Post by Nighthawk on Sept 28, 2012 19:57:58 GMT -6
“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.”
As Nighthawk sits down to watch the raw footage from his first NCW match against Jabari Woodhead, he suddenly notices his cell phone vibrating insistently on a nearby table. Pressing pause on the remote control the Chicago native looks on his cell phone and smiles when he sees that he has been signed in a Road to The Gold match against Roberto Verona.
Finishing watching the tape of his performance, wincing and taking notes with every mistake he makes, the “Wrestling Machine” eventually stops that practice and instead puts in tapes of Roberto Verona. Opening up a new page on his notepad Nighthawk presses pause on the tape and goes to get a protein shake from out of his refrigerator.
However, as he sits back down, the “Man of 1000 Holds” notices his phone ringing and hears from his trainer Jorge Rivera, the old master who taught him everything he knows.
(Author’s Note: This conversation took place in Spanish.)
Jorge Rivera: “How long have you been wrestling? How many titles have you won? How many continents have you been to so that you could do what you love? And this latest promotion you signed yourself up with has the gall to call you a rising star? Honestly, Tristan, you need to start demanding some respect out of these people. You need to be more like I was when I was wrestling. Because if this continues, people are going to keep on taking advantage of you, keep on telling you that what you have accomplished already isn’t good enough, you’re never going to get the chance to do as much as you could do.”
Nighthawk, the slow embers of anger evident in his voice: “Jorge, you know how much you have helped me throughout my career. Without you, I would not be a professional wrestler. I certainly would have not gotten to travel to all the countries that I have traveled to, and have all the wonderful memories that I now have. However, by no means does that give you the right to somehow think you know what makes me tick. I live my life according to honor, and not to my status. I could not care less about what I am considered, as long as I am considered a wrestler worthy of some kind of respect. That is all that matters. And if I have to prove that I should be respected by winning the Road to the Gold, by being in a bracket for Rising Stars, then that’s what I will do. I don’t have a problem proving myself as many times as it might take me to prove it. You should know that, Jorge. You were the one who taught me to follow that ethic, to work as hard as I can to be the best I can and to let credit for whatever it is that I do go to the people whose job it is to give me that credit. And now, after all that I have achieved following your example, you’re going to tell me to betray your ideals? Why Jorge? What changed to make you tell me not to be the man, the wrestler, which you taught me to be?”
Jorge: “Frankly, my friend, it’s selfishness. I am tired of having my greatest student not be thought of as being truly great. And if I have to teach you all over again to take what you want, what you rightfully deserve, by the throat and demand it for yourself, than that’s what I'm going to have to do. I want everything you’ve told the world you are, everything that you’ve earned the right to say you are, to be true. And the only way that I can think of to do that is to make you selfish, make you into someone who can be counted on to think of himself as much as he thinks about everyone else. Can you do that?”
Nighthawk: “I don’t know who you are, Jorge. I don’t know who the man who trained me is. And if you think that I'm going to listen to you, listen to this disgusting bile you’re spewing, just because you had a hand in training me then you don’t know me very well. I understand that you’re nervous, fearful even, about the chances that I have of making it in NCW. But this isn’t you. This isn’t the man who trained me. So please, don’t ever ask me to do something like that ever again.”
And with that, Nighthawk angrily hangs up the phone before going back to watching, and scouting, Roberto Verona.
The next morning…..
As Nighthawk walks into the wrestling gym that he owns on the southeast side of Chicago, smiling as he sees his morning class of students already starting to do their pre-training calisthenics, we see the smile slowly fade from his face as he climbs into the ring. Shaking the hand of his long-time associate trainer Santos, the man who has helped him train the students he is so justifiably proud of, we see a small change in the face of the “Wrestling Machine”. Gone is the smile, the ebullience. In its place is a kind of intensity not that different from a marine drill sergeant. Stalking back and forth in the middle of the ring the “Man of 1000 Holds” finally stops and gets into a low crouch.
Nighthawk: “Now, to all of you who are here, you are probably pretty sure that you’re here because I can make you into stars. This is only half-right. You have the talent. You have the discipline. All that I can do, all that I could ever do, would be to make sure that you maximize that talent, to make sure that what you are is the best possible version of yourself. However, let me make this clear, because I want it to be: I will not be easy on you. If you want to reach the types of high standards that the men who once were in these rings had as their own, I will make you scream. I will tie you in knots until you figure a way out. However, it will not be out of some misplaced sense of sadism, or because I simply like to stroke my own ego knowing that I can maul men just entering this profession. Rather, it is because the best way to determine that you deserve a spot in this sport, the sport that I love and have spent my life trying desperately to master. If you can survive this, if you can handle it, you will take your first step on the long road to becoming a professional.
Thank you for coming, and I sincerely hope that you succeed.”
As Nighthawk leaves the ring, watching as his students go through their early morning ritual of Hindu squats, pushups, and other brutally arcane conditioning, he sits down at the edge of the ring. But as he has his head in his hands, we see that something else has left too. Gone is the confidence, the purpose in himself. For the first time that we can remember, the “Man of 1000 Holds” is…. Confused.
A few hours later…..
As Nighthawk sits down outside his wrestling gym, a look of confusion still on his face, he slowly closes his eyes. Clad in a blue TripleMania t-shirt, black-and-green mid-thigh wrestling shorts, and black low-top wrestling shoes, the “Wrestling Machine” takes one deep slow breath and slowly opens his eyes.
Nighthawk: “I've been in a lot of tournaments. The King Of Europe, World Super Juniors Cup, and many more that you may or may not have heard of. but all of them, no matter the design or purpose, can be won the same way. This is a trick that seems simple on its face, but it takes years of trial and error to master. In order to win a tournament, you have to be adaptable.
You have to be not just willing, but eager, to look at the man across the ring from you and know immediately what he wants you to do, what he wants you to be. And then, just as quickly, you have to make that promise to yourself to never give him what he wants.
That is the challenge in a tournament. And that is the challenge that both Roberto Verona and I find ourselves in. However, this isn’t a battle about just a tournament. This is the latest chapter in a story that I thought was finished long ago. This is a gym battle, at its core. And make no mistake, Roberto, what I tell you now is not hyperbole. It is not me making up facts, and concocting a story out of nothing more than hope and gossip to make myself seem better than I am. This is the truth, as clear and cold as the sky over our beloved city. I have, not once, lost a gym battle. And this week, when I face you, this fact will not change.
Now, Roberto, this will require a little bit of explanation on my part for one simple reason: You’re not from here. You might live here now, so you may very well have tricked yourself into believing that you understand what this is about. But the truth of this is that you don’t. you don’t know what it’s like to have everyone you know, from family you’ve known all of your life to friends you barely remember from your school days, will tell you that you have to win this.
You can’t understand, or even feel, the desperation in their eyes as they explain to you that your gym has never lost to the evil interlopers from Wrigleyville, or Bridgeport, or even Hyde Park. And you won’t ever know how good it feels to win that war, to finally claim even a small piece of the city for yourself. Do you know why that is, Roberto? Because this week, you’re going to lose.
You may want to make a revolution, to cleanse NCW of its ‘filth’. Now, admittedly, I have not been here long enough to determine if that’s even true. But right now, that’s not my concern. For this moment, anyway, my chief concern is you. the reason I wake up in the morning this week is to hear you tap out. Every second I am in the gym it’s so that I can make sure that my hand is being raised.
Roberto, you may have designs on a revolution. You may want to break down NCW and rebuild it in your own image. And that might be a reasonable goal. I have not yet decided. But if you want to do that, you’re going to have to find another way. Because you’re not going to beat me. You’re going to lose. And when you walk back to the locker room, you’re going to be able to put one more thing on your resume. You got into a gym war, Roberto, and you lost.
Goodnight Roberto. May sleep give you the courage to go on.”
As Nighthawk sits down to watch the raw footage from his first NCW match against Jabari Woodhead, he suddenly notices his cell phone vibrating insistently on a nearby table. Pressing pause on the remote control the Chicago native looks on his cell phone and smiles when he sees that he has been signed in a Road to The Gold match against Roberto Verona.
Finishing watching the tape of his performance, wincing and taking notes with every mistake he makes, the “Wrestling Machine” eventually stops that practice and instead puts in tapes of Roberto Verona. Opening up a new page on his notepad Nighthawk presses pause on the tape and goes to get a protein shake from out of his refrigerator.
However, as he sits back down, the “Man of 1000 Holds” notices his phone ringing and hears from his trainer Jorge Rivera, the old master who taught him everything he knows.
(Author’s Note: This conversation took place in Spanish.)
Jorge Rivera: “How long have you been wrestling? How many titles have you won? How many continents have you been to so that you could do what you love? And this latest promotion you signed yourself up with has the gall to call you a rising star? Honestly, Tristan, you need to start demanding some respect out of these people. You need to be more like I was when I was wrestling. Because if this continues, people are going to keep on taking advantage of you, keep on telling you that what you have accomplished already isn’t good enough, you’re never going to get the chance to do as much as you could do.”
Nighthawk, the slow embers of anger evident in his voice: “Jorge, you know how much you have helped me throughout my career. Without you, I would not be a professional wrestler. I certainly would have not gotten to travel to all the countries that I have traveled to, and have all the wonderful memories that I now have. However, by no means does that give you the right to somehow think you know what makes me tick. I live my life according to honor, and not to my status. I could not care less about what I am considered, as long as I am considered a wrestler worthy of some kind of respect. That is all that matters. And if I have to prove that I should be respected by winning the Road to the Gold, by being in a bracket for Rising Stars, then that’s what I will do. I don’t have a problem proving myself as many times as it might take me to prove it. You should know that, Jorge. You were the one who taught me to follow that ethic, to work as hard as I can to be the best I can and to let credit for whatever it is that I do go to the people whose job it is to give me that credit. And now, after all that I have achieved following your example, you’re going to tell me to betray your ideals? Why Jorge? What changed to make you tell me not to be the man, the wrestler, which you taught me to be?”
Jorge: “Frankly, my friend, it’s selfishness. I am tired of having my greatest student not be thought of as being truly great. And if I have to teach you all over again to take what you want, what you rightfully deserve, by the throat and demand it for yourself, than that’s what I'm going to have to do. I want everything you’ve told the world you are, everything that you’ve earned the right to say you are, to be true. And the only way that I can think of to do that is to make you selfish, make you into someone who can be counted on to think of himself as much as he thinks about everyone else. Can you do that?”
Nighthawk: “I don’t know who you are, Jorge. I don’t know who the man who trained me is. And if you think that I'm going to listen to you, listen to this disgusting bile you’re spewing, just because you had a hand in training me then you don’t know me very well. I understand that you’re nervous, fearful even, about the chances that I have of making it in NCW. But this isn’t you. This isn’t the man who trained me. So please, don’t ever ask me to do something like that ever again.”
And with that, Nighthawk angrily hangs up the phone before going back to watching, and scouting, Roberto Verona.
The next morning…..
As Nighthawk walks into the wrestling gym that he owns on the southeast side of Chicago, smiling as he sees his morning class of students already starting to do their pre-training calisthenics, we see the smile slowly fade from his face as he climbs into the ring. Shaking the hand of his long-time associate trainer Santos, the man who has helped him train the students he is so justifiably proud of, we see a small change in the face of the “Wrestling Machine”. Gone is the smile, the ebullience. In its place is a kind of intensity not that different from a marine drill sergeant. Stalking back and forth in the middle of the ring the “Man of 1000 Holds” finally stops and gets into a low crouch.
Nighthawk: “Now, to all of you who are here, you are probably pretty sure that you’re here because I can make you into stars. This is only half-right. You have the talent. You have the discipline. All that I can do, all that I could ever do, would be to make sure that you maximize that talent, to make sure that what you are is the best possible version of yourself. However, let me make this clear, because I want it to be: I will not be easy on you. If you want to reach the types of high standards that the men who once were in these rings had as their own, I will make you scream. I will tie you in knots until you figure a way out. However, it will not be out of some misplaced sense of sadism, or because I simply like to stroke my own ego knowing that I can maul men just entering this profession. Rather, it is because the best way to determine that you deserve a spot in this sport, the sport that I love and have spent my life trying desperately to master. If you can survive this, if you can handle it, you will take your first step on the long road to becoming a professional.
Thank you for coming, and I sincerely hope that you succeed.”
As Nighthawk leaves the ring, watching as his students go through their early morning ritual of Hindu squats, pushups, and other brutally arcane conditioning, he sits down at the edge of the ring. But as he has his head in his hands, we see that something else has left too. Gone is the confidence, the purpose in himself. For the first time that we can remember, the “Man of 1000 Holds” is…. Confused.
A few hours later…..
As Nighthawk sits down outside his wrestling gym, a look of confusion still on his face, he slowly closes his eyes. Clad in a blue TripleMania t-shirt, black-and-green mid-thigh wrestling shorts, and black low-top wrestling shoes, the “Wrestling Machine” takes one deep slow breath and slowly opens his eyes.
Nighthawk: “I've been in a lot of tournaments. The King Of Europe, World Super Juniors Cup, and many more that you may or may not have heard of. but all of them, no matter the design or purpose, can be won the same way. This is a trick that seems simple on its face, but it takes years of trial and error to master. In order to win a tournament, you have to be adaptable.
You have to be not just willing, but eager, to look at the man across the ring from you and know immediately what he wants you to do, what he wants you to be. And then, just as quickly, you have to make that promise to yourself to never give him what he wants.
That is the challenge in a tournament. And that is the challenge that both Roberto Verona and I find ourselves in. However, this isn’t a battle about just a tournament. This is the latest chapter in a story that I thought was finished long ago. This is a gym battle, at its core. And make no mistake, Roberto, what I tell you now is not hyperbole. It is not me making up facts, and concocting a story out of nothing more than hope and gossip to make myself seem better than I am. This is the truth, as clear and cold as the sky over our beloved city. I have, not once, lost a gym battle. And this week, when I face you, this fact will not change.
Now, Roberto, this will require a little bit of explanation on my part for one simple reason: You’re not from here. You might live here now, so you may very well have tricked yourself into believing that you understand what this is about. But the truth of this is that you don’t. you don’t know what it’s like to have everyone you know, from family you’ve known all of your life to friends you barely remember from your school days, will tell you that you have to win this.
You can’t understand, or even feel, the desperation in their eyes as they explain to you that your gym has never lost to the evil interlopers from Wrigleyville, or Bridgeport, or even Hyde Park. And you won’t ever know how good it feels to win that war, to finally claim even a small piece of the city for yourself. Do you know why that is, Roberto? Because this week, you’re going to lose.
You may want to make a revolution, to cleanse NCW of its ‘filth’. Now, admittedly, I have not been here long enough to determine if that’s even true. But right now, that’s not my concern. For this moment, anyway, my chief concern is you. the reason I wake up in the morning this week is to hear you tap out. Every second I am in the gym it’s so that I can make sure that my hand is being raised.
Roberto, you may have designs on a revolution. You may want to break down NCW and rebuild it in your own image. And that might be a reasonable goal. I have not yet decided. But if you want to do that, you’re going to have to find another way. Because you’re not going to beat me. You’re going to lose. And when you walk back to the locker room, you’re going to be able to put one more thing on your resume. You got into a gym war, Roberto, and you lost.
Goodnight Roberto. May sleep give you the courage to go on.”