Motivation is Bullshit

And so reads the tombstone on the grave of Dean Wolf’s mother. He’d been back on Long Island for 10 months and not once had stopped to visit it until now. He felt guilty, of course. When he exiled himself from his mother and father and lived in Bernard Core’s mansion, he never called his parents. He never checked up on them. It was unfair to do that to his mother. It was his father he was mad at. His father hadn’t supported his decision to become a wrestler in the first place, and it was after the last fight they’d had that Wolf got himself into substance abuse. Even though he got clean, he never stopped being angry at his father. Unfortunately, he took that anger out on his mother as well by not calling her.



Not even a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer compelled him to call, let alone pack up everything and rush down to Long Island to be by her side. It was more important to stay with Bernard Core and manage the discipline in the Core Institute. It was more important to enjoy the opulent lifestyle he had acquired as a result of being Bernard Core’s protégé. However, it was MOST important for him to be angry at his father and never see him again.



And then the call came. His dad spoke very plainly and very directly, betraying the sadness that he surely was feeling.



“Daniel, it’s your father. Your mother died this morning. The wake is Thursday and Friday. The funeral and burial are Saturday. If you’re not down here on Thursday, don’t ever think about coming back.”



It should have been an easy choice to make. Not because of his father’s threat, of course. He loved his mother. His mother had always protected him from the wrath and temper of his father. She was also the one that encouraged him to make peace with his father when there was a fight. Now, however, she was gone, and there was no one to tell him to forgive and forget. Without that guidance, Dean Wolf, real name Daniel Evan Dexter, made the worst choice he ever made.



He didn’t come home to pay his last respects to his mother.



“You piece of shit. If you ever come back here again, I am going to kick your ass.”



And that’s exactly what happened when Dean Wolf left Bernard Core’s employ and moved back to Long Island. His father found out, came to his apartment, and left him laying after a good shot to the nuts and a knee lift to the face. Then he spit on him for good measure and marched out.



“Welcome home, asshole!”



He tried to go to his father’s house and make penance with him, but his father just wished him dead.



Now Wolf was standing over his mother’s grave, looking down on it. If he couldn’t make amends with his father, maybe he could make amends with his mother.



Even though she was dead.

---

He hadn’t been successful in saying anything to her at her grave that first time, but he resolved to come back and try again after this Monday’s Metal. For now, he had to block all that out of his mind and try to focus on the task ahead of him: Smith Jones. Well, not just Smith Jones. There was a certain member of APW’s management team that he had to address as well during his backstage promo shoot.



Dean Wolf: Before I say anything about my match this week, I need to take issue with something that was said by a fucking member of APW management.



I get this fucking award for Promo of the Week. Now, I don’t really give a shit about winning that award because there’s no money for winning it. There’s no belt. It’s a cute little way to draw traffic to the APW website. Whatever. I win Promo of the Week. Great. Good for me.



Then I get kind of a backhanded compliment from this certain member of management saying that my promo was “mewling” and was the least offensive to management. Now, I gotta admit, I didn’t know what mewling meant, so I looked it up.



Mewling: crying feebly; whimpering



I’ve never mewled a day in my life and I certainly wouldn’t start now.



I suppose that this person had a problem with me talking about how much I’ve fucked up in my career. How I’ve had a lot of stops and starts, how I haven’t reached my full potential. I guess she misinterpreted my “mewling” for what it really was: being honest. If anybody should know anything about me, it’s that I’m an honest person. I’m honest about the way I see things, I’m honest about my competitors, and most of all, I’m honest about myself. I don’t pull punches. I can acknowledge my faults. I’m not looking for an “attaboy” for being that way, but if someone was going to comment on my promo, I would hope they’d appreciate my honesty.



I wasn’t talking about my fuck-ups to cry about them. I was talking about them to prove a point. The point was that no matter what anybody thinks of me, no matter how many times I fuck up, I don’t give up. When I fuck up, I get right back on my feet and keep going. And if I fuck up in the future, I’m gonna do the same exact thing, and I’m gonna keep doing that until I reach the top of this sport or until my body tells me I can’t do this anymore.



So to this certain member of management, I have three words to say to you: go-fuck-yourself. I don’t care if you’re my boss. You are not going to talk about me like that, especially in a public forum.



What do you want from me, huh? You want me to get on TV and just bury everybody and just say that they suck? Is that what I’m supposed to do, because that seems counterproductive to people taking this roster seriously. If that’s what you’re looking for, that I’m not that guy. I’m not getting on TV and running down my opponents. If I’d gotten on TV last week and said Lucy Sixx sucked, then I’d look really stupid because she ended up beating me. I’m not gonna stand in front of this camera today and say that Smith Jones sucks, because if he beats me, I’m gonna look like an asshole.



I will get on this screen and say that I’m gonna kick people’s asses because no matter the result, someone’s ass will get kicked. If somebody’s gonna beat me, they’re gonna be physically spent. They’re gonna know that it took a lot of energy to beat me.



But I’m not gonna be dishonest. I’m not gonna do what most people in wrestling do and show some fake bravado and put up a big facade and try to show I got a bigger dick than everybody else and run people down. I don’t need to and I’m not interested. There’s enough dishonesty in this business. I’m not going to contribute to it.



You want dishonesty? You can get it from Smith Jones.



“But Wolf, why do you say that Smith Jones is dishonest?”



Two words: motivational speaker. That’s all I have to say. Those are the only words I need to sum up the character of Smith Jones.



You know what a motivational speaker is? A motivational speaker is usually someone who had a high-profile career, became notable in that career, has retired from that career, and is now trying to make some extra money to pad their retirement fund. That’s it. They get up on stage and spew some generic advice that people eat up because they are so enamored by this famous figure that they get to see in person. I mean, if they’re famous, they must know what they’re talking about, right? It’s not possible that they could be totally bullshitting you, right?



In reality, what that motivational speaker is saying has no value and could be said by anybody who has half a brain. If I wanted to be a motivational speaker, I could just cherry pick the best lines from other motivational speakers, get on stage, vomit it out for the audience to lick up, pass it off as my own, take my money, and be on my way.



But I’m not gonna do that because I’m not a piece of shit.



Motivational speakers take your money and they try to get you to believe whatever they’re saying even if they don’t believe it themselves. They want you to buy their books or buy their programs or buy tickets to their next show or give them hits on their YouTube videos or likes on their Instagram posts. That’s their business. Their business isn’t helping you. Their business is to make you think that they’re helping you so that you’ll help their bank account’s bottom line.



They’re just like these televangelists, who in their own right are motivational speakers but add a religious twist to their bullshit. These are the people who get on TV and ask you to send them “seed money” to fix your problems.



“You have cancer? Don’t get chemo. Send me $1,000 dollars and God will fix your cancer.”



And the poor prick who has cancer is so desperate to fucking survive that they do just that and then they die anyway.



And what happened to that poor bastard’s $1,000? The fucking religious motivational speaker put it towards his new jet or his new yacht or his fucking ski trip or his fucking mansion. They spend it on themselves instead of spending it on people who need help.



This is the crowd that Smith Jones has willingly joined: human scum.



You think I don’t fucking see this, Smith? You think I don’t see right fucking through you? Shit, I stood at the right hand of a man who used to come out on TV and said he knew the way to fix this country’s education problem when in reality he was just trying to indoctrinate people and get them to enroll their kids in his school so he could line his pockets with their money and gain power and influence, enough power and influence to one day seek political office. I saw him work his machinations in the wrestling business, using people, including me, to do his dirty work for him and get him victories. I was a part of his machine. I saw how somebody like him worked from the inside. Now that I’m out, I don’t want people like that, people like YOU, infecting other people with your demagoguery, especially while you let cameras document it for your own vanity.



If I were a motivational speaker, you know what I would do? I would get up onstage and say “I can’t help you. Just look at your life, see where you have faults, and fucking fix it.” And then I’d walk off that stage. That’s all the motivation anybody needs. Nobody needs a speaker to give them motivation. People just need themselves.



If I need motivation to beat you this week, I don’t have to look very far. All I have to do is go inside my own head and think about the things that are pissing me off, like losing to Lucy Sixx. Losing to her doesn’t piss me off because I think I’m better than her. Clearly, I wasn’t better than her last week. I’m just pissed that I lost to a fucking pink-haired, selfie-obsessed millenial who plays shitty music and probably hangs out with a bunch of arrogant kids who walk around being “woke” all day and think their shit don’t stink. The fact that I lost to somebody like that gives me motivation to not lose again, especially to people I personally loath like you.



I’m motivated by my goal to be a champion in APW. I already lost my chance to contend for one title. I want to get back on track and challenge for it in the future or win the North American Title. Maybe I’ll gain five pounds and join the heavyweight division and win the World Title and be in the main event and win the biggest purse. Hell, maybe I’ll find a partner I can tolerate and win the Tag Team Titles.



I’m motivated by finally having a legacy I can be proud of instead the legacy I’ve gained, the one that says all I’ve ever done is leave a wrestling promotion just when I’ve hit my stride because of drugs or because I was hard to deal with.



And that’s not mewling. That’s just fucking honesty.



I’m motivated by having some young guy 10, 20, 30 years from now looking back at the history of APW and talking about how I was one of the founding fathers of this place, how I was one of the people that got this promotion off the ground, how I was a trailblazer for APW.



I’m motivated by kicking your ass simply because I don’t like you.



I’m motivated by hitting you with The Kill. I missed my chance last week. If I had been one second faster, I would have knocked Lucy Sixx’s head off her shoulders and made my way towards the Junior Heavyweight Championship. Failing to hit my finishing move left a void in me that I need to fill, and brother, nothing would make me happier than filling that void by pulverizing your windpipe with my right arm and turning you inside out.



I’m motivated by showing people how much of an idiot you are. I mean, who would seek motivation from you anyway? Last week, you had a match for a shot at the Junior Heavyweight Title, just like me. You know what I was doing before my match? Preparing. Warming up. Getting my head in the game. What were you doing? You went out to the ring and decided to use your time to cut a promo on Odin Balfore.



Now, I may have lost my match, but it wasn’t because I was preoccupied with some guy who had kicked my ass the week before. I simply lost because the person that stood across the ring from me was better.



You, on the other hand, looked like a jackass. You came out to the ring, talked like a tough guy, and then lost. Maybe if you’d worried about Steve Osbourne more than a guy who wasn’t even in the building last week, then maybe you would be in contention for the Junior Heavyweight Championship right now.



And, I don’t know if you know this, but you called out a guy that could really give two shits about you. Odin Balfore is a giant in this business. You think he knows your name? You think he gave you a second thought after beating your ass two weeks ago? Hell no! He didn’t even mention you in his interview with Dani Applegate. Odin doesn’t have respect for anybody, and that includes you. But you wasted your time and your breath on him. Then you came back out and got your ass handed to you. Yeah, you really made Odin stop and think twice.



Who would take advice from you? Who would follow your example? You want to motivate people? You want to be a good example? Just get in the fucking ring and do what you do best. Clearly you’re good enough to be in APW. You talk about your fucking accolades you had everywhere else. Why can’t you just let that shit do the talking for you instead of coming out to the ring and challenging someone who doesn’t even give enough shits to show up and explain his actions in person?



Finally, I’m motivated by the consequences of what losing to you would mean for APW. I can’t lose to you. I’m trying to be a leader here. I’m trying to be an example here. If you beat me, and you end up taking the mantle as the leader of this roster somewhere down the line, then that would be the worst thing for this promotion, because beneath this facade of success that you try to portray with your motivational talks, there’s something that you’re not showing to the world: you’re not right in the fucking head.



Listen, if you’re mentally ill, I feel bad for you. That’s not something you caused. That’s some chemicals in your body that are fucking you up. However, I think you need to be responsible enough to not put yourself at the forefront of APW. I think that instead of trying to give people advice on how to better their lives, you need to seek some help of your own. I care about this place because it’s given me an outlet to make a living even after I became difficult to deal with in another organization. I want to give back by contributing in any way I can, whether it’s in the ring, at the merchandise stands, or in the ratings and pay-per-view buys. If you care enough about the survival of this wrestling promotion, you won’t try to lead it. You’ll step aside and get yourself right.



If you need any more convincing, I’ll be in the ring this Monday waiting for you, waiting to give you my own special brand of motivation. Once it hits you upside the head, you’ll be motivated, alright- motivated enough to leave the ring.



And never come back.



And as for you, Ivanova: you can take that Promo of the Week award and shove it up your ass.