Post by Nathan Webb on Nov 24, 2011 14:52:23 GMT -6
1000, Monday, November 21st
San Diego, Ca.
After over a month away, I finally found myself back at the nearly unfurnished beach house that I called home. I honestly felt great to see this place again, barren space or not.
The great Pacific Ocean view which I saw both through my dining area and off my front porch. The cot in my living room which probably was my only real piece of furniture (if you want to call it that…it constituted a bed after all). I was back at the only real place that I called home since returning back to the states, a little over one year ago, which ironically which itself was meltdown related as well.
Of course this house was no longer occupied by me, myself, and I. It was now the house of Rose and me at the request of Dr. Natasha Reilly. But in all honesty it could be worse. Her childlike demeanor showed great innocence and literally no fear which gave me pause for apprehension but all in all, there was no better person to be stuck in this situation with.
As Rose carried her bags inside she dropped them immediately getting her first impression. Her hands immediately went to her hips and she started wrinkling her nose and pursing her lips giving me her whiskey-tango-foxtrot look.
“So is this REALLY your place, Mr. Nate.” Rose asked in a tone that carried both disbelief and pity. “It’s a wonder that no one had you interned sooner.”
“Hmm, maybe,” I said slightly rolling my eyes pacing around the house kicking things here and there, “she [the house] is structurally sound, I made sure of that myself. She needs someone who can make her aesthetically pleasing though. Obviously as you can see I am definitely lacking in that department.”
I said this throwing a definite hint Rose’s way. Whether she knew I was giving her this hint intentionally or not she certainly ran with it. Her face lit up as she bounced up and down giddy with joy. “Oh thank you, Mr. Nate. Don’t worry you will not be disappointed I promise…Oh and your birthday is coming up isn’t it…oh I have to start getting work…”
After all of that a new story was about to be started, but there was another story of what happened after we both left Hill Crest that was about to be told.
Collision, Sunday, 20 November 2011
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Instead of taking Rose to my home in San Diego for a paltry day or two before heading to Grand Rapids for the show I decided to go to Grand Rapids and wait for the show to come to us. For the first time I shelled out cash for a first class hotel room. I wanted Rose to enjoy her first taste of real freedom that she did not have for the past ten years.
Michigan itself had lost a lot of its glory since its heyday not even ten, fifteen years ago. It was a dreary shell of what it once was and what it meant to America which showed even more with the overcast skies that hung over the city. The things that carried the city not that long ago – blue collar workers, manufacturing, unions and all of the corruption that went hand and hand with them, were missing.
To Rose these insignificant details didn’t matter. She was walking on actual streets and not hospital grounds. She was shopping in stores and not online. Being a man who had been away from home for long periods of time I could sympathize. I knew what it was like to eat a Big Mac and drink and actual beer after over a year, but in Rose’s case it was ten years since she had a cup of Starbucks coffee. She was literally a kid in a candy store, gorging herself since she could not get enough.
Of course after three days of indulgence Rose and I made our way to the arena to take care of the business we needed to handle; one, to get Rose a contract with NCW and two, to get my foot in the door once again after it was slammed in my face.
While Rose waited for me in the hall I stepped in to talk to Gib, which then turned out to be an interrogation. Thankfully despite his best efforts, which weren’t all that great in the first place Gib took me to grab a beer which turned out to be the cheap arena stuff followed up with Gib’s stories about banging fat chicks that a keg of beer, a fifth of Jack Daniels and a good brain scrubbing couldn’t get rid of. Of course while all of this was transpiring I had completely forgotten about Rose. I cursed myself for leaving her alone for so long and prayed to God that she had not gotten herself into trouble. So like a parent who had lost their child I frantically ran about the backstage area looking for Rose. Finally after some direction from the stage hands I found Rose with Amy Marshall coming out of the locker room. As Amy and I made eye contact I could by the look Amy had given me I couldn’t have come sooner.
Rose seeing me became ecstatic immediately wrapping her arms around my neck and giving me a big hug.
“So this your new partner in crime huh…Mr. Nate?” Amy said adding a sarcastic spin to my new name.
“Mr. Nate is not a criminal. He’s crazy but not a criminal.” Rose said not getting the joke.
I sighed thankfully seeing Rose not in any major trouble. “Thank you.” I said to Amy. “Do you think I can talk to you in private?”
“Sure. I think there is a coffee shop right outside the arena.” Amy said snickering seeing me in the predicament I was in.”
“Thank you.” I said as we collectively headed out the door and outside.
The weather was brisk but felt good. Rose was her usual perky self, skipping around as Amy and I stayed back heading toward the coffee shop. After we had arrived and ordered our coffee Rose became distracted by a gentleman playing chess with himself and after some small talk started playing herself. This gave the window for Amy and me to head outside and start talking.
We sat down at an outdoor table, Amy sipping her coffee and I lighting up a cigarette. After a brief period of silence Amy started up the conversation.
“So I hear you got yourself interrogated earlier by our good sheriff.” Amy said starting our conversation.
“Yeah, if you want to call it that, more like something from a bad cop show, followed by a couple bad beers and enough T.M.I. that I think I won’t be sleeping properly for the next few days.”
Amy laughed. “Ahh yes, Gib and his fat chicks. You should have been like me and used your charms to woo him.”
“Yeah, I don’t think I have the parts for that, nor do I have an ounce of charisma in my body.” I responded.
“Ahh, you never know. He may actually enjoy what you bring to the table.” Amy said nudging me in the arm.
“Something I rather not think about…especially after all the horror stories he told me.” I responded shaking my head as Amy sat in her seat chuckling.
There was another pause after that. I stared into the coffee shop window staring at Rose who was attentively playing her game of chess, with her new “friend.”
“You’re worried about her?” Amy asked sincerely.
I nodded my head. “Here I was worrying about myself and only myself and all of a sudden she was handed over to me, like an orphan child.”
“Yeah I can only imagine how that is, but I think she is what you need.”
“I guess so, but I don’t know she is smart but I guess her innocence is so endearing. I just don’t want this business to take it away from her.”
“Hun, it’s the real world. Hey everyone wants to believe there is a Santa Claus but there comes a time where we have to move past that. Yeah it may suck but keeping her in the dark does not do here anymore good than having to deal with some tears. Besides I don’t think you give her enough credit. She can handle more than you or I think she can.”
Amy was right, but trying to maintain that healthy balance was the rub in all of this. Her innocence was good but she would need to learn some harsh life lessons, but I didn’t want a meltdown on my hands.
“Anyway I got to get back to Ander.” Amy said getting up from her seat. “Thanks for the coffee. Let me give you some advice and be patient with her. She is complex but the perfect challenge for you. Don’t force anything and let the system work for you and you both will be fine.” With a pat on my back she left and walked back toward the arena but something caused her to turn around. “Nate do me a favor would you man.”
“What’s that?”
“Smile every now and again. Seriously you can bum out everyone around here with that some-what depressed look that you always have on your face…all the time.”
I snickered as she toasted me with her coffee cup and set back to the arena.
Getting up I put out my cigarette and walked inside to check in on Rose.
“Checkmate.” Rose said making what appeared to be her finally move, showing her confidence by batting her eyebrows toward the gentleman.
The gentleman on the other side sat back look perplexed like this wasn’t supposed to happen but sighed as he was resigned to accept his defeat. “Well little lady looks like you got one over one me.”
Rose looked up and smiled seeing me with a look that said “Look what I did, Mr. Nate.”
Looking down at her I couldn’t help but let the faintest of smiles come over my face. If I had even a little of what she had attitude wise, I knew I would be a better person.
“Know yourself and seek self-improvement.”
It’s a tenement of what is called the 11 leadership principles of the Marine Corps. These principles are set and named for the fact that they the pillars of what make good leaders not only in a military environment but in life in general.
This particular principle is stated first, and many in the Marine Corps feel it is the most important one. It deals with the individual directly and tells him if he is jacked up how can he be expected to lead.
-If you cannot P.T. well who are you to demand that your subordinates to be awesome in their physical conditioning.
-If you are not proficient in your line of work than whom are you to demand your subordinates be as well.
That list can go on and on ad nausea. But what is more important are the implications of what it means to me right now in this stage of my life. Especially when I am now given the charge of training and ensuring the wellbeing of someone that is not me myself or I. How can I reasonably be able to do this when I am ****ed up my own self? Is that reasonable or for that matter right on my part?
Hell no it isn’t and nor should it be.
So I as sit back here I have to evaluate my own self especially when I am going against an opponent like Simon Daye. I have to ask myself who am I and what do I need to improve?
I do know this, I have been here for a reasonably short time with New Championship Wrestling and I am now being called washed up…and that is after not accomplishing a damn thing with this company. I have few successes but many more failures especially in the later stages of a short career and that doesn’t help that these failures and the ones best know are piss poor showing against the Ace and Seth Evans in matches that could have done my career some good.
So how do I turn this ship around?
How do I avoid looking like a train wreck before coming out of the station, yet again?
How can I become a real force in this company…and not just someone looking to rise?
I get in there and I fight. I show Rose, and the world what it means to have honor courage and commitment. To go out there with the odds stacked against you and fight. I show the world that I can dust myself off and be the man everyone knows I can be.
Not only do I go out and fight but I go out and win. Not only do I go out and win I do it with passion and intensity this time. I know the Cold Spider is still who Nathan Webb is and that Nathan Webb is still the Cold Spider but I actually go out there and look like I belong. That I have the drive to be more than a face in the ring. That I show not only Simon Daye but the rest of the locker room that I can be more than a name on the card and a face in the ring but that I can be a force for the future ahead.
It’s time to show the world what they have been waiting for. That the Cold Spider has not broken through the glass ceiling because there is no ceiling. The sky is the limit for me and I have nowhere to go but up.
Simon you may be cocky and you may be arrogant and you may be a good wrestler…being that you worked with Falcon and all but in the end you are not going to be wrestling but going to be fighting and rest assured this is a fight that you cannot win.
San Diego, Ca.
After over a month away, I finally found myself back at the nearly unfurnished beach house that I called home. I honestly felt great to see this place again, barren space or not.
The great Pacific Ocean view which I saw both through my dining area and off my front porch. The cot in my living room which probably was my only real piece of furniture (if you want to call it that…it constituted a bed after all). I was back at the only real place that I called home since returning back to the states, a little over one year ago, which ironically which itself was meltdown related as well.
Of course this house was no longer occupied by me, myself, and I. It was now the house of Rose and me at the request of Dr. Natasha Reilly. But in all honesty it could be worse. Her childlike demeanor showed great innocence and literally no fear which gave me pause for apprehension but all in all, there was no better person to be stuck in this situation with.
As Rose carried her bags inside she dropped them immediately getting her first impression. Her hands immediately went to her hips and she started wrinkling her nose and pursing her lips giving me her whiskey-tango-foxtrot look.
“So is this REALLY your place, Mr. Nate.” Rose asked in a tone that carried both disbelief and pity. “It’s a wonder that no one had you interned sooner.”
“Hmm, maybe,” I said slightly rolling my eyes pacing around the house kicking things here and there, “she [the house] is structurally sound, I made sure of that myself. She needs someone who can make her aesthetically pleasing though. Obviously as you can see I am definitely lacking in that department.”
I said this throwing a definite hint Rose’s way. Whether she knew I was giving her this hint intentionally or not she certainly ran with it. Her face lit up as she bounced up and down giddy with joy. “Oh thank you, Mr. Nate. Don’t worry you will not be disappointed I promise…Oh and your birthday is coming up isn’t it…oh I have to start getting work…”
After all of that a new story was about to be started, but there was another story of what happened after we both left Hill Crest that was about to be told.
Collision, Sunday, 20 November 2011
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Instead of taking Rose to my home in San Diego for a paltry day or two before heading to Grand Rapids for the show I decided to go to Grand Rapids and wait for the show to come to us. For the first time I shelled out cash for a first class hotel room. I wanted Rose to enjoy her first taste of real freedom that she did not have for the past ten years.
Michigan itself had lost a lot of its glory since its heyday not even ten, fifteen years ago. It was a dreary shell of what it once was and what it meant to America which showed even more with the overcast skies that hung over the city. The things that carried the city not that long ago – blue collar workers, manufacturing, unions and all of the corruption that went hand and hand with them, were missing.
To Rose these insignificant details didn’t matter. She was walking on actual streets and not hospital grounds. She was shopping in stores and not online. Being a man who had been away from home for long periods of time I could sympathize. I knew what it was like to eat a Big Mac and drink and actual beer after over a year, but in Rose’s case it was ten years since she had a cup of Starbucks coffee. She was literally a kid in a candy store, gorging herself since she could not get enough.
Of course after three days of indulgence Rose and I made our way to the arena to take care of the business we needed to handle; one, to get Rose a contract with NCW and two, to get my foot in the door once again after it was slammed in my face.
While Rose waited for me in the hall I stepped in to talk to Gib, which then turned out to be an interrogation. Thankfully despite his best efforts, which weren’t all that great in the first place Gib took me to grab a beer which turned out to be the cheap arena stuff followed up with Gib’s stories about banging fat chicks that a keg of beer, a fifth of Jack Daniels and a good brain scrubbing couldn’t get rid of. Of course while all of this was transpiring I had completely forgotten about Rose. I cursed myself for leaving her alone for so long and prayed to God that she had not gotten herself into trouble. So like a parent who had lost their child I frantically ran about the backstage area looking for Rose. Finally after some direction from the stage hands I found Rose with Amy Marshall coming out of the locker room. As Amy and I made eye contact I could by the look Amy had given me I couldn’t have come sooner.
Rose seeing me became ecstatic immediately wrapping her arms around my neck and giving me a big hug.
“So this your new partner in crime huh…Mr. Nate?” Amy said adding a sarcastic spin to my new name.
“Mr. Nate is not a criminal. He’s crazy but not a criminal.” Rose said not getting the joke.
I sighed thankfully seeing Rose not in any major trouble. “Thank you.” I said to Amy. “Do you think I can talk to you in private?”
“Sure. I think there is a coffee shop right outside the arena.” Amy said snickering seeing me in the predicament I was in.”
“Thank you.” I said as we collectively headed out the door and outside.
The weather was brisk but felt good. Rose was her usual perky self, skipping around as Amy and I stayed back heading toward the coffee shop. After we had arrived and ordered our coffee Rose became distracted by a gentleman playing chess with himself and after some small talk started playing herself. This gave the window for Amy and me to head outside and start talking.
We sat down at an outdoor table, Amy sipping her coffee and I lighting up a cigarette. After a brief period of silence Amy started up the conversation.
“So I hear you got yourself interrogated earlier by our good sheriff.” Amy said starting our conversation.
“Yeah, if you want to call it that, more like something from a bad cop show, followed by a couple bad beers and enough T.M.I. that I think I won’t be sleeping properly for the next few days.”
Amy laughed. “Ahh yes, Gib and his fat chicks. You should have been like me and used your charms to woo him.”
“Yeah, I don’t think I have the parts for that, nor do I have an ounce of charisma in my body.” I responded.
“Ahh, you never know. He may actually enjoy what you bring to the table.” Amy said nudging me in the arm.
“Something I rather not think about…especially after all the horror stories he told me.” I responded shaking my head as Amy sat in her seat chuckling.
There was another pause after that. I stared into the coffee shop window staring at Rose who was attentively playing her game of chess, with her new “friend.”
“You’re worried about her?” Amy asked sincerely.
I nodded my head. “Here I was worrying about myself and only myself and all of a sudden she was handed over to me, like an orphan child.”
“Yeah I can only imagine how that is, but I think she is what you need.”
“I guess so, but I don’t know she is smart but I guess her innocence is so endearing. I just don’t want this business to take it away from her.”
“Hun, it’s the real world. Hey everyone wants to believe there is a Santa Claus but there comes a time where we have to move past that. Yeah it may suck but keeping her in the dark does not do here anymore good than having to deal with some tears. Besides I don’t think you give her enough credit. She can handle more than you or I think she can.”
Amy was right, but trying to maintain that healthy balance was the rub in all of this. Her innocence was good but she would need to learn some harsh life lessons, but I didn’t want a meltdown on my hands.
“Anyway I got to get back to Ander.” Amy said getting up from her seat. “Thanks for the coffee. Let me give you some advice and be patient with her. She is complex but the perfect challenge for you. Don’t force anything and let the system work for you and you both will be fine.” With a pat on my back she left and walked back toward the arena but something caused her to turn around. “Nate do me a favor would you man.”
“What’s that?”
“Smile every now and again. Seriously you can bum out everyone around here with that some-what depressed look that you always have on your face…all the time.”
I snickered as she toasted me with her coffee cup and set back to the arena.
Getting up I put out my cigarette and walked inside to check in on Rose.
“Checkmate.” Rose said making what appeared to be her finally move, showing her confidence by batting her eyebrows toward the gentleman.
The gentleman on the other side sat back look perplexed like this wasn’t supposed to happen but sighed as he was resigned to accept his defeat. “Well little lady looks like you got one over one me.”
Rose looked up and smiled seeing me with a look that said “Look what I did, Mr. Nate.”
Looking down at her I couldn’t help but let the faintest of smiles come over my face. If I had even a little of what she had attitude wise, I knew I would be a better person.
“Know yourself and seek self-improvement.”
It’s a tenement of what is called the 11 leadership principles of the Marine Corps. These principles are set and named for the fact that they the pillars of what make good leaders not only in a military environment but in life in general.
This particular principle is stated first, and many in the Marine Corps feel it is the most important one. It deals with the individual directly and tells him if he is jacked up how can he be expected to lead.
-If you cannot P.T. well who are you to demand that your subordinates to be awesome in their physical conditioning.
-If you are not proficient in your line of work than whom are you to demand your subordinates be as well.
That list can go on and on ad nausea. But what is more important are the implications of what it means to me right now in this stage of my life. Especially when I am now given the charge of training and ensuring the wellbeing of someone that is not me myself or I. How can I reasonably be able to do this when I am ****ed up my own self? Is that reasonable or for that matter right on my part?
Hell no it isn’t and nor should it be.
So I as sit back here I have to evaluate my own self especially when I am going against an opponent like Simon Daye. I have to ask myself who am I and what do I need to improve?
I do know this, I have been here for a reasonably short time with New Championship Wrestling and I am now being called washed up…and that is after not accomplishing a damn thing with this company. I have few successes but many more failures especially in the later stages of a short career and that doesn’t help that these failures and the ones best know are piss poor showing against the Ace and Seth Evans in matches that could have done my career some good.
So how do I turn this ship around?
How do I avoid looking like a train wreck before coming out of the station, yet again?
How can I become a real force in this company…and not just someone looking to rise?
I get in there and I fight. I show Rose, and the world what it means to have honor courage and commitment. To go out there with the odds stacked against you and fight. I show the world that I can dust myself off and be the man everyone knows I can be.
Not only do I go out and fight but I go out and win. Not only do I go out and win I do it with passion and intensity this time. I know the Cold Spider is still who Nathan Webb is and that Nathan Webb is still the Cold Spider but I actually go out there and look like I belong. That I have the drive to be more than a face in the ring. That I show not only Simon Daye but the rest of the locker room that I can be more than a name on the card and a face in the ring but that I can be a force for the future ahead.
It’s time to show the world what they have been waiting for. That the Cold Spider has not broken through the glass ceiling because there is no ceiling. The sky is the limit for me and I have nowhere to go but up.
Simon you may be cocky and you may be arrogant and you may be a good wrestler…being that you worked with Falcon and all but in the end you are not going to be wrestling but going to be fighting and rest assured this is a fight that you cannot win.
