From Blackness to Light
Chapter Two: Being a Champion
Black walked through the park on an autumn day. The leaves were changing colour, but they hadn’t yet reached the point of colorful brilliance that would brighten up a drab day like this. He had lost the Mayhem Championship, but if truth be told he hadn’t really been looking to keep it. He just wanted the rush of being a champion again. Being a champion gave meaning, being a champion gave purpose. The Mayhem Championship offered that to an extent, but everything about the title suggested and betrayed its disposability.
Black thought a lot about what it meant to be a champion, about the honour it carried. Yes, it meant a more prominent place on the card, which in this business meant more money, but it carried something much more important than that. Prestige. Belonging. A sense that you are carrying the weight of a company or a division on your shoulders and that you are a role model. Well… Maybe not. But you are the fulcrum of wrestling. The audience want to be you, your peers want to beat you, holding that title in your hands means that you are relevant.
Black hadn’t felt relevant for a long time, but he could remember the moment that he won the championship and the way the crowd reacted and how welcomed he felt. At Gold Rush he’d be able to feel that again he was sure. He’d never been EurAsian champion, but it didn’t matter. Daddy Mack had, and that meant the world to him, and the last two holders of the title had shown the esteem with which it was held. Black saw the Eurasian championship as his chance for relevance and redemption.
Gold Rush was at the end of the month though, and for now there was another fish to fry. Black could reflect on the way that he conducted himself as champion. He defended his title fairly, and on his own. He won the title fairly, and on his own. He got into the title picture fairly, and on his own. Whilst he knew that his attitude had potentially not been as it should during that part of his life, he was confident that he had risen the prestige of the WZCW champion, or if not certainly hadn’t denigrated it. But looking at what happened since, he felt that the title had been on a downward spiral culminating in its current owner.
Yellow in the belly and blue in the face, Mussel as champion was a travesty. Black didn’t want to change the second part of that fact, the WZCW title for him was ancient history and distant future. But Black did feel as a former champion and having seen some greats hold the title over the meantime that there should be a manner of conducting oneself as a champion. The champion shouldn’t need an entourage. The champion shouldn’t need to belittle the audience. The champion should be a beacon of respectability. It should be someone to aspire to. There was absolutely nothing that Black could do about that, not for now, but what he could hopefully do was give this company a champion it could be proud of.
Red mist descended in Black’s mind as he thought of the current champion and his attitude. The cronies and the phonies that surrounded the show pony. Black’s muscles came from tussles, he didn’t need supplements or implements or for sycophantic compliments. The blood rushed quicker, his stomach felt sicker and the internal monologue started to bicker. He wasn’t this anymore, a fool with a loose mouth and ruthless ambition. But maybe he was mistaken, and now is when he’s faking, he’d given all he can, so why shouldn’t he be taking?
Red, black, red, black, red a thousand different ideas swirling around his head. A conflict in the mind and a tearing in the soul, but could he ever find a way out the black hole. A word, a rhyme, a stitch lost in time everything harked back to the isolation he felt before. This anger was consuming him, subsuming all the pain that caused him to lose his way. This desire is never ending, his spirit never mending he doesn’t want to break the rules, but their forever bending. A new outlook is a blessing, but its feeling like a curse, things should be getting better but he’s only feeling worse. Feeling angry is a bore, not feeling is a chore, did he want to do the work, or get caught up like before? He never said sorry, and maybe that’s the issue, did he need the sword or just the box of tissue?
Orange skin and pumped up muscle, Flex sickened him with this fake hustle. A sack full of lies, and a back full of knives risked sending Black back to the dark ages. He wanted to be zen, but every now and then the injustices and unfairness takes all of his awareness and this is the result. How can you be a hero, when you’re offered zero but a burnt out Rome and a fiddling Nero. No matter how he was feeling, that life was not appealing and he had to regain control before the scar tissue on his soul made him jump through the ceiling. So all of the feeling that he’d been concealing suddenly came to the boil. The lies, the stealing and too much kneeling had all been too much toil. His tearing seam, a primal scream and he could turn the nightmare back to the dream.
Brown birds fled from the trees as he let out his raw roar. Black was angry at Flex, but angrier at himself for getting angry. This had to stop, and he had to learn to control it, but maybe the blind rage could be an advantage. Whether he kept himself in check or he didn’t, there was one thing that was certain. He’d take it to Flex one way or the other. Beating him as a wrestler, or beating him as a maniac. The means may not be the same, but the end probably would be. He walked on a bit further to another area of the park, which eventually returned to birdsong.
Red, Orange, Yellow and Brown leaves filled the treeline in front of him. There was obviously a bit more light here, and the leaves were further down their path. Garth liked this area of the park a lot better.
