10-05-2018, 11:58 PM
In professional sports, there’s no such as a do over. Nobody gets a mulligan and despite what some may believe… second chances don’t actually happen. Most of the time you get one shot to make good on all you’re boasting. One chance to be all that you can be and seize the moment. For many… once that happens and it’s over it’s time to move on to the next thing. With how long my career has been I’ve seen hundreds of people come and go… two decades and eight different companies it’s been like seven life times. I have seen rookies come in with all the pomp and circumstance of being a hall of famer, but end up being nothing more than a dry fart. I’ve seen haggard old like me come in with nothing and rise up to the ranks to immortally.
The difference between the two groups isn’t class. It’s not skill.
Shit… it’s not even brains.
The difference between being the best and being the rest is what you go in your chest. Heart and determination that’s what sets legends and glorified ring rats apart from one another. As I have seen it first hand, the most physically gifted athlete in the world going bust in the big time and being released, because while he had the talent and the skills to be the best, but he was soft like a donut mental fortitude.
And that’s why I think for most of my career I’ve been a wash out and my friends like Rick Young have stood the test of time. I had the talent and the skills, but I was a realist to an extreme I knew that this career wasn’t going last forever and I was wrestling with one foot out of the door. Though watching students that I trained like Samantha Raine, who has worked her ass off for everything that she’s earned despite constantly being told she isn’t good enough. Even someone like Mika Kozlov, who despite being one of the most deluded and unstable wrestler I have seen deserves at least some credit for not overdosing on something or killing someone…
…clap… clap… clap…
The truth of the matter is that not everyone can succeed. Not everyone has what it takes to stand the test of time. But for some that can hang around and keep swimming despite the companies attempt to drown them. Those few that survive the waves for long enough are the ones who do tend to come out all the better for the suffering and frustrations that they have endured.
Which brings us to the elephant in the room.
It was just a matter of time before we seriously started to talk about… me. Once upon a time I was a starry-eyed kid much like Jenni Helms, who was too fucking stubborn to take any advice and too determined to change myself even a little bit. As I knew I was going to be one of the people that would break the glass ceiling and reach the potential that everyone knew I had. However, that ceiling shattering never happened, because of a stupid decision during a match with a Michael Stevens.
No… instead of becoming a champion, the next big star… I was fired. All the talent in the world, but nobody wanted to buy what I was selling and because of that my next job. Scared of repeating the same mistake I let myself become complacent as the resident curtain jerker to mid card gate keeper. I was the guy that all the next big stars would put against to get their name out there, before finally letting them pass me by. I was for the lack better way to put it, but I was the person they’d call so someone could have a great match with, but weren’t ready for the big stage just yet. I was the wild card substitute for someone like Peyton Rice.
Simple, right?
Blah, blah, blah… I know… I’m rambling on so speeding things up a bit.
So what changed? I got married. My wife and I had kids. Or maybe it’s just a mid-life crisis that finally woke me up to the fact that I wasn’t putting everything I had in to my matches. Does it really matter? No, all that matters now is the fact that I’m being serious about getting to the top of the mountain before I really hang up my boots for the last time.
Which is where the rub comes, because there’s a danger with being at the top of such a competitive company like EMERGE. You see, you could start to lose that edge that you have. You know, that edge that helped you to survive to get to the trip to the top.
Depending on your mental fortitude to keep from falling in to some predisposed trappings of making it to the top of the mountain. Where that very important confidence turns in to arrogance and before you know it, your staring up at someone else while you’re left to figure out where it all went wrong.
Don’t get me wrong… ego is a tool for success in this industry, but megalomania is a condition of self-destruction that has claimed countless victims over the years. Men like Rick Young at the end of his career, woman like Regan Helms… which I fear is the only thing that she is truly handing down to Jenni Helms. They get a taste of the top and believe it is divine intervention that has them there.
Even I have been bitten the forbidden fruit of this disastrous scenario, but not for a long time. It cost me my job with the XWL, but more recently than that when I won a tournament much like this one. I got cocky, I was overconfident and I took my eyes off the prize just long enough for someone to get the better of me. In hindsight, I can admit that I’m flawed in my approach, and even if I often tell people that the house always wins and I do… I’m far from it.
See what I did there?
My point is… and yes.. I do have a point… no matter how good you think you are, and no matter how much success you have at the moment. We all hit the wall and get knocked back on our ass from time to time. The great ones don’t know how to prevent it, but they do know how to get back up on their feet, dust themselves off, and start the climb again.
So what will we see out of Jenni Helms when that walls comes? Will she fall from grace and use the lessons learned from her time at the top to better herself for the next climb like Lilith Evans and myself. Or will she regress back in to being that “good little worker” who does her job in the mid card to help get others over. Will she still remain hungry for any opportunity, or will she feel that all the other titles are below her?
And more importantly… will she be willing to do the little things like that when she’s thirty three years old to help the new crop of talent learn the business? Will she be able to admit to her own shortcomings in hope that she might give perspective to someone that seems devoid of it up until only recently?
I hope so.
The difference between the two groups isn’t class. It’s not skill.
Shit… it’s not even brains.
The difference between being the best and being the rest is what you go in your chest. Heart and determination that’s what sets legends and glorified ring rats apart from one another. As I have seen it first hand, the most physically gifted athlete in the world going bust in the big time and being released, because while he had the talent and the skills to be the best, but he was soft like a donut mental fortitude.
And that’s why I think for most of my career I’ve been a wash out and my friends like Rick Young have stood the test of time. I had the talent and the skills, but I was a realist to an extreme I knew that this career wasn’t going last forever and I was wrestling with one foot out of the door. Though watching students that I trained like Samantha Raine, who has worked her ass off for everything that she’s earned despite constantly being told she isn’t good enough. Even someone like Mika Kozlov, who despite being one of the most deluded and unstable wrestler I have seen deserves at least some credit for not overdosing on something or killing someone…
…clap… clap… clap…
The truth of the matter is that not everyone can succeed. Not everyone has what it takes to stand the test of time. But for some that can hang around and keep swimming despite the companies attempt to drown them. Those few that survive the waves for long enough are the ones who do tend to come out all the better for the suffering and frustrations that they have endured.
Which brings us to the elephant in the room.
It was just a matter of time before we seriously started to talk about… me. Once upon a time I was a starry-eyed kid much like Jenni Helms, who was too fucking stubborn to take any advice and too determined to change myself even a little bit. As I knew I was going to be one of the people that would break the glass ceiling and reach the potential that everyone knew I had. However, that ceiling shattering never happened, because of a stupid decision during a match with a Michael Stevens.
No… instead of becoming a champion, the next big star… I was fired. All the talent in the world, but nobody wanted to buy what I was selling and because of that my next job. Scared of repeating the same mistake I let myself become complacent as the resident curtain jerker to mid card gate keeper. I was the guy that all the next big stars would put against to get their name out there, before finally letting them pass me by. I was for the lack better way to put it, but I was the person they’d call so someone could have a great match with, but weren’t ready for the big stage just yet. I was the wild card substitute for someone like Peyton Rice.
Simple, right?
Blah, blah, blah… I know… I’m rambling on so speeding things up a bit.
So what changed? I got married. My wife and I had kids. Or maybe it’s just a mid-life crisis that finally woke me up to the fact that I wasn’t putting everything I had in to my matches. Does it really matter? No, all that matters now is the fact that I’m being serious about getting to the top of the mountain before I really hang up my boots for the last time.
Which is where the rub comes, because there’s a danger with being at the top of such a competitive company like EMERGE. You see, you could start to lose that edge that you have. You know, that edge that helped you to survive to get to the trip to the top.
Depending on your mental fortitude to keep from falling in to some predisposed trappings of making it to the top of the mountain. Where that very important confidence turns in to arrogance and before you know it, your staring up at someone else while you’re left to figure out where it all went wrong.
Don’t get me wrong… ego is a tool for success in this industry, but megalomania is a condition of self-destruction that has claimed countless victims over the years. Men like Rick Young at the end of his career, woman like Regan Helms… which I fear is the only thing that she is truly handing down to Jenni Helms. They get a taste of the top and believe it is divine intervention that has them there.
Even I have been bitten the forbidden fruit of this disastrous scenario, but not for a long time. It cost me my job with the XWL, but more recently than that when I won a tournament much like this one. I got cocky, I was overconfident and I took my eyes off the prize just long enough for someone to get the better of me. In hindsight, I can admit that I’m flawed in my approach, and even if I often tell people that the house always wins and I do… I’m far from it.
See what I did there?
My point is… and yes.. I do have a point… no matter how good you think you are, and no matter how much success you have at the moment. We all hit the wall and get knocked back on our ass from time to time. The great ones don’t know how to prevent it, but they do know how to get back up on their feet, dust themselves off, and start the climb again.
So what will we see out of Jenni Helms when that walls comes? Will she fall from grace and use the lessons learned from her time at the top to better herself for the next climb like Lilith Evans and myself. Or will she regress back in to being that “good little worker” who does her job in the mid card to help get others over. Will she still remain hungry for any opportunity, or will she feel that all the other titles are below her?
And more importantly… will she be willing to do the little things like that when she’s thirty three years old to help the new crop of talent learn the business? Will she be able to admit to her own shortcomings in hope that she might give perspective to someone that seems devoid of it up until only recently?
I hope so.