Post by The Ace on Apr 6, 2012 8:55:06 GMT -6
*The scene opens with a television screen and we see a wide flat screen tv displaying the face of The Ace in high definition and we see that it infact a Youtube clip being shared on the official nCw Channel, showcasing the first ever Coliseum match, and the promo cut back then by one of the three men for whom this would actually be their second time in the steel hell of one of nCw's most beloved annual attractions, in order to generate some hype for this Sunday. The clip is paused at the moment but soon it begins rolling...*
~I will not fail, unlike Ricky Johnson, how poetic it is that last week you dropped the ball to Angel and this week you will drop it again to the Devil...you see I don't even know what you're doing in this match to be honest, I mean sure you were a pretty pathetic National Champion and a mediocre X-Division Champion, but don't think for one second that you have ever proven yourself to be worthy of a World Champion...at least not to me, the man who will be your judge, jury and executioner at Sovereign...infact the only thing you have ever proven to me is that you blow every single multiman match that features you and I...and quite frankly, you'd be a fool to even think that this Sunday was going to be any different....so whilst I do admire your taste in women, when it comes to wrestling, there is nothing of yours that is worthy of my admiration...~
After the clip, the camera pans around to show The Ace sat on his luxury leather couch at his second home in Las Vegas, Nevada, smirking at the camera. He is wearing a Ricky Johnson 'Seek The Truth' T-shirt...*
Now, I'm not particularly down with the kids these days. I haven't really embraced Twitter or Facebook, but I can just about find my way around Youtube and I will admit the nostalgic value of that site is truly remarkable. If you know what you're looking for, you can almost guarantee that somebody, somewhere has uploaded a clip of it. Fortunately for me, I didn't have to look far to find exactly what I was looking for because the official nCw Youtube Channel has decided to pull some footage from its archive library, going back to the very first Coliseum four years ago and share clips and footage of what happened then in order to generate more hype and more last minute pay per view buys for this Sunday...
"The Ace smiles*
A sound strategy if you're part of the nCw marketing team perhaps, but if you're Ricky Johnson, you've got to be facepalming just a little bit right now because in the minute or so long video footage that opened this promo, I have reminded the world of the one thing you were hoping I wouldn't...and that is that even after four years, nothing substantial has changed about Ricky Johnson the wrestler...even after four years, every word I said back then about you still applies today, every word still rings true and its ringing in your ears right now, Ricky...
*The Ace smirks*
Maybe you hate me because I'm just a tough sell, maybe you hate me because even after four years, I still am a stubborn son of a bitch who has not and probably will not ever change his opinion of you as a competitor in that ring. Or maybe you hate me because I'm the only one of your peers with the balls to tell you the stone cold truth about the terminal mediocrity of your career. It doesn't matter to me whether you win, lose, draw, die or retire this Sunday, hell you could even go one further this Sunday and actually take the winning pinfall over me at Sovereign and gain whatever the hell kind of absolution you think you need to earn to validate your entire career in this company and it still wouldn't change the fact that every time Spike Kane invited me on to his now abandoned little nCw TV show to play word association and he said 'Ricky Johnson', my response would be...
Meh.
You seek the truth Ricky.
There it is.
But before you dismiss it as just the absurd inconsequential ramblings of a man who is still bitter about not having taken the National Championship from you at Crossroads, consider the fact that my truth is no less an absurd notion to you as your truth about you being some sort of kryptonite to me, in the presence of whom I inevitably stumble and falter - although I will admit that every time I see you, you do have a slight green glow about you, and to this day I haven't been able to work out if its jealousy or envy or you're just plain not well, the latter of which would certainly go a considerable way to explaining some of your mindless gum flapping as of late...
But I digress.
In case you missed it Ricky, I made a point about how today's wrestling fan is all clued up on facebook, and twitter and how suddenly that seems to make them smarter fans because they think sharing an opinion through social media somehow validates it when in fact it doesn't. Is it any wonder that Keybo Shabaz has gone out of his way to ensure that adding comments has been disabled for every nCw video posted on the company channel. He doesn't want to deal with the trolls and the asinine opinions of the masses, because ninety nine per cent of them are idiots who are sat there watching this right now booing their piddly asses off, and shelling out even more mioney to line my pockets in some vain hope that I will meet my end inside that Coliseum this Sunday. Hell, some of them are probably even uploading this to their personal Youtube accounts just so they can be keyboard warriors and share their asinine opinions on why my opinions are so wrong...
*The Ace laughs*
Contrary to popular belief around here, I'm not an idiot. I know that men like the current World Heavyweight Champion Todd Williams and the current National Champion Ricky Johnson are considered internet darlings and loved unconditionally by the so called smart marks, and in order to keep her product fresh and relevant, Kelly has embraced that and made the smart business decision to market these guys and say 'hey look, these guys you love are now our top champions'. It is a smart business decision, I get that you need gullible albeit hard working sheep to shell out sixty dollars for a Pay Per View every month, it still doesn't mean its a business decision I agree with...
*The Ace shakes his head and sighs*
But of course my opinion doesn't matter, because it is not my job to entertain the masses, it is yours Kelly, and at the end of the day if the inane shoutings of one man and the impending fatherhood of another is what these dime a dozen wrestling fans consider entertainment, then I guess you have to at least try and give them what they want. Personally though, I'll be that much more entertained when after Sunday, the epic Todd Williams versus Ricky Johnson title match at A Night To Remember that they're all clamouring for right now is denied, if not by any one of the five better men than Ricky winning the Coliseum, then by Lex Sense absolutely annihiliating Todd Williams and taking his World Title...
Dream matches are dream matches for a reason.
Eventually you have to wake up and realise its probably never going to happen.
*The camera then pans around to show 'lightning gladiators' being typed into the Youtube search bar and after a few moments clicks on a clip titled 'UK Gladiators - Season 3 - Hang Tough - Lightning' which begins playing.
After the clip, we are joined once again by The Ace who has a rather dog-eared copy of the 1994 Gladiators Annual in hand....*
I'm sure most people when they think of the term 'Gladiator', they think of the 'epic masterpiece' starring Russell Crowe, not me, I think of Lightning. I'm sure only Spike Kane will appreciate what I'm about to say next, but some twenty years ago I was hooked on the show. I even had the little hand held electronic game and would play Powerball for hours, and whilst all my friends were of the consensus that Jet was the hottest gladiator, I went against popular opinion once again and maintained that that distinct honour went to the blonde bombshell known as Lightning. For any fans of the show watching this who know or even still care about what I'm talking about, feel free to debate amongst yourselves the nice little ironic fact that one of my earliest celebrity crushes was a woman whose real name was Kim Betts, for the rest of you who don't particularly care, I can sympathise because I myself don't care that five other men are looking to emerge as a Gladiator this Sunday.
Sorry, I am not Dave Holland, or Roberto Verona, I have neither the time nor the patience to trawl through a library of historical textbooks to carefully reference the historical accuracy and weave it seamlessly into my promo like it really matters. What I will say however is more often than not Gladiators did not emerge victorious from battle, they did not emerge as triumphant Gladiators from battle, no matter how determinedly they may have marched in. I am not a Gladiator, nor do I particularly want to be remembered as one - those are the kinds of meaningless hollow labels that I will leave for those who have nothing left to prove like Spike Kane or Falcon, or hungry up and comers like Nathaniel David Webb to achieve. The kind of men who feel accomplished when a label is pencilled into the footnote of their already illustrious career or those who will feel better about their frankly average career to date by having another label to throw around for a year.
Those of you who know me, and know me well already know that I'm the kind of man who detests being labelled as anything in my career, and yet there are at least three of you in this match who will insist absolutely, even with your dying breath to label me as 'mediocre', 'undeserving', 'worthless' and 'transitional'. For some of you, a promo full of these labels is enough of a job well done that you pat yourselves on the back, go home and tell whoever gives a damn about you 'Boy I got Ace good today', for others, they have to go a step further and throw a hissy fit full of curse words because its all macho and cool and then bitch about how I never lived up to the bar they set. How I never carried the proud torch of 'Xtreme' like they wanted me to or even expected me to.
Don't get me wrong, it would have been nice if for once Spike had been a man of his word and actually stepped aside when he said he would, and it would have been just as nice if he had passed the torch on to me, but then I forgot just how monumental the Kane ego can be. Spike Kane isn't going to pass the torch on to anybody, Alex Jones learned this the hard way a couple of months ago, to him nobody else is deserving of his spot - and you know what, if taking Spike Kane's spot in the company means I have to be the whiny douchebag who has marriage and alcohol problems and a backstory so tragically convoluted that even American Idol would shun him away as a delusional waste of talent, then I don't want it.
Keep your torch Michael, after all you're going to need something to keep the ashes of your career in after Sovereign, its just sad that you've known me for over nine years now, we've been up and down the road, and you still think I haven't earned anything I've accomplished. You still think I'm leeching off your career, well my friend, the truth is, the only one leeching off the remnants of your career now is you - and that, much like the rest of your pathetic little life is an awful, awful tragedy.
Why are you forcing my hand in this Michael? Why do I have to be the one to cremate then legacy Alex Jones killed with the very torch you now refuse to pass? Why do you have to be a stubborn hotheaded bastard? What more can you possibly take from this business? I pose that question to the two of you in this match who are already highly decorated fifteen year veterans of this industry with multiple title reigns under each of you already?
Is the nostalgic paycheck you're both getting as special attractions for this match from Kelly really that substantial that you need one more pay day? Maybe Spike does, after all he probably has child support, medical and rehab bills to pay for both him and his now mentally challenged girlfriend Alysson...
Poetic justice for the win, by the way.
But you Kyle, why are you still here? Why do you need this? Why do you need to be a Gladiator? Why do you need a new label? Isn't it enough to be remembered as one of the most dominant men there has ever been in this company, or are you really so threatened that men like Xander Fulamaro and Lex Sense might surpass you, just like Ricky Johnson is fixing to surpass your record setting National Championship reign? You have nothing to be ashamed of Kyle, Ricky will only surpass your record because he's only defended it a couple of times since winning it, not like you who defended it monthly...
Like I said, I'm no gladiator, by anybody's standards, but there is no disputing that Falcon does not need this accolade to be remembered as one. I go up against four men who would kill to be crowned Gladiator, and one man who would kill to be crowned Gladiator all over again, and you're all coming at me armed with your slings and arrows, each convinced of your own superiority, poised for the kill as man so often is when he is hunting a predatory animal...
Come one, come all.
It's time to feed the lion.
~I will not fail, unlike Ricky Johnson, how poetic it is that last week you dropped the ball to Angel and this week you will drop it again to the Devil...you see I don't even know what you're doing in this match to be honest, I mean sure you were a pretty pathetic National Champion and a mediocre X-Division Champion, but don't think for one second that you have ever proven yourself to be worthy of a World Champion...at least not to me, the man who will be your judge, jury and executioner at Sovereign...infact the only thing you have ever proven to me is that you blow every single multiman match that features you and I...and quite frankly, you'd be a fool to even think that this Sunday was going to be any different....so whilst I do admire your taste in women, when it comes to wrestling, there is nothing of yours that is worthy of my admiration...~
After the clip, the camera pans around to show The Ace sat on his luxury leather couch at his second home in Las Vegas, Nevada, smirking at the camera. He is wearing a Ricky Johnson 'Seek The Truth' T-shirt...*
Now, I'm not particularly down with the kids these days. I haven't really embraced Twitter or Facebook, but I can just about find my way around Youtube and I will admit the nostalgic value of that site is truly remarkable. If you know what you're looking for, you can almost guarantee that somebody, somewhere has uploaded a clip of it. Fortunately for me, I didn't have to look far to find exactly what I was looking for because the official nCw Youtube Channel has decided to pull some footage from its archive library, going back to the very first Coliseum four years ago and share clips and footage of what happened then in order to generate more hype and more last minute pay per view buys for this Sunday...
"The Ace smiles*
A sound strategy if you're part of the nCw marketing team perhaps, but if you're Ricky Johnson, you've got to be facepalming just a little bit right now because in the minute or so long video footage that opened this promo, I have reminded the world of the one thing you were hoping I wouldn't...and that is that even after four years, nothing substantial has changed about Ricky Johnson the wrestler...even after four years, every word I said back then about you still applies today, every word still rings true and its ringing in your ears right now, Ricky...
*The Ace smirks*
Maybe you hate me because I'm just a tough sell, maybe you hate me because even after four years, I still am a stubborn son of a bitch who has not and probably will not ever change his opinion of you as a competitor in that ring. Or maybe you hate me because I'm the only one of your peers with the balls to tell you the stone cold truth about the terminal mediocrity of your career. It doesn't matter to me whether you win, lose, draw, die or retire this Sunday, hell you could even go one further this Sunday and actually take the winning pinfall over me at Sovereign and gain whatever the hell kind of absolution you think you need to earn to validate your entire career in this company and it still wouldn't change the fact that every time Spike Kane invited me on to his now abandoned little nCw TV show to play word association and he said 'Ricky Johnson', my response would be...
Meh.
You seek the truth Ricky.
There it is.
But before you dismiss it as just the absurd inconsequential ramblings of a man who is still bitter about not having taken the National Championship from you at Crossroads, consider the fact that my truth is no less an absurd notion to you as your truth about you being some sort of kryptonite to me, in the presence of whom I inevitably stumble and falter - although I will admit that every time I see you, you do have a slight green glow about you, and to this day I haven't been able to work out if its jealousy or envy or you're just plain not well, the latter of which would certainly go a considerable way to explaining some of your mindless gum flapping as of late...
But I digress.
In case you missed it Ricky, I made a point about how today's wrestling fan is all clued up on facebook, and twitter and how suddenly that seems to make them smarter fans because they think sharing an opinion through social media somehow validates it when in fact it doesn't. Is it any wonder that Keybo Shabaz has gone out of his way to ensure that adding comments has been disabled for every nCw video posted on the company channel. He doesn't want to deal with the trolls and the asinine opinions of the masses, because ninety nine per cent of them are idiots who are sat there watching this right now booing their piddly asses off, and shelling out even more mioney to line my pockets in some vain hope that I will meet my end inside that Coliseum this Sunday. Hell, some of them are probably even uploading this to their personal Youtube accounts just so they can be keyboard warriors and share their asinine opinions on why my opinions are so wrong...
*The Ace laughs*
Contrary to popular belief around here, I'm not an idiot. I know that men like the current World Heavyweight Champion Todd Williams and the current National Champion Ricky Johnson are considered internet darlings and loved unconditionally by the so called smart marks, and in order to keep her product fresh and relevant, Kelly has embraced that and made the smart business decision to market these guys and say 'hey look, these guys you love are now our top champions'. It is a smart business decision, I get that you need gullible albeit hard working sheep to shell out sixty dollars for a Pay Per View every month, it still doesn't mean its a business decision I agree with...
*The Ace shakes his head and sighs*
But of course my opinion doesn't matter, because it is not my job to entertain the masses, it is yours Kelly, and at the end of the day if the inane shoutings of one man and the impending fatherhood of another is what these dime a dozen wrestling fans consider entertainment, then I guess you have to at least try and give them what they want. Personally though, I'll be that much more entertained when after Sunday, the epic Todd Williams versus Ricky Johnson title match at A Night To Remember that they're all clamouring for right now is denied, if not by any one of the five better men than Ricky winning the Coliseum, then by Lex Sense absolutely annihiliating Todd Williams and taking his World Title...
Dream matches are dream matches for a reason.
Eventually you have to wake up and realise its probably never going to happen.
*The camera then pans around to show 'lightning gladiators' being typed into the Youtube search bar and after a few moments clicks on a clip titled 'UK Gladiators - Season 3 - Hang Tough - Lightning' which begins playing.
After the clip, we are joined once again by The Ace who has a rather dog-eared copy of the 1994 Gladiators Annual in hand....*
I'm sure most people when they think of the term 'Gladiator', they think of the 'epic masterpiece' starring Russell Crowe, not me, I think of Lightning. I'm sure only Spike Kane will appreciate what I'm about to say next, but some twenty years ago I was hooked on the show. I even had the little hand held electronic game and would play Powerball for hours, and whilst all my friends were of the consensus that Jet was the hottest gladiator, I went against popular opinion once again and maintained that that distinct honour went to the blonde bombshell known as Lightning. For any fans of the show watching this who know or even still care about what I'm talking about, feel free to debate amongst yourselves the nice little ironic fact that one of my earliest celebrity crushes was a woman whose real name was Kim Betts, for the rest of you who don't particularly care, I can sympathise because I myself don't care that five other men are looking to emerge as a Gladiator this Sunday.
Sorry, I am not Dave Holland, or Roberto Verona, I have neither the time nor the patience to trawl through a library of historical textbooks to carefully reference the historical accuracy and weave it seamlessly into my promo like it really matters. What I will say however is more often than not Gladiators did not emerge victorious from battle, they did not emerge as triumphant Gladiators from battle, no matter how determinedly they may have marched in. I am not a Gladiator, nor do I particularly want to be remembered as one - those are the kinds of meaningless hollow labels that I will leave for those who have nothing left to prove like Spike Kane or Falcon, or hungry up and comers like Nathaniel David Webb to achieve. The kind of men who feel accomplished when a label is pencilled into the footnote of their already illustrious career or those who will feel better about their frankly average career to date by having another label to throw around for a year.
Those of you who know me, and know me well already know that I'm the kind of man who detests being labelled as anything in my career, and yet there are at least three of you in this match who will insist absolutely, even with your dying breath to label me as 'mediocre', 'undeserving', 'worthless' and 'transitional'. For some of you, a promo full of these labels is enough of a job well done that you pat yourselves on the back, go home and tell whoever gives a damn about you 'Boy I got Ace good today', for others, they have to go a step further and throw a hissy fit full of curse words because its all macho and cool and then bitch about how I never lived up to the bar they set. How I never carried the proud torch of 'Xtreme' like they wanted me to or even expected me to.
Don't get me wrong, it would have been nice if for once Spike had been a man of his word and actually stepped aside when he said he would, and it would have been just as nice if he had passed the torch on to me, but then I forgot just how monumental the Kane ego can be. Spike Kane isn't going to pass the torch on to anybody, Alex Jones learned this the hard way a couple of months ago, to him nobody else is deserving of his spot - and you know what, if taking Spike Kane's spot in the company means I have to be the whiny douchebag who has marriage and alcohol problems and a backstory so tragically convoluted that even American Idol would shun him away as a delusional waste of talent, then I don't want it.
Keep your torch Michael, after all you're going to need something to keep the ashes of your career in after Sovereign, its just sad that you've known me for over nine years now, we've been up and down the road, and you still think I haven't earned anything I've accomplished. You still think I'm leeching off your career, well my friend, the truth is, the only one leeching off the remnants of your career now is you - and that, much like the rest of your pathetic little life is an awful, awful tragedy.
Why are you forcing my hand in this Michael? Why do I have to be the one to cremate then legacy Alex Jones killed with the very torch you now refuse to pass? Why do you have to be a stubborn hotheaded bastard? What more can you possibly take from this business? I pose that question to the two of you in this match who are already highly decorated fifteen year veterans of this industry with multiple title reigns under each of you already?
Is the nostalgic paycheck you're both getting as special attractions for this match from Kelly really that substantial that you need one more pay day? Maybe Spike does, after all he probably has child support, medical and rehab bills to pay for both him and his now mentally challenged girlfriend Alysson...
Poetic justice for the win, by the way.
But you Kyle, why are you still here? Why do you need this? Why do you need to be a Gladiator? Why do you need a new label? Isn't it enough to be remembered as one of the most dominant men there has ever been in this company, or are you really so threatened that men like Xander Fulamaro and Lex Sense might surpass you, just like Ricky Johnson is fixing to surpass your record setting National Championship reign? You have nothing to be ashamed of Kyle, Ricky will only surpass your record because he's only defended it a couple of times since winning it, not like you who defended it monthly...
Like I said, I'm no gladiator, by anybody's standards, but there is no disputing that Falcon does not need this accolade to be remembered as one. I go up against four men who would kill to be crowned Gladiator, and one man who would kill to be crowned Gladiator all over again, and you're all coming at me armed with your slings and arrows, each convinced of your own superiority, poised for the kill as man so often is when he is hunting a predatory animal...
Come one, come all.
It's time to feed the lion.
