A Break from the Tour: Chris Swenson
Aug 18, 2019 0:10:32 GMT -5
BonnieBlue, Spartan, and 3 more like this
Post by Dean Wolf on Aug 18, 2019 0:10:32 GMT -5
Another day, another dollar.
Another shitty day, that is.
Chris Swenson is driving home from his shift at Island Car Wash. Just like every day, he got yelled at by his boss, Roger. Today, he was accused of scratching a customer’s car. The whole thing was bullshit. Of course, he did it, but it was for a good reason. The lady stiffed him on tip after drying and vacuuming her god damn SUV.
Chris Swenson: Fuck her and fuck the god damn car wash.
He should be more grateful. The car wash has kept him employed since he was seventeen. That was the last time he ever felt like anything that mattered in the world. He was popular. He was handsome. He was an athlete. Girls fawned over him like he was the last man left on Earth. He could have had any of them at any time. Every weekend was full of parties with kegs, kegs, and more kegs. He showed his dominance throughout the school by picking on and torturing those he saw as weaker than him. That was the good life. That’s when he was the king. That’s when he mattered.
Life, however, is not like that anymore. After Dan Dexter left with him a concussion in the band room on that one fateful day in eleventh grade, people didn’t look at Chris Swenson like he was the king anymore. Girls didn’t want to jump his bones anymore. The invitations to parties stopped coming. People that would cower in fear when he walked by now laughed behind his back. The random headaches he suffered kept him off the field. His lack of exercise coupled with the depression that he felt took away the fit physique and attractive face and instead left him with a gut and horrible acne. His motivation to do anything with his life beyond watch TV and work at the car wash went out the window.
But even with all that, he doesn’t have any ill will towards Dan, even after seeing him at Planet Fitness.
He pulls into his parents’ driveway and steps through the front door, only to find his parents both passed out on their recliners in front of the TV. He grabs a beer and a bag of Fritos from the kitchen and goes upstairs to the same bedroom he’s lived in since he was four.
After collapsing on the bed, he pops open the beer, reaches his hand inside the bag of Fritos, pulls out his phone, and goes to YouTube. This was his nightly ritual after work. Drink beer, eat shitty food, and watch stupid videos of bum fights until he passed out.
However, when he goes to YouTube’s main page, he sees someone familiar. It’s a still image of Dan Dexter with the title next to the image reading “Dean Wolf Has a Message for the Canadian Coalition.” Swenson is intrigued and presses play.
Dean Wolf: For the second time in three weeks, I’m stepping into the ring with the Canadian Coalition. This time, I’m not stepping into the ring with Spartan. No, this time, I’m with a new guy, Norris Cranley.
Now, I’m not the commissioner, but if I were to use common sense, I’d think that, since Spartan and I beat the Coalition two weeks ago, we should get a shot at their Tag Team Titles. That’s just me.
Maybe Irina wants to keep Spartan and I separated until our Hardcore Title match at Ascension. I guess I can’t blame her for that. Or...maybe she thinks I myself haven’t earned a shot at the tag team titles. I guess I can’t blame her for that either. Last time I was standing across the ring from the Coalition, Spartan started and ended the match. I didn’t really see a lot of action. Maybe she thinks I need to prove myself against Quinn and Rage.
Maybe I do. I already know that at Ascension I have to prove that Spartan is not better than me in a one-on-one situation. I already know that I have to prove that I wasn’t just some flash in the pan that was only good enough to hold the Hardcore Title for fifteen days; but maybe I also have to prove that if I want a Tag Team Title shot, I personally have to do better against the Tag Team Champions.
There seems to be a lot I have to prove lately. I have to prove that I’m not a quitter and that I am good as I say I am; that when you put me in the ring against anybody, I am superior. I have to prove that when some undead shitstain tries to get inside my head, I won’t take the bait and let it fuck with my performance in the ring.
A lot is riding on what I do between now and Ascension. I don’t want to lose to Spartan in the Hardcore Title match, and that might cause some people to think that I should just let Cranley do the lion’s share of the work in the ring so I don’t hurt myself and jeopardize my chance to win at Ascension.
I’m not like that, though. I am committed to this thing I do week in and week out and taking the easy way out is not who I am. I either go out to that ring and prove that I am the best every night or I hang up my boots and go home. There is no middle ground for me. There is no complacency. There is no mediocrity.
It’s the same attitude that I had two weeks ago. This is not just a makeshift tag team match for me. This match is as important as every other match I compete in.
For you Coalition boys, I don’t know if this match is as important to you. You seem to take time off when the stakes aren’t as high. When you were fighting for the titles, you put it all out there and you beat the House of Sweetness, but the next match was non-title. You were going up against two guys who were ready to tear each other apart. It should have been easy to beat us, but you didn’t. Maybe you didn’t think that you had to try that hard. Maybe that’s the deal with you guys. You guys are just happy to be here. You’re just happy participating. In fact, those titles around your waists might as well be participation trophies, because around your waists, they’re about as worthless as participation trophies.
Right now, you’re taking those titles for granted. You think that just by virtue of wearing them, that makes you the best tag team wrestlers in APW. The problem is, the titles don’t make the men. The men make the titles. If you only care about being the best when those titles are on the line, then how truly valuable are they when they’re not on the line and you’re phoning it in?
You two might be starting to follow a very dangerous trend that a lot of champions in this sport are following today: that when their titles on the line, winning and losing doesn’t matter to them. Let me tell you, that is the worst kind of champion there is.
You two guys have to treat this match and every match from here on out like it’s the last match that you’re ever going to wrestle in your life. You have to treat it like your titles are being threatened. You have to treat it like every person in the ring has got targets on your backs. I don’t get the sense that you guys have the urgency needed to be the best tag team in APW. Before I stepped into the ring with you two weeks ago, I would have heartily agreed that you were the best tag team in APW, but after not seeing the fire in your eyes when you stepped in between those ropes, I’m not so sure anymore.
Champions don’t take the night off when their titles are not on the line. Champions go in the ring and they fight and they scratch and they claw match after match after match, and you guys don’t do that. You won ONE match to win those Tag Team Titles. Big deal. I won the brawl in Atlantic City and walked away with the Hardcore Championship. Did that make me a great champion? No. What would have made me a great champion would have been walking into Alpha Showdown as the champion and defending it successfully. I didn’t do that, and if I never win the Hardcore Title again, then I can never claim to have been a great Hardcore Champion. You guys won the titles at Showdown and then immediately lost to me and Spartan. Who cares if it was non-title? You guys are supposed to be the elite but you didn’t put in an elite effort.
That’s why I don’t believe your Coalition is stronger than some random team of singles wrestlers. If two friends, two allies can’t put down two sets of guys that hate each other like me and Spartan or Trent Page and Masuda Jubei, then what good is your partnership? If you guys work together worse than two guys who have a mutual hatred of each other, then maybe you need to find some other partners to work with.
I thought you guys had a lot of fire and heart. It turns out that the fire is barely lit and your hearts are failing you. These pep talks from Kyle Ryder and Jobber Dave and Enhancement Steve and Curtain Jerk Jerry and any other lovable but second-rate wrestlers that you know are not working for you.
Maybe it’s time for you guys to go it alone. Maybe it’s time for you guys to forget about trying to be nice and trying to promote a different image for Canadian wrestlers. Maybe you need to stop worrying about representing your country so much and worry more about representing yourselves. Trust me, I’m proud to be an American, but this isn’t the Olympics. Waving your flag and singing your country’s national anthem aren’t going to get your hands raised at the end of the match.
All of these things that you’re concerning yourselves with are superfluous. You don’t need them to be the best. All you need is your skill and your talent, and right now, you’re not harnessing those things to be the best. You’re doing what you do so people will think you’re nice guys.
Well, I’m not concerned about being a nice again. Norris Cranley is not concerned with being a nice guy. I’m concerned with breaking bones. Norris Cranley is concerned with breaking limits. I’m concerned with keeping my momentum going so that when I step into the ring against Spartan at Ascension, I’ll have shown him that what happened at Alpha Showdown was just a little hiccup and I am truly the better man. Norris Cranley is concerned with racking up wins so that the higher-ups in APW will see that he deserves the chance to fight for gold like the Junior Heavyweight Championship.
The both of us are concerned with winning because that is the only way in this business to show you are the best. It ain’t gimmicks. It ain’t catchphrases. It ain’t flags. It ain’t anthems. Holding titles around your waist can only prove so much. Winning is the only way to prove you are the best, and Cranley and I intend on doing just that.
Forget seeking guidance from The Canadian Wolf. If you two want to merely survive this match, you just need to seek the wolves...in yourselves.
The video ends and Swenson puts the phone down. He looks straight ahead, contemplating as he puts another Frito in his mouth.
Chris Swenson: Wow. Good for him, man. Dan Dexter. He really made it. I can’t believe that’s the kid that me, Joe, and Mark beat the shit out of every day.
He sighs heavily.
Chris Swenson: That was, until he beat the shit out of us.
He brightens up.
Chris Swenson: But now look at him! A big wrestling star!
He looks around his room. The same posters from twenty years ago are still hanging up, including the one of Limp Bizkit. He stares at the visage of Fred Durst standing in the foreground, the baseball cap wearing frontman of the rap-metal group whose day has long since been gone. Fred Durst might have been cool in 1999, but now, he was just a joke of musical history. A blip. A fad. A has-been. Sure, he and the rest of Limp Bizkit were still playing shows, but they were a nostalgia act. Nobody thought they were cool anymore.
Swenson gets up and looks at himself in the mirror that’s behind his closet door. He takes a nice long look at himself. Fat, graying, middle-aged, no prospects, no girlfriend, still living in his parents’ house, working at a car wash for minimum wage alongside a bunch of illegal immigrants and high school kids he would have beaten up if they went to school in his day.
Chris Swenson: And look at me. I’m a nobody. What happened to me?
He hears the next video autoplaying on YouTube. It’s another video from a previous promo featuring, Dan, or Dean, or whatever the hell he was calling himself in that fucking AWP.
Dean Wolf: Fuckin’ A, huh? That’s certainly a unique name…
Swenson’s face hardens the more and more he hears Dan Dexter’s voice. The memory of the day Dan smashed his head in an instrument locker plays over and over in his damaged brain. All of the things he lost through that one moment fills him with sorrow. His brow becomes furrowed, the corners of his lips turning down.
Chris Swenson: I know what happened to me.
His whole life taken away by this kid that he had made his bitch day after day after day. It wasn’t fair. He was the big man on campus. He ruled the school. Now, he was just a fucking loser.
The anger grows in him faster than a train speeding down a track. It reaches a boiling point as he finishes declaring his epiphany.
Chris Swenson: Dan fucking Dexter is what happened to me.
Another shitty day, that is.
Chris Swenson is driving home from his shift at Island Car Wash. Just like every day, he got yelled at by his boss, Roger. Today, he was accused of scratching a customer’s car. The whole thing was bullshit. Of course, he did it, but it was for a good reason. The lady stiffed him on tip after drying and vacuuming her god damn SUV.
Chris Swenson: Fuck her and fuck the god damn car wash.
He should be more grateful. The car wash has kept him employed since he was seventeen. That was the last time he ever felt like anything that mattered in the world. He was popular. He was handsome. He was an athlete. Girls fawned over him like he was the last man left on Earth. He could have had any of them at any time. Every weekend was full of parties with kegs, kegs, and more kegs. He showed his dominance throughout the school by picking on and torturing those he saw as weaker than him. That was the good life. That’s when he was the king. That’s when he mattered.
Life, however, is not like that anymore. After Dan Dexter left with him a concussion in the band room on that one fateful day in eleventh grade, people didn’t look at Chris Swenson like he was the king anymore. Girls didn’t want to jump his bones anymore. The invitations to parties stopped coming. People that would cower in fear when he walked by now laughed behind his back. The random headaches he suffered kept him off the field. His lack of exercise coupled with the depression that he felt took away the fit physique and attractive face and instead left him with a gut and horrible acne. His motivation to do anything with his life beyond watch TV and work at the car wash went out the window.
But even with all that, he doesn’t have any ill will towards Dan, even after seeing him at Planet Fitness.
He pulls into his parents’ driveway and steps through the front door, only to find his parents both passed out on their recliners in front of the TV. He grabs a beer and a bag of Fritos from the kitchen and goes upstairs to the same bedroom he’s lived in since he was four.
After collapsing on the bed, he pops open the beer, reaches his hand inside the bag of Fritos, pulls out his phone, and goes to YouTube. This was his nightly ritual after work. Drink beer, eat shitty food, and watch stupid videos of bum fights until he passed out.
However, when he goes to YouTube’s main page, he sees someone familiar. It’s a still image of Dan Dexter with the title next to the image reading “Dean Wolf Has a Message for the Canadian Coalition.” Swenson is intrigued and presses play.
Dean Wolf: For the second time in three weeks, I’m stepping into the ring with the Canadian Coalition. This time, I’m not stepping into the ring with Spartan. No, this time, I’m with a new guy, Norris Cranley.
Now, I’m not the commissioner, but if I were to use common sense, I’d think that, since Spartan and I beat the Coalition two weeks ago, we should get a shot at their Tag Team Titles. That’s just me.
Maybe Irina wants to keep Spartan and I separated until our Hardcore Title match at Ascension. I guess I can’t blame her for that. Or...maybe she thinks I myself haven’t earned a shot at the tag team titles. I guess I can’t blame her for that either. Last time I was standing across the ring from the Coalition, Spartan started and ended the match. I didn’t really see a lot of action. Maybe she thinks I need to prove myself against Quinn and Rage.
Maybe I do. I already know that at Ascension I have to prove that Spartan is not better than me in a one-on-one situation. I already know that I have to prove that I wasn’t just some flash in the pan that was only good enough to hold the Hardcore Title for fifteen days; but maybe I also have to prove that if I want a Tag Team Title shot, I personally have to do better against the Tag Team Champions.
There seems to be a lot I have to prove lately. I have to prove that I’m not a quitter and that I am good as I say I am; that when you put me in the ring against anybody, I am superior. I have to prove that when some undead shitstain tries to get inside my head, I won’t take the bait and let it fuck with my performance in the ring.
A lot is riding on what I do between now and Ascension. I don’t want to lose to Spartan in the Hardcore Title match, and that might cause some people to think that I should just let Cranley do the lion’s share of the work in the ring so I don’t hurt myself and jeopardize my chance to win at Ascension.
I’m not like that, though. I am committed to this thing I do week in and week out and taking the easy way out is not who I am. I either go out to that ring and prove that I am the best every night or I hang up my boots and go home. There is no middle ground for me. There is no complacency. There is no mediocrity.
It’s the same attitude that I had two weeks ago. This is not just a makeshift tag team match for me. This match is as important as every other match I compete in.
For you Coalition boys, I don’t know if this match is as important to you. You seem to take time off when the stakes aren’t as high. When you were fighting for the titles, you put it all out there and you beat the House of Sweetness, but the next match was non-title. You were going up against two guys who were ready to tear each other apart. It should have been easy to beat us, but you didn’t. Maybe you didn’t think that you had to try that hard. Maybe that’s the deal with you guys. You guys are just happy to be here. You’re just happy participating. In fact, those titles around your waists might as well be participation trophies, because around your waists, they’re about as worthless as participation trophies.
Right now, you’re taking those titles for granted. You think that just by virtue of wearing them, that makes you the best tag team wrestlers in APW. The problem is, the titles don’t make the men. The men make the titles. If you only care about being the best when those titles are on the line, then how truly valuable are they when they’re not on the line and you’re phoning it in?
You two might be starting to follow a very dangerous trend that a lot of champions in this sport are following today: that when their titles on the line, winning and losing doesn’t matter to them. Let me tell you, that is the worst kind of champion there is.
You two guys have to treat this match and every match from here on out like it’s the last match that you’re ever going to wrestle in your life. You have to treat it like your titles are being threatened. You have to treat it like every person in the ring has got targets on your backs. I don’t get the sense that you guys have the urgency needed to be the best tag team in APW. Before I stepped into the ring with you two weeks ago, I would have heartily agreed that you were the best tag team in APW, but after not seeing the fire in your eyes when you stepped in between those ropes, I’m not so sure anymore.
Champions don’t take the night off when their titles are not on the line. Champions go in the ring and they fight and they scratch and they claw match after match after match, and you guys don’t do that. You won ONE match to win those Tag Team Titles. Big deal. I won the brawl in Atlantic City and walked away with the Hardcore Championship. Did that make me a great champion? No. What would have made me a great champion would have been walking into Alpha Showdown as the champion and defending it successfully. I didn’t do that, and if I never win the Hardcore Title again, then I can never claim to have been a great Hardcore Champion. You guys won the titles at Showdown and then immediately lost to me and Spartan. Who cares if it was non-title? You guys are supposed to be the elite but you didn’t put in an elite effort.
That’s why I don’t believe your Coalition is stronger than some random team of singles wrestlers. If two friends, two allies can’t put down two sets of guys that hate each other like me and Spartan or Trent Page and Masuda Jubei, then what good is your partnership? If you guys work together worse than two guys who have a mutual hatred of each other, then maybe you need to find some other partners to work with.
I thought you guys had a lot of fire and heart. It turns out that the fire is barely lit and your hearts are failing you. These pep talks from Kyle Ryder and Jobber Dave and Enhancement Steve and Curtain Jerk Jerry and any other lovable but second-rate wrestlers that you know are not working for you.
Maybe it’s time for you guys to go it alone. Maybe it’s time for you guys to forget about trying to be nice and trying to promote a different image for Canadian wrestlers. Maybe you need to stop worrying about representing your country so much and worry more about representing yourselves. Trust me, I’m proud to be an American, but this isn’t the Olympics. Waving your flag and singing your country’s national anthem aren’t going to get your hands raised at the end of the match.
All of these things that you’re concerning yourselves with are superfluous. You don’t need them to be the best. All you need is your skill and your talent, and right now, you’re not harnessing those things to be the best. You’re doing what you do so people will think you’re nice guys.
Well, I’m not concerned about being a nice again. Norris Cranley is not concerned with being a nice guy. I’m concerned with breaking bones. Norris Cranley is concerned with breaking limits. I’m concerned with keeping my momentum going so that when I step into the ring against Spartan at Ascension, I’ll have shown him that what happened at Alpha Showdown was just a little hiccup and I am truly the better man. Norris Cranley is concerned with racking up wins so that the higher-ups in APW will see that he deserves the chance to fight for gold like the Junior Heavyweight Championship.
The both of us are concerned with winning because that is the only way in this business to show you are the best. It ain’t gimmicks. It ain’t catchphrases. It ain’t flags. It ain’t anthems. Holding titles around your waist can only prove so much. Winning is the only way to prove you are the best, and Cranley and I intend on doing just that.
Forget seeking guidance from The Canadian Wolf. If you two want to merely survive this match, you just need to seek the wolves...in yourselves.
The video ends and Swenson puts the phone down. He looks straight ahead, contemplating as he puts another Frito in his mouth.
Chris Swenson: Wow. Good for him, man. Dan Dexter. He really made it. I can’t believe that’s the kid that me, Joe, and Mark beat the shit out of every day.
He sighs heavily.
Chris Swenson: That was, until he beat the shit out of us.
He brightens up.
Chris Swenson: But now look at him! A big wrestling star!
He looks around his room. The same posters from twenty years ago are still hanging up, including the one of Limp Bizkit. He stares at the visage of Fred Durst standing in the foreground, the baseball cap wearing frontman of the rap-metal group whose day has long since been gone. Fred Durst might have been cool in 1999, but now, he was just a joke of musical history. A blip. A fad. A has-been. Sure, he and the rest of Limp Bizkit were still playing shows, but they were a nostalgia act. Nobody thought they were cool anymore.
Swenson gets up and looks at himself in the mirror that’s behind his closet door. He takes a nice long look at himself. Fat, graying, middle-aged, no prospects, no girlfriend, still living in his parents’ house, working at a car wash for minimum wage alongside a bunch of illegal immigrants and high school kids he would have beaten up if they went to school in his day.
Chris Swenson: And look at me. I’m a nobody. What happened to me?
He hears the next video autoplaying on YouTube. It’s another video from a previous promo featuring, Dan, or Dean, or whatever the hell he was calling himself in that fucking AWP.
Dean Wolf: Fuckin’ A, huh? That’s certainly a unique name…
Swenson’s face hardens the more and more he hears Dan Dexter’s voice. The memory of the day Dan smashed his head in an instrument locker plays over and over in his damaged brain. All of the things he lost through that one moment fills him with sorrow. His brow becomes furrowed, the corners of his lips turning down.
Chris Swenson: I know what happened to me.
His whole life taken away by this kid that he had made his bitch day after day after day. It wasn’t fair. He was the big man on campus. He ruled the school. Now, he was just a fucking loser.
The anger grows in him faster than a train speeding down a track. It reaches a boiling point as he finishes declaring his epiphany.
Chris Swenson: Dan fucking Dexter is what happened to me.
