Post by Joe Everyman on Apr 14, 2013 0:57:55 GMT -6
And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything feels like the movies
Yeah you bleed just to know you're alive
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything feels like the movies
Yeah you bleed just to know you're alive
I am my own worst enemy. Not many people on the world can admit to something like that. I'll be the bigger man here and admit it instead of allowing everything else to do the same for me. From day one, I knew that I was going to do something special with my career. I always knew I was destined for something grand. I never knew what it was going to be, but I always had that fire burning in my heart, pushing towards my goal in life. I thought it was finding my soulmate, setting down and marrying her. Maybe having a child or two. Living in the suburbs, nice car, nice backyard, grilling every single Sunday. That's what I always wanted. And I knew I needed to fund it somehow. So, I took my second passion in life, this silly thing known as professional wrestling. So many people scoff at what we do, and yet, I think we're some of the most proud people on the planet. I knew training for it would be hard. I knew doing what I wanted in life would be difficult. But, I fought forward and tried my damnedest to get to where I am today. It's been a rough road since those days those many years ago. I've had many ups and many downs, but I've always survived. I've always taken them inside and had them help me grow. I've evolved with every single experience I've encountered. I regret nothing from my past, and I'm not sorry for anything. You only have one life to live, and you can't always be sorry. You'll regret yourself for all of it. I've learned that the hard way in the past, and I've tried every single day to right myself on that. I felt sorry for myself in my career up until now, and it's finally time for me to right that regret. Because if I don't do this now, and accomplish my own true goal, my regret will grow and destroy me. It's done it once before, and I cannot allow it to happen again...
The scene slowly opens up where we left off before. Joe is still staring into his reflection on that dark evening. His passion can be seen in his eyes as he looks upon his soul. His eyes never blinking.
Joe Everyman: I'm not afraid of you. I was before, but I've grown up. I made a decision to not allow you to win again. You cannot beat me.
How can you be so sure?
Joe Everyman: Because if I don't do it now, there will be no point to fix it again. If I can't do it now... there will be no second chance. Nothing I can do after this will be able to make up for the regret I will feel.
That's what I like to hear.
Joe looks down, away from his reflection for a moment.
Joe Everyman: I've tried so hard. I've striven for so much in my entire life. But there's so much I've done wrong.
Yes. Let that grow. Don't resist it.
Joe Everyman: A failed marriage. A child growing up without her father half of the time. Lost friends. Lost lovers. Loss after loss after loss. Failing to win the big one, over and over again...
Yes, Joe. Let it build! Give in!
Joe Everyman: I've failed so many times. Fallen down and failed to get back up. I... I just can't do it anymore...
Yes, Joe! Let it all out!
Joe Everyman: ...and after that all, I'm still standing. My heart is still strong. It only grows. The blackness can never penetrate it again! I cannot give up! I WILL NOT GIVE UP!
You will fail!
Joe Everyman: No! YOU WILL FAIL! You cannot control me! You never could! And you never will again! I've worked too f*cking hard at this to let you win this time! My heart is strong and it is pure! It will beat you! I HAVE TO BEAT YOU!
Joe slams his fist into the glass again. His eyes are clenched shut, as tight as he can. After a few moments, the kitchen light turns on. Melanie is standing behind Joe in the door way. He opens his eyes and looks at the glass and sees no reflection, it being blotted out by the light.
Melanie Brooks: Joe, sweetie... are you ok? I heard yelling and the door being hit. I thought we were being robbed.
Joe Everyman: No, it's nothing.
Melanie Brooks: Joe...
Joe moves his fist off of the glass and places it as his side. He turns around to face Melanie with a very concerned look.
Joe Everyman: Who am I?
Melanie Brooks: What do you mean?
Joe Everyman: Who am I, really? What makes me?
Melanie Brooks: You're Joe. You're a loving father. You're a-
Joe Everyman: Melanie, no. I mean... deeper. Who am I?
Melanie then walks over to where Joe is, reaches up and places her hand on Joe's cheek.
Melanie Brooks: You're the greatest man I've ever met. You're kind and compassionate. You're you.
Joe Everyman: That's what I'm afraid of. I am me. I try to be more than myself as much as I can muster, but I can never get past it.
Melanie Brooks: I don't want you to be someone who isn't you. To me, you are perfect.
Joe Everyman: Thank you, Melanie. I just need to see that now.
Melanie Brooks: You will. Maybe not now, maybe not tomorrow, but you will see it. You can do anything you set your mind to. You'll understand soon who you truly are. It's one of the greatest feelings a person will ever feel.
Joe Everyman: When did you realize who you really were?
Melanie smiles up at Joe while caressing his cheek with her thumb.
Melanie Brooks: The day I met you.
Joe can't help but smile at this. He places his hand upon Melanie's and pulls it down in front of him.
Joe Everyman: That's the sweetest thing I've ever heard in my life.
Melanie leans in and kisses Joe, as he kisses back.
Joe Everyman: Melanie?
Melanie Brooks: Yeah, Joe?
Joe Everyman: Remember how you said you wanted me to wait for the right moment? You said you wanted me to do it right when I did?
Melanie Brooks: The right moment... for what?
Joe then drops down to one knee in front of Melanie, reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small box.
Joe Everyman: I know we're pretty much already engaged already, but you wanted me to wait until the moment was right. Well... the moment is right. Melanie Brooks... will you marry me?
Melanie tries to form words, but can't. She just nods as a tear falls down her cheek. Before Joe can stand up, Melanie drops down on one knee and wraps her arms around Joe while her tears still falling down her face.
Joe Everyman: Thank you, Melanie.
Melanie Brooks: Thank you? Why are you thanking me?
Joe Everyman: Because you made me realize who I truly am.
Melanie smiles again as she kisses him again. They continue to embrace until they finally stand up after a few moments.
Melanie Brooks: Now that we're officially engaged instead of just mostly engaged, we should probably tell Aurora.
Joe Everyman: Well... we can wait until morning. It's awfully late. And... thank you again, Melanie. You've made me the happiest man to ever live.
Melanie Brooks: I love you, Joe.
Joe Everyman: I love you too, Melanie.
Joe wraps his arm around Melanie's shoulder as they walk out of the kitchen together. Melanie turns off the light switch as they enter the darkness of the living room. The camera slowly pans around to the glass door. Joe's reflection can be seen, standing strong with a smile upon it's face. The scene then slowly fades to black.
In the battle of life, we can either win or we can lose. How we live that life is how we determine the end result. To this day, I could never tell if I was winning or losing. But tonight... I think I finally know. I know that I am winning this game we call life. We all have our setbacks, but it's how we handle those setbacks that shows if we can beat them or not. So many have said ill of me, always speaking of my setbacks. I've come out on top of every single one of them. Nobody realizes this because none of them truly know me. They might know Joe Everyman the wrestler, but do they really know me?
All they see are my reflections. They see the man I put in front of the camera, week in and week out. Nobody knows what I did before this. Nobody knows what I went to college for. Nobody knows how I live my life outside of this company. Hell, nobody even knows what my last name is. All they know is what I've done in the ring and backstage. Nobody truly knows... me. The five men in this match will never know me for what I truly am. And I will never truly know them for who they are. That's the brilliance of life. We can never step into somebody else's body and know who they are. We can never see what they see. We can never feel what they feel. We go day by day seeing hundred, if not thousands of other people, just living their lives. We never stop to wonder what they could be going through. We could see a business man, happy as could be on the sidewalk. Maybe he was in a car accident and totaled his vehicle. We could see a nurse at a hospital, doing everything she can to help the patients. Maybe she is grieving for her father who passed away from cancer. We never truly know someone. It's the greatest mystery in life.
These five men in this match all have the man they are on screen, and the one they are off screen. We all have our passions and our secrets. I can't even begin to access each one of them because I only know who they are in the ring and on the microphone. I can't look into Alex Jones' eyes and know what his home life is like. I can't reach into Mike Laszlo's chest and see what makes his heart beat faster or slower. I've known Seth Evans my entire career and I don't know what makes him tick. Even the newer guys like Shane Hunt and A.C. Douglas I can't decipher. I don't know what makes them... them. And that's something I'll never know. All I can base them on is what they allowed me to see. I see their character, not the man behind them. We all go through life wearing a mask, never letting the world around us see behind it. We enjoy it because it is comfortable. It's safe. We know we can avoid so much that could get in our way. But sometimes, we have to remove our mask. For those of us lucky enough to find the one person we were meant to be with, we realize what it's like to truly be vulnerable.
I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on Earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms visiting hours don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, because it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. Robin Williams' character, Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting said that. The first time I heard that, I just thought it was a cool sounding quote. But even since that day, I've thought about it more and more. You never truly know someone until they become completely vulnerable to you. They let you know their deepest, darkest secrets. And if you can last through those, you know they were meant for you. We will all feel this in our life at one point or another. We will finally become vulnerable and show the world who we truly are. And that... is what this match is truly about.
Beside the grandeur of the Coliseum match, is six men. The match gives us a shot at the greatest prize this industry will ever craft. But the match is so much more than that. Inside of the steel structure, we see who we really are inside. We see if we have what it takes to succeed or fail in this industry. We put every single spec of our being on the line. We put our very soul and life on the line in this match. The Coliseum is cruel. It is destructive. And int he end, one man walks out the winner. We make ourselves vulnerable to the world, and whoever's soul is strongest will survive. We show the others and the world who we truly are. When we are most vulnerable is when we will be able to succeed. We will have to be willing to sacrifice anything and everything to accomplish this task set before us. I know that all five of you will be gunning for the victory... but none of you need it like I do. Some of you are trying to prove your youth. Some of you are trying to prove your validity. And some of you are truly to prove that you belong. I am so much more to prove. I have to prove if this is truly me. Not the man that I am. Not the man you all claim that I am. But the man who I am destined to be. A man of greatness. A man of immortality. A man who is a king.
You all have your reasons to win this match. We all want and need that last chance at becoming the nCw World Champion. But, at the end of the day, five of us will fall, and one of us will stand tall. The five who do not succeed cannot give up, however. For some of us, this will be the closest to heaven that we will ever be. We have to soak it all in while we can. Especially considering that the Coliseum will be hell for us all. One of us will ascend. One of us will move onto A Night To Remember to fight for the gold. I have so much to prove in this match. All of the scars. All of the heartache. All of the pain. All of the suffering. I have to prove that it was all worth it. If I can't do this, then I will have nothing left. The demons will have won. My desires will be forfeit. But I will not give up.
Even if I fail here, then my one other passion will take over. The love of my life is waiting for me. She always has. She waited until she could have me and swept me off my feet like I was standing on air. If I lose this Sunday, I will still have something grand in my life. Can you five say the same about yourself? Do all of you have a plan, or is it win or nothing? We only have one life to live. Our setbacks determine who we are. My setbacks have taken their toll. But I persevered. I battled through. And when this life is finally over. When I am in my final minutes in my life, I will look back upon this night. I will know that every scar, every fight, every tear and every battle I went through was worth it. I will look back upon this night and remember the Coliseum. It will be the hardest fight I ever entered. It will be the toughest test I will ever face. But... I will remember that it was the biggest win I had in my career. That is... until A Night To Remember's name finally meant something to me. In the end, I will be proud, and I will be remembered. Can you five say this about yourselves? It is a hard discussion that we all must have. Our legacy is something we craft every single day. Our vulnerable selves will be shown for history to either remember or forget. Sooner or later, we will have this happen. I had mine. I realized that I will be remembered. I will be immortalized. My fiance will remember me. My daughter and soon-to-be newborn will remember me. These fans will remember me. This company will remember me. But they will not remember me as my character. They will remember me as my true self. Joe Everyman is just a character I created. While he is me, he is lacking. When I am myself, when I am vulnerable, that is when I am truly... me. This Sunday, I will be me. I refuse to be anything less. I was born Joseph Smith, and that's who I will be when I step into the Coliseum. So many have focused on my career's shortcomings. My character's shortcomings. They will never truly know me. When that final bell tolls, I will know that I did it myself. The real me will have won. The real me will have succeeded at what I needed to do. The real me will be remembered.
And I don't want the world to see me, because I don't think that they'd understand. When everything's meant to be broken, I just want you to know who I am. I am Joe Everyman. I am Joseph Smith. I am the American Dream. I am the American Nightmare. I am the greatest wrestler to ever walk into nCw. I will finish my run as the nCw World Champion. I will end as the one true king.
Don't question my heart