Date with Destiny

[Deleted]

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"I cannot imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel. Modern ship building has gone beyond that."

Captain Smith, Commander of Titanic

10th April, 1912

The R.M.S. Titanic begins its maiden voyage from Southampton, embarking on a journey from the United Kingdom to New York. She is the largest cruise liner the world has ever seen, a beacon of flamboyant luxury and a doorway to a new life across the Atlantic for the destitute who dream of a better lot.

She is labelled as unsinkable.

July 31st, 2011

Xander Famularo becomes NCW X-Champion following a devastating Mushroom Cloud on Roberto Verona. The 2011 Gladiator begins his path of destruction that will end with his victory over Steve Awesome following an unstoppable journey along the Road to the Gold.

The streak begins.

"There is no danger that Titanic will sink. The boat is unsinkable and nothing but inconvenience will be suffered by the passengers."

Phillip Franklin, White Star Line Vice-President

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Unbeatable.

It is a bold and imposing statement isn’t it Xander?

The mystique that surrounds your eleven month streak almost surpasses all of the achievements you have made inside those ropes by itself, transcending anything humanly accomplishable. Week after week, month after month, men have tried and ultimately failed to pin your shoulders to the mat and with every single failure the myth of the “unbeatable” Xander Famularo has been perpetuated further. For some, the psychological battle is already over before they even step inside that ring as the aura surrounding you does its deadly deed.

The difference between me and the endless list of victims you’ve accumulated?

I know that you can be defeated.

I’m not overawed by your ruthless streak Xander, far from it, your success only feeds my drive to be the one who puts a stop to a streak that no other man has been able to halt. Every time you relocate your opponents jaw and pin them to the mat my motivation only grows, I’ve been waiting for this since I lost my National Championship in November because deep down I know that I am the only man capable of stopping you.

I’m your destiny, Xander.

Unavoidable, ruthless and cruel.

Lady luck has smiled upon you since the moment you tasted the most bitter of defeats at the biggest night of them all and your unrelenting determination to become the best in the history of this business has been the vehicle via which you have achieved your historic rise to the top of New Championship Wrestling.

I know all too well what it feels like to be run over by you.

I fell victim to your rise to the top Xander, but regardless of how much you want to tell yourself that it planted seeds of doubt in my otherwise unwavering ego losing to you was the best thing to happen to me in my entire career.

You taught me humility.

You taught me that determination can trump talent.

You taught me to never, ever, underestimate my opponent.

Unlike every other man you’ve humbled with the Widowmaker, I never let it break my resolve. I sat down and reviewed every second of our match, every punch thrown, every suplex completed….even the moment the referee hit that mat….

One.

Two.

Three.

That little triumvirate of misery echoed through my psyche but I knew that I couldn’t shy away from understanding what you had that I didn’t, I needed to appreciate why you were the better man. It took me weeks before I realised what it was that I was lacking, why I was stuck with the prefix “former X-Champion” before my name. Lesser men would have been consumed by the misery you bestowed upon me Xander, but I have learnt my lesson.

I know how to beat you.

There is no secret weapon that you possess that I do not, there is no special manoeuvre you have in your arsenal that separates us….

The key to your streak Xander is something we have in all of us.

Belief.

What separates you from men like Ricky Johnson, Alex Jones and Joe Everyman is that you don’t think you’re the best, you know you are. Whilst they waste their time verbally caressing their fragile egos, championing their prospective challenges to the top prize in NCW you sat yourself down, calm, cool and collected and told yourself that you would be World Champion and that was that. No ifs, buts or maybes, simply that no matter what you would be the man and there was nothing anybody could do to stop you from achieving that goal.

That is what separates Xander Famularo from the rest of the roster.

You do not entertain doubt, nor do you accept mediocrity, that is why you can stand there today proudly proclaiming that you are the man that nobody can pin. You’ve made very few mistakes since you grabbed NCW by the throat and dictated the pace that everybody else has been found wanting in an attempt to match it, but your biggest mistake was beating me.

You set the wheels of fate into motion Xander.

I’d lost my way, absorbed in my own self-importance and the pursuit of personal glory, but when you knocked the wind out my sails and forced me to admit that there was a better man than me in NCW you helped me realise that I’d strayed from the path I had promised to tread. Thanks to you Xander, I opened my eyes and climbed out of my own ass and I learned from my mistakes which you highlighted in brutal fashion.

A month later I was National Champion.

Four months later I eliminated the most people in the Riot and lasted for over an hour.

Now eight months later I am faced with the single biggest obstacle in NCW and thanks to you Xander, there isn’t a doubt in my mind that I am going to be the one who overcomes you. It is my destiny to repay the debt I owe you and at the same time send out a message that cannot be ignored by anybody in this despotic, corrupt and decadent company.

I am going to put an end to the streak that started with me.

I am going to ensure that I remain on course for my date with destiny.

I am going to prove that I am the best wrestler in NCW.

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Hannah Reed : Are you sure about this?

Roberto nods.

Roberto Verona : I have never been more sure of anything in my whole career.

Hannah Reed : And if you lose?

Roberto Verona : I can’t lose.

Hannah Reed : But what if…..

Roberto looks up, a fire in his eyes.

Roberto Verona : There will be no ifs, no buts, nothing. There are no other options Hannah, the Revolution has been stagnating for too long. I need to make a statement, I need to make sure that the Hierarchy can ignore me no longer….

Hannah Reed : If you’re sure you know what you’re doing…

Roberto Verona : I am positive.

Hannah kisses him gently on the forehead.

Hannah Reed : Then I believe in you Roberto.

Roberto Verona : Once I am through with Xander…..everybody will believe.

Hannah Reed : Just promise me that you will be careful.

Roberto Verona : I will do anything it takes to put him away.

Roberto pauses.

Roberto Verona : Anything.

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You are the best Xander.

No matter how eloquently I try to make a case to the contrary there isn’t a single man or woman in that locker room who can justifiably claim to be on the same plain as you. You’ve transcended this business and have become a global phenomenon who has far surpassed the legacy of even your own father, and worse of all….

It has only taken a year for you to ascend to a level that men spend years merely trying to reach, more often than not falling disappointingly short.

And yet….

We both know that had I been afforded the same opportunities as you that it would be my name on everybody’s lips, it’d be my head that everybody would crave….

I’m not for one minute suggesting that you have been “gifted” anything in your career Xander, you are the best because you made yourself the best, you weren’t elevated because of whose scrotum you crawled out of, you didn’t get gifted more chances that your talent dictated, no, you got to where you are through hard work and tireless endeavour.

However, you cannot deny that as far as opportunities go, Xander, I have been starved of the chances you have gleefully gorged upon. We both know that if NCW are handing out pinfalls over Jimmy Zane as the milestone of a World Champion that I would already be a champion three times over. Whilst you embarked upon that Road to the Gold, X-Championship in tow, I was nowhere to be seen by virtue of the National Championship around my waist. Now, once again, I’m overlooked as the Coliseum prepares to descend whilst a man who I embarrassed on a weekly basis struts around with the World Title.

Whilst you were afford opportunities to force yourself into the main event, I’ve been forced to feed off the scraps tossed my way as my own career became swallowed up in the shadow of your imposing dominance of the company, watching as men far beneath my station were tossed into the lion’s den to face their fates. Curtis Kanyon, Ricky Johnson, Todd Williams….the list is endless, all of these men have been hoisted above me, championed as a new breed of challengers to the crown, whilst all the while I have been forgotten.

The sceptic would suggest that there is a conspiracy against me, but the realist would accept that considering the nature of my purpose inside NCW, I will never reach the pinnacle by virtue alone. My revolutionary rhetoric is simply far to inflammatory to allow those who command our fates to place the focal point of the company around my waist, they do not want to willingly place me on a pedestal where I can reveal their corruption on a weekly basis and lambast the corporation they have built from the ground up.

The only way I am going to be given the opportunity to wear the World Championship around my waist is if I make a statement that simply cannot be ignored, something that people have being waiting to see from me for a long, long time.

No matter how much he screams, everybody knows that Todd isn’t the real champion Xander. An opportunistic champion whose out for a moment in the limelight pins Jimmy Zane, a real champion who is out to make history wouldn’t have settled for anybody else but you.

You’re the biggest challenge in NCW and belt or no belt the biggest statement anybody in this company can make is ending your streak, and whilst many would advise me to save myself the trouble of being just another one of your victims, I know that there is only one man who I need to be fighting this weekend.

It isn’t Todd.

It isn’t Spike, Will, Ricky, Nathan, Jake or Falcon.

It’s you.

No matter the gimmick or the prize on offer, make no mistake our match is the biggest match of the entire card. You are the man that nobody can pin in singles combat, I am the man who has only lost cleanly once since you defeated me all those months ago. You are the crown jewel of the Hierarchy, I am the man who has vowed to stand against you.

I could go on and sell this bout further, but frankly all I need to say is that it is Xander Famularo v Roberto Verona.

This match has been in the making since you beat me for the X-Championship, since that moment our paths have crossed in tag-team matches but we have never stood across from that ring one on one since that night. You built the foundations of this run atop my sprawled out body and it has taken a declaration of war for me to gain my chance at redemption. The moment I saw you align yourself with those who opposed my interests I knew that destiny would force us together and this weekend, I finally get my chance to redeem myself and find closure whilst making the statement the world has demanded of me for months.

I know that everybody expects you to put me away this weekend Xander, I can see it in their eyes when they offer me hollow wishes of good luck, they all think that you are going to wind up that big right hand and send my plummeting into a chasm of self-loathing a broken man.

Nobody thinks I stand a chance against you.

Nobody that is, except me. I learnt from you that the key to victory is unshakable self-belief, the selection of a goal and the relentless pursuit of it there on in. Ever since you beat me Xander I have had my eyes set on you, I promised myself that I would take the beating you gave me and use it to redeem myself when the opportunity struck and this weekend I get my chance to beat you at your own game.

Everything you are is based on this belief that you are unbeatable, your pride, your legacy, your confidence….everything relies on the continued existence of the single biggest winning streak in wrestling history because without it…you’re just another former World Champion, joining the back of a line of a long list of has-beens whose golden age has long since expired.

A defeat for you is the beginning of the end and deep down, you know it. You’ve pushed yourself from the brink of defeat to the pinnacle of glory because of the fire that this streak has lit inside your soul and without it, you know that doubt will seep through the cracks in the foundations that a defeat will open.

I am about to go to war with the single most dominant faction in the history of NCW and you are by far their greatest asset, without your streak you are just making up the numbers.

You may not be able to be beaten Xander, but I simply cannot lose.

I am one man against a dynasty, I need to take every single opportunity to erode your power that I can and by beating you I remove the single biggest threat your faction has to offer and with your head the dissatisfied members of this roster who have had enough of the inequality and nepotism will realise that the Hierarchy is not an unstoppable force.

Their eyes will be opened once they realise that titan atop Mount Olympus can be toppled, with your defeat they will finally begin to believe that if they make their voices heard, they will not be destined to be struck down by a faction who simply cannot be defeated.

You’re an illusion that must be shattered and you are a skeleton in my closet that I need to exorcise.

This weekend, the revolution begins.

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"Come at once, we have struck a berg, it's a CQD old man."

Jack Phillips, Wireless Operator

2:20AM, April 15th, 1912

The R.M.S Titanic is torn in two, plunging hundreds of men, women and children into the icey waters of the Atlantic Ocean as the stern begins its final descent into the abyss. Screams fill the air as survivors watch helplessly from lifeboats which litter the unforgiving waves that have finally laid waste to men’s presumptions of omnipotence.

The unsinkable ship is dragged to its watery grave.

The unthinkable become reality.

A testament to the arrogance mankind.

"Deeply regret advise you TITANIC sank this morning after collision with iceberg, resulting in serious loss of life. Full particulars later."

J. Bruce Ismay, Director of the White Star Line

10:00PM, April 8th, 2012

History repeats itself.

The streak ends.

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