Post by The Ace on Sept 28, 2012 11:58:14 GMT -6
09/23/12
NCW Battlegrounds
New Jersey
NCW Battlegrounds
New Jersey
As Mercedes Vargas walks away, The Ace watches her perhaps a little longer than he should have, but he has little time to reflect on his admiration of her as the EMTs are loading Steve Awesome into the ambulance. The Ace comes face to face with Caleb Lockwood, and its obvious from the look in his beady little eyes, Lockwood was interpreting the way The Ace had just been looking at Vargas.
The Ace: Stay here with Kathy, Lockwood, make sure she gets back to the hotel just fine, I'm trusting you. Call me as soon as there are any updates on her condition. Tell her I've gone with Steve to the hospital. Got that?
The Ace hops into the back of the ambulance with his best friend, the fallen Steve Awesome.
Caleb Lockwood: Yes sir, Mr Conway...
The Ace: Good.
The paramedics shut the doors of the ambulance, and an EMT taps the back of it, informing the driver it is loaded and the sirens blare as it heads to the nearest medical facility.
We cut to inside the ambulance where Steve looks at his best friend, apologetically.
Steve Bates: Dude, I'm so sorry...I never meant for any of this to happen. You trusted me to look after Kathy, and I let you down. I should never have put Kathy in the middle of this. This was my war, not hers...
Jake Conway looked at his friend and for the first time saw genuine regret in his eyes, the twinkle of Steve Awesome - the Face of the Franchise had gone, all that was left was the man he was when the cameras stopped rolling, Steve Bates.
I said nothing, how could I answer him? What could I possibly say to make him feel better? I could not absolve him of his responsibilities, and as much as he was my best friend, part of me didn't want to forgive him. Part of me could not forgive him.
What happened out there tonight took me back four years, my first Warfare match - and the moment when Falcon dealt me one hell of a personal blow by kicking my wife in the gut and nailing her with a pulling piledriver. Kathy put her body on the line for me then, tonight she had put her body on the line not for me, but for a man I considered a brother...how lucky was I? How wonderful was she? Some days I looked at her and couldn't believe she was mine, some days I just felt so damn undeserving of her love...
Steve Bates: Jake? Jake? Are you listening to me?
Jake Conway: Yes, yes, don't worry about it my friend, Kat can take it, she'll be just fine, she is the strongest woman I've ever known...
For all my bravado inside that twenty by twenty ring, I knew I was the weak one, I knew I was little more than a sledgehammer swinging monkey before she came back into my life. I took the cheap wins, the hollow victories, the down and dirty road to the top. Short cuts were quicker, but the glory they had given me faded quickest. Maybe I was trying to fill some void in my heart that had never been fully plugged in the two years she had been out of my life with some semblance of professional success, however superficial it was. Indeed, there was a certain poetic irony that I drew my greatest strength from a woman the rest of the world saw as my greatest weakness...
Steve Bates: There are days I envy you Jake, you've managed to strike a perfect balance between being Jake Conway, loving husband and father, and The Ace, professional ass kicker and nCw legend, I don't think I can do that, not now Mandi has my child, I have to stop being Steve Awesome and for the first time in my life start to take responsibility as Steve Bates...
With that, I watched Steve pass out just as we arrived at the medical facility, and I never got to tell him that I wasn't an nCw legend, not yet - maybe one day, he would be considered as such, but not right now. There were fans who thought, perhaps quite rightly that my relative lack of accolades didn't make me worth much to this company...
As Steve was rushed through the doors, The Ace tried to keep pace but gave up, as he lamented the fact that piddly asses like Ricky Johnson had managed to beat him to the Grand Slams and the Hall of Fame rings.
Jake Conway looked at his hand and noted that while the professional ring was still missing, his personal one throbbed on his finger, he ran his fingers over it before turning and heading back out the doors to find his strength once more.
I needed her now more than ever...
The scene opens in the luxurious and lavish Las Vegas Conway home, the American counterpart to their British estate in Somerset, England, Kelly had afforded both him and his recuperating wife a few days back home after her ordeal at the hands of Alysson. Later this week the largest Road To The Gold Tournament would begin, and despite his personal hesitations about his wife competing in the Starlets equivalent, The Ace found himself entered into the 'Star' half of the male tournament.
The Ace stood in his magnificent trophy room, and took a moment to admire his reflection in what was the result of all of Caleb's hard work and graft polishing his employer's 2008 Road To The Gold trophy.
Absolutely spot less.
The Ace looked up from his four year old accolade and grinned at the camera in a way that made each of the other fifteen men in the tournament want to smack it right off his face. Xavier Williams would get the first shot this Saturday at Trauma. Yeah. Good luck with that.
Which is more than I can say for half the people that will be featured in this year's Road To The Gold tournament. Of all the undeserving piddly asses that are being gifted this golden opportunity, few offend me more than the most celebrated spot monkey in nCw history of them all - Xavier Williams.
Now Xavier, I'm not going to question what the hell you've done to be in this tournament, because you'll undoubtedly remind me you are a former nCw World Heavyweight Champion like myself, and this company's only four time X-Divison Champion. An achievement I wouldn't balk quite so much at if it still meant something around here. Now, in some people's eyes I may not be one of the most accomplished superstars on the nCw roster, but even I know that when even the belt that has been the linchpin of your otherwise lacklustre career has been retired and relegated to irrelevance, it's probably a sign that you should follow suit and hang up the old boots.
What becomes of a word when it loses its defintion? What becomes of the greatest X-Division Champion in nCw history when even the belt has been relegated to nothing more than a piece of nostalgia? What happens to the spot monkey when he has lost his grip on the last branch keeping him in the tree?
They all become meaningless.
Xavier Williams isn't a star anymore, in fact those that look upon greatness as something much more substantial than simply the ability to go back to the well for an unprecedented fourth time would probably say you never were. To those people you are simply here to fill a quota, to be the token black guy that somehow cements this company's commitment to being an equal opportunity employer in lieu of one Todd Williams. It may be a harsh reality for you to accept X, but it is the reality of your current situation - the only other thing I could possibly credit you with at this point is being this tournament's token spot monkey, but with people like Caleb Lockwood now in this thing, that isn't strictly true either, is it?
I don't really need to run you down here Xavier, you realise yourself that your return to nCw hasn't done a damn thing for you or this company...so why are you even still here? Are you really, truly here to win a Road To The Gold tournament? What would it prove if you did? Winning the largest Road to the Gold tournament in history is still half the battle - and that's what the other fifteen men in this tournament will tend to forget or even dismiss until it is pointed out to them.
The Ace holds up his 2008 Road To The Gold trophy and the camera zooms in as he speaks.
Winning this tournament is all very well and damned impressive if you manage to pull it off, but if after all that, you fail to capture the nCw World Championship in the final match, the one that makes climbing the mountain all worth it, then all this trophy ends up being is a damned shiny second place - a sparkling piece of tin. A consolation that was of little consolation to me when my best friend, Steve Awesome made me tap out in the middle of the ring and retained the belt I helped place on his shoulder in the first place.
Is that all you're looking for X, some consolation to make this fool's errand you call a return somehow all worth it? Something to justify your pig-headed instence of stretching your family to breaking point? How long will they stick around? How much farther can Lisa stand to watch you fall before she gives up on you?
Maybe she'll give up on you sooner than you realise Xavier, maybe she won't because she loves you that much, either way it's one hell of a gamble, isn't it Williams? Do you really want to try and cash in all your chips at my expense? Have you learned nothing from each of our previous encounters inside that ring?
We've been down this road so many times already, haven't we Xavier? Haven't you had enough yet, you stubborn fool? I eliminated you from the Road To The Gold four years ago, and you should know damn well that I can do it again, and with your track record being what it is Xavier, it won't be a case of if but when, when you are eliminated by me this Saturday, it won't simply be a case of deja vu, but rather a painful reminder that you never could afford to take the gamble against me!
The Ace smirks as the scene fades out, our last image being one of the former Road To The Gold Champion putting the trophy back in its case, far out of the reach of the undeserving and stubborn fools that all coveted it - even as a consolation.