Dean Wolf's Apology Tour, Part IV

Wolf stands in front of the camera wearing jeans and a black Metallica T-shirt with a maniacal looking skull in front of an American flag, and on the bottom the words “Fight Fire With Fire.” The APW Hardcore Championship is draped over his shoulder.



Dean Wolf: For the last few weeks, I’ve been on something of an “apology tour.” I’m trying to go around and apologize to certain people that I’ve hurt in my past; but I’d like to take the time right now to apologize to certain people that I’m going to hurt in the future- my challengers at Alpha Showdown, Zombie McMorris and Spartan.



Let me start with Spartan.



Spartan-



I’m sorry that you were put into this match. You don’t belong in this match, not because you don’t deserve a shot at the title, not because you don’t have the ability to beat either ZMAC or I, but because ZMAC and I have built up a lifetime’s worth of animosity in a short period of time and we need to blow it off at Alpha Showdown. Then again, things may never end between “ol’ Z” and I.



I’m sorry Irina Ivanova doesn’t care about you. By booking you into this match, she has now risked your well-being and livelihood. She clearly does not understand that ZMAC and I are going to be lobbing bombs at each other (and I wouldn’t put it past ZMAC to bring actual bombs) and that you are going to become a casualty when one of those bombs hits you.



I’m sorry that this couldn’t just be a one-on-one match between you and I. If ZMAC wasn’t considered for this match, you were the next man that I’d want to fight. You have proven yourself worthy to be a title contender, and I’d really like to see how well I can do when it’s just my skills matched up against your skills; no third party, no third wheel, just you and me seeing who’s the better man. You are the future of this sport. You are the kind of man that I’d want to stand next to while we lift APW and carry it to the top of wrestling’s Mt. Everest. One day, you could be a great champion, perhaps the World Heavyweight Champion.



I’m sorry, however, that your future may be in doubt after this Monday. Your potential to be one of the greats in this sport may never be fulfilled because your health and safety will be too compromised after I get done punishing you for being a nuisance. You’ll acquire enough injuries to fill an entire career. From this match forward, you will always have a nagging injury of some kind. I’ll see you in a match, one, two, five years from now, and I’ll see you fall to the mat, and you’ll hold onto your knee. Mike Clearwater will say “That’s the knee Wolf bashed with a chair at Alpha Showdown back in 2019.” You’ll wince in pain when you fall flat on your back and St. Remington will say “Hey bro, remember when Wolf gave Spartan a spinebuster right on the exposed concrete during that triple threat match? It looks like Spartan is still feeling the effects of that, bro.” Those injuries are going to be aggravated and re-aggravated until one day you go to your doctor and he says to you “Tristan, I cannot clear you to wrestle anymore.” And you’ll have to announce your early retirement from the ring. All the time you could have been spending as a World Champion and a main eventer and a top money player in this industry will now be spent as the third man in the commentary booth or working alongside Kevin Bishop as a trainer, preparing the next crop of young guys and girls, young guys and girls that will fulfill the accomplishments that you would have fulfilled had it not been for that one damn match Irina Ivanova booked you in on July 22, 2019.



I’m sorry that you’re too much of a plucky young competitor to ever consider backing out of this match. I asked you once, I asked you twice, but both times, you didn’t acquiesce. I can only ask so many times. I can only warn you so many times before I have to just accept the fact that you are going to go ahead with your pursuit of the Hardcore Title. You’re going to have to learn from experience. You’re going to have to learn from the pain, the suffering, the torture that this match will inevitably bring you. That’s fine. Experience is a great teacher. You just need to understand that the experience is going to leave you less of a wrestler than you were before you entered the ring. If you’re willing to take that risk, then there’s nothing I can do about it except engage you on the field of battle and show you why I pleaded with you to stay away. Charlie Chaplin said that “It takes courage to make a fool of yourself.” You will prove Mr. Chaplin correct at Alpha Showdown. You have the courage- and you’re going to look like a fucking idiot trying to show it off.



Now for you, ZMAC.



ZMAC-



I’m sorry that APW will not be a repeat of your previous exploits elsewhere. You have now come to a point that many people have experienced in their careers- the “passing of the torch” moment. I’m not saying that at Alpha Showdown, you’re going to pass the torch to me. On the contrary, you already passed it to me in Atlantic City. I’m not even going to be like most people and brazenly say “I took the torch from you.” No, I think you wanted me to have the torch, else why would you have targeted me so much in AC? Why would you have jumped on the hood of the car I stole outside the Hard Rock and gone for a wild ride down Pacific Avenue? Why, after I tried to send your unconscious body back to the Hard Rock in the back of a taxi, would you come and find me, looking to fight me some more? I think you wanted me to be the first Hardcore Champ and you just wanted to see if I had what it took. I should thank you for that. You pushed me. When I was having a crisis of the soul and I didn’t know if I wanted to have anything else to do with this sport, you said “I swear to God, Wolf, you are going to continue this.” Your insistence that I keep fighting has led me to stand here right now with this belt around my shoulder; but I think you’re having regrets. I think you wish you had just let me run off into the night. I think you wish you had gone to the Hard Rock and never worried about me, because now you know that the torch is never coming back to you. You know that as long as I am the Hardcore Champion, you will never hold on to this belt. You know that as long as I am in APW, you will never advance any further in this promotion than where you are right now. You know that if you ever want to be anything in APW, that I’m going to be the one you’re going to have to contend with, and I will never let you be anything in this company except a washed-up old zombie who at one point was a force to be reckoned with but is now just a shell of himself.



I’m sorry that your ideas, your philosophy, and just plain old you are antiquated. You know that I am the business right now. You know that while you’re the past and Spartan is the future, I am the present. You know that this is my time to be at the forefront of professional wrestling. You know that as the first champion, I am the measuring stick, the standard by which all professional wrestlers, young and old, need to meet. I respect everything you’ve done in the past. I respect all your accomplishments. I respect all the championships you’ve won. I respect how you carved out a little niche for yourself in the wrestling business, but everything that was once popular or in style eventually becomes tired, redundant, passé. Even my favorite band, Metallica, realized at one point that the blistering, eight-minute opuses that made them in the 80s were becoming superfluous. Everything about the way you look at this business, this sport, has gone the way of the dodo bird. If you beat me tomorrow night, that’s where APW is going, because you are going to infect APW with your words and your thoughts and your stagnant style of hardcore wrestling. It won’t be allowed to produce anything new. It won’t be allowed to make any advancements in professional wrestling. It won’t be able to breath new life into this industry. It won’t be innovative. It won’t be new. It won’t be different. It’ll be the ZMAC show, using tropes that were popular 20 years ago, but now will cause the fans to stand up in their seats yelling “SAME OLD SHIT! SAME OLD SHIT!” I can’t allow that to happen. Despite my feelings about some people in management, APW has given me a chance to continue doing what I do best. It has given me a livelihood. It has given me a new lease on my career when maybe I didn’t deserve an opportunity from any wrestling promotion. I need to give back. I need to show them that their investment in me was worth it. By letting you win and run roughshod over this company with your worn out concepts, I will let them, the fans, the roster, and this entire sport down.



I’m sorry that we’re going to have to do things your way for just this one night. I want to bring intelligent hardcore wrestling into APW. I don’t want Horror-kore. Horror-kore is just an excuse for a guy with a small dick to overcompensate by showing everyone how much he can hurt himself. It’s not competitive. It’s a sideshow. However, if I want to get rid of Horror-kore, I’m going to have to match Horror-kore’s brutality, and that’s where this apology applies to you, because I’m going to use Horror-kore against you and you will most assuredly die by your own sword.



Which leads me to my final apologies. ZMAC, Spartan, I don’t know what I’m going to do to either of you in this match tomorrow night. I can’t tell the future. I can predict what I might do, and in doing so, I’m going to offer apologies to any of the following atrocities that I may commit inside this arena:



Spartan, I’m sorry that I’m going to separate your shoulder so that you’re not able to hit the spear.



ZMAC, I’m sorry that I’m going to slice your forehead open so that the blood leaks out of it like a faucet.



Spartan, I’m sorry that I’m going to drop you throat first onto the guardrail and crush your windpipe.



ZMAC, I’m sorry that I’m going to drop you on your head on the concrete floor and cause you instant paralysis.



Spartan, I’m sorry that I’m going to drag you up to a balcony and throw you off of it with nothing to break your fall.



ZMAC, I’m sorry that I’m going to mutilate you beyond recognition and make your suffering slow and excruciating and make you wish that I would just take you back to the nuclear testing site and end you quickly.



And finally, to the both of you-



I’m sorry that you will see the Hardcore Title slip through your fingers.



I’m sorry that tomorrow night, I will have to seek the wolf...in myself.