Yet here you are, having accomplished none of your previous glory.
Because everything you feared was true.
You couldn’t hang with the newer talent coming for you.
You couldn’t handle the target on your back.
You were never good enough.
You destroyed what legacy you had because your ego outpaced your cowardice.
You take so many measures to make yourself seem powerful and terrifying. “The Master” ooooooh. Black on black on black with a blackout entrance. Maybe that makes you the terror of the Japanese bar scene, but here in America you’re just a crusty old fucker who looks like he just discovered My Chemical Romance.
Whatever power you may think you have, it doesn’t apply to my client. He bows to only one resurrection act and I promise you, you don’t have shit on that. He’s going to beat you pillar to post until he breaks whatever illusions you still have about yourself. And when he’s done?
You’ll wish you stayed dead.
The ambulance had come and gone. They took Harrison James’ corpse with them. Police hung around and looked over the scene. America’s daddy told them a story. He gave them a story about a man who had been getting increasingly volatile with him over some money. A man who hit him just last week in anger. A man who threatened his family. A man who came to his house, walked right toward him with blood in his eyes threatening his own wife and son. He did what any man would do. He defended his family.
Police found a handgun on Harrison. Licensed and registered. It hadn’t been taken out, but America’s daddy insisted that he saw Harrison reaching for it. The police noted everything down. They gave America’s daddy a firm but polite notice not to leave town. He smiled back at them. ‘This is my home. I ain’t goin’ anywhere.’ America saw the officer smile back at that. Texas loved Texas.
The police left. The silence remained.
“Daddy…why’d you kill Mr. James?” America asked. His voice was uncharacteristically soft, yet it cut through the silence like a siren. “I know he didn’t reach. You lied to that policeman. I saw him. You were just havin’ an adult fight and then…”
“Aw, shit.” America’s daddy said. He knelt down and put his hands onto America’s shoulders. America felt himself crying but he didn’t know when he started or why. “Now look America. That man…he wasn’t Mr. James no more, you feel me? He’d let all that greed build up inside him and give him dangerous ideas. Socialist ideas, you understand? He tol’ me that if I didn’t keep giving him more and more money, he’d call me in and have the summer labour taken away. He wanted to steal from us until we worked ourselves to death to feed’m. He wasn’t a good man no more. Wasn’t a man of god. Don’t mourn for him son. The devil got him. I just sent him where he belongs.”
“But now…but now the police are gonna come…they’re gonna take you…” America could feel himself falling apart. It was like his whole work was crumbling around him.
“Shhhhh. Come on now. No one’s gonna take me nowhere boy. This is my land.” his daddy said. “I ain’t got to fear the laws of nobody but God. When the day comes that I pass from this Earth, he’ll take me up and hold me in his judgment until the Rapture. I trust in my heart that He’ll see that I lived a good life as a good man, just like I trust that He’ll see the same in you. As long as I know I got God’s love on my side, I ain’t got nothin’ to fear from those pinko sons’ve bitches. You hear me?”
“I’m scared daddy.” America said, his voice trembling as he cried fully. His daddy pulled him close to his chest in a tight but gentle hug.
“Don’t be scared, son.” his daddy said. “Trust in God.”
Sarah Lacklan.
We’ve already covered last week that my client doesn’t underestimate the competition provided by women in this business. In competition, as in life, America Jackson is a prime women-respecter and as such he has assured me that he will beat your ass with no greater or lesser fervor than he has male opponents. I can promise you that there will be no excuses, nor quarter on his performance.
With that out of the way, I want to talk about your background but honestly, you’re just a less impressive inverse of Jubei. Coming from a wrestling family, claiming second generation status like it means something. You walk in here riding the coattails of your blood, showing an ego that your 66% win record shouldn’t allow you. Your unearned hubris does a decent enough job in hiding the cracks, but I can see the weakness behind it.
You hype being second generation because if you were first gen, no one would give a shit.
There’s nothing about you that matters.
A mediocre win record.
The vlogger energy of a random TikTok thot.
The inability to outgrow your family’s shadow.
Sure, you’ve been places and won titles, but what’s your legacy really? You move from place to place and build yourself up and move on again when you fail to deliver on your hopes. You’re a rose left in a tomb, longing for the light while getting nothing but shadow. You’ve managed some growth, I’ll grant you that. I’d give you an ‘A’ for effort, but 66% is more like a ‘C’ presentation.
You don’t know who you are at the heart of it.
SexyFang.
Mafia.
Cultist.
Legacy.
You clutch these terms and hold them close to you as though proximity to high concepts will give you an identity. But it’s a broken pattern, torn and frayed. You have nothing at the center and in the end that’s why you’ll lose. Because you think that fight is all you need to bring to the fight.
America Jackson fights with conviction.
He fights because he knows who he is.
He fights because that IS who he is.
So tell me this, you pathetic little poser.
Who the fuck are you to stand against him?
America spat dirt from his mouth.
He’d been blindsided. Cold cocked by the little devil bastard, Micah. Apparently the busted ribs only taught him to attack from behind. America took a defensive curl to prevent the kicks from getting too deep on him. He heard him sobbing. ‘Your daddy killed my daddy’ wailed over and over as his kicks ran sloppier and looser. America saw his opening and hooked the heel, pushing up and deep before slamming him hard on the dirt. He laid into the devil bastard with right hands. Blood for blood. The bastard tried to swing back, so America put his leg over the left arm and clutched the right.
“My daddy killed your daddy.” America affirmed. “And if you ever come for mine again, I’ll kill you too.”
America felt the right arm break. He didn’t hear it over the screaming. Teachers came and pulled him off, but it didn’t matter. He’d done the work he needed to do. America looked down and saw the blood on his knuckles, but he didn’t think anything of it.
God’s hands stayed clean.
I want to give y’all a chance.
Surrender.
Walk into the ring, lie down, and accept defeat peacefully.
You’ve worshipped false gods. Bowed at the altar of evil men who would have you think that there’s a savior in this world besides our lord Jesus Christ. Mocked the resurrection out of greed and cowardice. You are sinners of the highest order and I have a duty above that as a competitor to fight evil when I come upon it.
But Jesus forgives.
Jesus saves.
I want to give you a chance to be saved.
Because if you don’t surrender…
If you think I can accept devils in my ring.
I will break you.
I will break your ego.
I will break your cowardice.
I will break you body and soul.
I don’t wanna have to do that.
I’m a fighter, yeah. I love me a good fight.
This won’t be a fight.
This’ll be a war.
This’ll be the whole ring crew scrubbin’ your blood from the mat after the show.
I’m a child of God in my soul.
I’m an American in my blood.
When I go to war, I WILL NOT BE STOPPED.
I WILL NOT HESISTATE.
I WILL NOT YIELD.
Surrender.
Or be broken.
Only chance.
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in
sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves.
Matthew 7:15
My daddy always told me that we owe what we have to god above all else.
He made the world around us and we should treasure the gift we were given. He told me that above all else, we must be righteous for it is unto the hands of the righteous that the Kingdom of Earth will be returned on the day Christ comes back for us.
I’m a lot of things.
I been a farmboy.
I been a wrestling champ.
I been a mixed martial artist.
I been a professional wrestler.
Every last bit of it comes second to the fact that I am a loyal servant of god.
So tell me.
What am I to do when faced in the ring by a couple’a devils?
America was snooping.
He knew he shouldn’t. His daddy told him all the time that all that curiosity would get him in trouble. Had a whole bit about dead cats. Callie James told him that was out of context. That the cats came back ‘cuz of satisfaction and his dad was an idiot. America pulled Callie James’ pigtails until she let a tear sputtered apology out from her lips. Ain’t no one who could call his dad stupid. He didn’t hit her though. God didn’t like it when you hit a lady. Daddy said so.
Harrison James was in the driveway again. He’d been in the driveway a lot lately. His son Ethan recovered from the beating America gave him just fine, but the James family couldn’t seem to let it go. That suited America just fine. He wasn’t much for thinking, but if they wanted to fight, he could fight until the sun went down on the Texas sky. He’d keep fighting through blood and grit until he couldn’t stand anymore if he had to. He’d keep fighting until there was nobody left to fight.
His daddy was a fighter too.
Every day he fought with Harrison James in the driveway. He didn’t use his fists. He told America that once he got bigger, you couldn’t use your fists to fight anymore. That cowards didn’t have the spine to settle it like men. That laws meant throwin’ hands could get you thrown away. America didn’t understand why they had to obey any laws but god. When he told his daddy that, he got a gentle smile. ‘I couldn’t say myself.’ his daddy would say and buy him an ice cream.
Talking about his childhood years later with a friend in college, America would be told his childhood was an anachronism. That his upbringing had no place in a modern America. That it wasn’t civilized. America just laughed when they said that. ‘What’s civilization anyway, but a bunch ‘a men walkin’ round pretending to be anything else?’ he’d said. It didn’t fly as well with his freshman philosophy professor who failed him in the course in the end, but Matt O’Connell nodded like it was something profound as he took another deep hit from the bong.
Harrison James wanted to take America’s family farm. That’s what daddy said when America asked what they were fightin’ about. He’d heard them yelling ‘bout loans and collateral but America knew those were just weasel words. He knew that the James family would do anything it took, use any of the coward’s laws to take what America’s family broke the skin on their hands for. They were cowards and the only recourse of a coward is the rules.
America heard it before he saw it.
The gunshot.
He saw Harrison James drop to the ground in a mess of blood and flesh.
Empty.
His daddy dropped the shotgun. America could hear the sound of boots climbing the front steps. Heard his daddy on the phone. ‘Hello yes. I…I was attacked…I need police and an ambulance…’ The words got fuzzier and fuzzier, like they were far away. America looked at the body of Harrison James. He looked into eyes devoid now of any soul or life behind them. He thought of the livestock. He thought of Callie.
Then he felt the bile rise in his guts and America vomited into the bushes behind the house.
This place is a fucking wasteland.
Riley Denton here to give you an update.
APW is populated by the dumbest motherfuckers alive.
I have to be honest here, I thought this would be harder. I made a whole manifesto, ready for a weeks long campaign to get each and every title shot signed, sealed, and approved. I expected nothing but cowardice in the face of greatness beyond your wildest imaginings. If I’d known all it would take is prodding the thin-skinned champion on social media, I’d have taken a longer weekend.
I’ll throw it out there.
Steven Osbourne. Man Made Gods.
If you’re as fucking stupid as your vulture of a world champion, step up to have your titles taken.
Zaigon Carter will happily provide a red carpet to your defeat.
…
I’ll let you simmer on that.
In the meantime, let’s see what we have this week. Mr. Carter has to deal with the very fool who signed away his title over ego and a man who hasn’t outgrown his obsession with 300. Spectacular, really. I trust that even after receiving his lashes, my employer will have these well in hand. Meanwhile America is faced with a triple threat scenario of his own.
The rat daughter of a cult and the coward who held the world title here and squandered it.
Excellent.
I will have you know Jubei, I don’t believe in fairy tales. There has only been one man to die and come back to life and I assure you, you aren’t in his league. No, I look at you and I see someone who was afraid. You were afraid you couldn’t hold onto your precious championship. Afraid that you’d end up losing it and become just a footnote in history. Admittedly, faking your death is a creative solution to the problem. It might even have worked. The man who only death could defeat is a hell of a line, after all. But you just couldn’t leave it alone.
It gnawed at you that you were known more as a tragedy than a wrestler. That your little ruse defined your legacy more than your reign did. You had to come back. You had to show them that it wasn’t a fluke. That you deserved the accolades which rang in your head. That you could have defended that belt until the end of the world. That you were a deserving champion.
Yet here you are, having accomplished none of your previous glory.
Because everything you feared was true.
You couldn’t hang with the newer talent coming for you.
You couldn’t handle the target on your back.
You were never good enough.
You destroyed what legacy you had because your ego outpaced your cowardice.
You take so many measures to make yourself seem powerful and terrifying. “The Master” ooooooh. Black on black on black with a blackout entrance. Maybe that makes you the terror of the Japanese bar scene, but here in America you’re just a crusty old fucker who looks like he just discovered My Chemical Romance.
Whatever power you may think you have, it doesn’t apply to my client. He bows to only one resurrection act and I promise you, you don’t have shit on that. He’s going to beat you pillar to post until he breaks whatever illusions you still have about yourself. And when he’s done?
You’ll wish you stayed dead.
The ambulance had come and gone. They took Harrison James’ corpse with them. Police hung around and looked over the scene. America’s daddy told them a story. He gave them a story about a man who had been getting increasingly volatile with him over some money. A man who hit him just last week in anger. A man who threatened his family. A man who came to his house, walked right toward him with blood in his eyes threatening his own wife and son. He did what any man would do. He defended his family.
Police found a handgun on Harrison. Licensed and registered. It hadn’t been taken out, but America’s daddy insisted that he saw Harrison reaching for it. The police noted everything down. They gave America’s daddy a firm but polite notice not to leave town. He smiled back at them. ‘This is my home. I ain’t goin’ anywhere.’ America saw the officer smile back at that. Texas loved Texas.
The police left. The silence remained.
“Daddy…why’d you kill Mr. James?” America asked. His voice was uncharacteristically soft, yet it cut through the silence like a siren. “I know he didn’t reach. You lied to that policeman. I saw him. You were just havin’ an adult fight and then…”
“Aw, shit.” America’s daddy said. He knelt down and put his hands onto America’s shoulders. America felt himself crying but he didn’t know when he started or why. “Now look America. That man…he wasn’t Mr. James no more, you feel me? He’d let all that greed build up inside him and give him dangerous ideas. Socialist ideas, you understand? He tol’ me that if I didn’t keep giving him more and more money, he’d call me in and have the summer labour taken away. He wanted to steal from us until we worked ourselves to death to feed’m. He wasn’t a good man no more. Wasn’t a man of god. Don’t mourn for him son. The devil got him. I just sent him where he belongs.”
“But now…but now the police are gonna come…they’re gonna take you…” America could feel himself falling apart. It was like his whole work was crumbling around him.
“Shhhhh. Come on now. No one’s gonna take me nowhere boy. This is my land.” his daddy said. “I ain’t got to fear the laws of nobody but God. When the day comes that I pass from this Earth, he’ll take me up and hold me in his judgment until the Rapture. I trust in my heart that He’ll see that I lived a good life as a good man, just like I trust that He’ll see the same in you. As long as I know I got God’s love on my side, I ain’t got nothin’ to fear from those pinko sons’ve bitches. You hear me?”
“I’m scared daddy.” America said, his voice trembling as he cried fully. His daddy pulled him close to his chest in a tight but gentle hug.
“Don’t be scared, son.” his daddy said. “Trust in God.”
Sarah Lacklan.
We’ve already covered last week that my client doesn’t underestimate the competition provided by women in this business. In competition, as in life, America Jackson is a prime women-respecter and as such he has assured me that he will beat your ass with no greater or lesser fervor than he has male opponents. I can promise you that there will be no excuses, nor quarter on his performance.
With that out of the way, I want to talk about your background but honestly, you’re just a less impressive inverse of Jubei. Coming from a wrestling family, claiming second generation status like it means something. You walk in here riding the coattails of your blood, showing an ego that your 66% win record shouldn’t allow you. Your unearned hubris does a decent enough job in hiding the cracks, but I can see the weakness behind it.
You hype being second generation because if you were first gen, no one would give a shit.
There’s nothing about you that matters.
A mediocre win record.
The vlogger energy of a random TikTok thot.
The inability to outgrow your family’s shadow.
Sure, you’ve been places and won titles, but what’s your legacy really? You move from place to place and build yourself up and move on again when you fail to deliver on your hopes. You’re a rose left in a tomb, longing for the light while getting nothing but shadow. You’ve managed some growth, I’ll grant you that. I’d give you an ‘A’ for effort, but 66% is more like a ‘C’ presentation.
You don’t know who you are at the heart of it.
SexyFang.
Mafia.
Cultist.
Legacy.
You clutch these terms and hold them close to you as though proximity to high concepts will give you an identity. But it’s a broken pattern, torn and frayed. You have nothing at the center and in the end that’s why you’ll lose. Because you think that fight is all you need to bring to the fight.
America Jackson fights with conviction.
He fights because he knows who he is.
He fights because that IS who he is.
So tell me this, you pathetic little poser.
Who the fuck are you to stand against him?
America spat dirt from his mouth.
He’d been blindsided. Cold cocked by the little devil bastard, Micah. Apparently the busted ribs only taught him to attack from behind. America took a defensive curl to prevent the kicks from getting too deep on him. He heard him sobbing. ‘Your daddy killed my daddy’ wailed over and over as his kicks ran sloppier and looser. America saw his opening and hooked the heel, pushing up and deep before slamming him hard on the dirt. He laid into the devil bastard with right hands. Blood for blood. The bastard tried to swing back, so America put his leg over the left arm and clutched the right.
“My daddy killed your daddy.” America affirmed. “And if you ever come for mine again, I’ll kill you too.”
America felt the right arm break. He didn’t hear it over the screaming. Teachers came and pulled him off, but it didn’t matter. He’d done the work he needed to do. America looked down and saw the blood on his knuckles, but he didn’t think anything of it.
God’s hands stayed clean.
I want to give y’all a chance.
Surrender.
Walk into the ring, lie down, and accept defeat peacefully.
You’ve worshipped false gods. Bowed at the altar of evil men who would have you think that there’s a savior in this world besides our lord Jesus Christ. Mocked the resurrection out of greed and cowardice. You are sinners of the highest order and I have a duty above that as a competitor to fight evil when I come upon it.
But Jesus forgives.
Jesus saves.
I want to give you a chance to be saved.
Because if you don’t surrender…
If you think I can accept devils in my ring.
I will break you.
I will break your ego.
I will break your cowardice.
I will break you body and soul.
I don’t wanna have to do that.
I’m a fighter, yeah. I love me a good fight.
This won’t be a fight.
This’ll be a war.
This’ll be the whole ring crew scrubbin’ your blood from the mat after the show.
I’m a child of God in my soul.
I’m an American in my blood.
When I go to war, I WILL NOT BE STOPPED.
I WILL NOT HESISTATE.
I WILL NOT YIELD.
Surrender.
Or be broken.
Only chance.
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in
sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves.
Matthew 7:15
