Post by Kathleen Conway on May 16, 2013 14:48:42 GMT -6
I stood firm with my feet planted into the mat with one leg extended out behind me and the other bent at the knee in front of me, and my arms held straight above my head, palms flat and fingers pointing upward and one of the things that kept me going this early in the morning apart from my younger sister Tiffany's encouragement as she stood, a mirror image looking back at me, a reflection of my slightly more youthful and brighter-eyed days was the thought that I was raising the Starlets World Championship above my head.
There was something wonderfully allegoric about the Warrior's pose, I had to stand my ground whilst continuing to push myself onward and upward.
Tiffany: Not that I mind you being here with me sis, but isn't Emma supposed to be training you for your big match?
Kathy: Emma Danielson doesn't consider this to be her kind of training. I guess she's still remarkably self conscious about her body issues.
Tiffany: Body issues? She looks great, especially for someone who used to drink like a fish...
Kathy: Speaking of looking great....
Kathy turns her head and locks eyes for a moment with the young male Hispanic Yoga Instructor. She winks at him. He smiles back at her.
Tiffany: You're married in case you'd forgotten...quite happily I thought.
Kathy: Exactly. I'm married. Not dead...
Tiffany: Isn't that Jake's philosophy when you catch him making moony eyes at Emma?
Kathy: It is, and if it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me...
Tiffany: I see...
The yoga instructor wanders over and smiles at the ladies, before turning to Kathy.
Instructor: Wonderful, that is one of the best Warriors I've seen Mrs Conway.
Something about his accent made me feel all giggly, it took remarkable self control to muster a reasonable response.
Kathy: Thank you, Eddie, I guess I had a great teacher.
Eddie: Would jou do me a favour Mrs Conway?
Kathy: Anything.
Eddie: At the end of class today, could jou sign an autograph for my niece? She's a big fan of jours. She says jou're a real inspiration to her and proof that businesswomen can be smart and sexy....and with NCW closing, the value of the last ever Starlets World Champion's autograph would be priceless.
Kathy: Oh, of course Eddie, I'd love to. She sounds like a smart young lady...
Eddie: How jou Americans say? Takes one to know one, eh Mrs Conway...
This time I could not supress the giggle that burst from me.
I realise that it would be rather cliche at this point to say that ever since I was a little girl growing up in Wichita, Kansas that I've always wanted to be a World Champion, so I won't. Besides it wouldn't be true and the last thing I want to do is actually validate Jasmine's favourite argument against me and actually make something up because it sounds like something good to say. If I was going to make something up Jasmine, it wouldn't be something as intricate as the life I've lived, no, it would be something far simpler like...oh I don't know, how much I respect you as a competitor in that ring and in this match. I know you'd like the world to believe you are a threat not only to me in this match but to Zelda's record setting reign as Starlet's World Champion, but tell me this Jazz, if you've got your pretty little head stuck so far up your own peachy ass that you won't believe a single word I say, then why should I extend you the same courtesy?
I shouldn't. So I won't.
You may not like it but that really is the truth of the matter. It really is that simple. See what you need to realise about me Jasmine is that I don't need to make up a damn thing about my life, this is NCW, not the X-Factor, I don't need the sympathetic back story where I sit here and tell the world that I don't want this, I need this. The fact is I don't need to win the World Championship for my sick Grandma or my dead pet dog Bingo, if anything I want to win this for myself. To close out my career by actually achieving the one thing I've let everybody else achieve ahead of me or at least given them their shot to try, and that includes you Jasmine.
You know I figured you'd be a little more grateful about the fact that I haven't stood in your way, even after I've had every right to, even after I put you flat on your back in the middle of the ring and earned my rightful shot at Zelda. I could have kicked up much more of a fuss than I did about the fact that you've basically cried your way into this match like a small petulant child, you've deprived the NCW fans of a real match worthy of the final A Night To Remember - Zelda Knite vs Kathy Conway. The Definition Of Starlet vs The Original Incarnation, for the World Championship? How epic would that have been? But no...
Now we've got the world asking who the hell is Jasmine Barrera and what the hell is she doing in this match?
Congratulations Jasmine, you've got your name out there, trending on Twitter and being shared and commented on on Facebook as the most undeserving Starlet to ever be given a shot at the top prize in this company, I hope you're proud of yourself Jasmine and I hope for your sake it was all worth it and that you actually step up and make it count because if you don't, the last memory the world will have of Jasmine Barerra is how she ruined a real dream match because she was far too stubborn to let go of her own impossible dream.
Say what you want about my trainer for the biggest match in my career, but I wanted her to train me and teach me not necessarily because we're friends, but because she knows exactly what it takes to get to the top in this business. You may laugh but I've learned a lot from Emma Danielson, primarily about how important it is to play to your strengths in a match like this. I've learned a lot from you too Jasmine in the last few weeks. I've learned there are two things you excel at, the first is ending up on your back looking up at the lights and the second is crying like a little bitch about it, it's just such a shame then that those particular strengths have been neutralised and won't help you win this Reverse Ladder Match or the Starlets World Championship...
Tiffany giggles as both sisters are changing after their yoga class.
Tiffany: "Oh of course Eddie, I'd love to..."
Tiffany bats her eyelids at her elder sister who rolls her eyes.
Kathy: Shut up!
Tiffany laughs.
Tiffany: What would Jake say if he saw you I wonder?
Kathy: Nothing. Because we're both adults, we both trust each other and we both know where the line is...
Tiffany sighs, a little envy bubbles to the surface.
Tiffany: How do you do that by the way?
Kathy: What?
Tiffany: Earn the trust of a man like Jake? I don't think Caleb trusts me...not completely.
Kathy: Well, you might start with not hanging around with Rich so much...
Tiffany: We're just friends...
Kathy: Are you sure Caleb knows that?
Tiffany: He's heading back to New York after the PPV anyway, besides I never knew we had so much in common.
Kathy: All I've seen you talk about is dogs and babies and how you both want them.
Tiffany: Well yes, a girl can dream can't she?
Kathy notices an issue of NCW Magazine stuffed into her locker, highlighting an interview with three time NCW Starlets World Champion Zelda Knite on the cover, Kathy looks at the glossy photo of Zelda proudly displaying the World Championship around her waist and sighs at the undisputed cover girl of an entire division.
Kathy: Yes...yes I guess she can.
I will fully admit right here and now Zelda that I'm at quite the disadvantage going into this match, as are so many of your opponents, but unlike them I'm not going to try and ignore it, I'm not going to try to downplay it, instead I'm going to confront it - and you - head on, because I realise that only when you have the courage to step up and face something do you truly attain the courage to conquer it. Now it's pretty obvious that I have neither your record or your wrestling pedigree. I wasn't born into a wrestling family, I didn't want to do this since childhood, in fact the height of my dreams as a child was to be a ballroom dancer, so it was perfectly fine with me that I had no ties to the business. I didn't want any. I ended up following my daddy's footsteps and for a while that really was enough for me. It was my sister Tiffany who used to watch wrestling on a Saturday morning to drool over the beefy hunks, not me. It was Tiffany that sought out liaisons with men like Spike Kane, not me - and yet here we are, years later and I'm further down the rabbit hole than I've ever been before.
I suppose there's some irony to the fact that the sister who had absolutely no interest in the business growing up could end her career in the greatest wrestling company in the world at the top of her division and on top of the world as the final Starlets World Champion. Sure, some people might say its an impossible dream and maybe it is, but ultimately when it has come to realising my impossible dreams, I really haven't done all that badly. People told me I was dreaming if I thought I'd ever see Jake Conway again, much less end up earning his heart - but here we are five years later and we couldn't be happier. Don't look at me like that Z, I know it burns you especially when you've had your bean flicked by men as if they were playing pinball with your heart, but its true. He's my strength, he always has been and he's the only one who's ever believed in me so I'm going to play my Ace card whether you like it or not, consider it my revenge for having to sit through another weekly installment of 'Knite and Daye: The Cross We Bear.'
While your personal life plays out like a bad soap opera even at the best of times, nobody can argue with your professional successes so I'm not even going to try, instead I'm going to tell you why I wanted this match, and its simply because I've always been a "have your cake and eat it too" kind of girl, and sure you can sit there and condescend and tell me that for an average wrestler like me the cake is a lie, but the fact is until I wake up one morning and see Josie Everyman staring back at me in the mirror I refuse to believe any World Championship is beyond me, even one held by the great Zelda Knite. See Z, can I call you Z or do we have to get to at least second base first? Anyway Z, the point is you had your chances to carry that belt, to take it and an entire division to new heights, you've scaled the ladder of success and since I will never get that chance in an NCW ring ever again, I picked a match that would make the most of my moment. When I have that title in my hands, when I climb the ladder to the top and suspend it, well then, for that brief moment at least, I will know exactly what it is like to be you. I will know exactly what it is like to be Zelda Knite - and the best part, I won't even have to open my legs and assume the position whilst men like Cross, Daye and Diamond have their way with me.
It really is win-win.
At least it is for me, maybe not for Jasmine or you, speaking of winning, you see Zelda, I'm all too well aware that few people hold a win over you, and even fewer hold a clean pinfall victory over you, so I figured if this match had to be my last in an NCW ring I was going to make every second of it count, and so by virtue of the rules of a Reverse Ladder Match, I get to potentially be not only one of the few to beat you but also one of the very select few who has ever pinned you down outside of the bedroom.
It's quite a radical idea I grant you, but its no less radical than the notion of Kathleen Conway: Final Starlets Champion. It may well be a moment the people will always remember when they reminisce about the good old days of New Championship Wrestling, but for you Zelda and for you Jasmine it will be a moment you may well never forget....and really what could be more fitting or more appropriate as the final chapter in the Legend of Zelda and the legacy of this great company than knowing that even as the final curtain fell, this organisation stayed true to its name and gave the World one last...
New Champion?
There was something wonderfully allegoric about the Warrior's pose, I had to stand my ground whilst continuing to push myself onward and upward.
Tiffany: Not that I mind you being here with me sis, but isn't Emma supposed to be training you for your big match?
Kathy: Emma Danielson doesn't consider this to be her kind of training. I guess she's still remarkably self conscious about her body issues.
Tiffany: Body issues? She looks great, especially for someone who used to drink like a fish...
Kathy: Speaking of looking great....
Kathy turns her head and locks eyes for a moment with the young male Hispanic Yoga Instructor. She winks at him. He smiles back at her.
Tiffany: You're married in case you'd forgotten...quite happily I thought.
Kathy: Exactly. I'm married. Not dead...
Tiffany: Isn't that Jake's philosophy when you catch him making moony eyes at Emma?
Kathy: It is, and if it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me...
Tiffany: I see...
The yoga instructor wanders over and smiles at the ladies, before turning to Kathy.
Instructor: Wonderful, that is one of the best Warriors I've seen Mrs Conway.
Something about his accent made me feel all giggly, it took remarkable self control to muster a reasonable response.
Kathy: Thank you, Eddie, I guess I had a great teacher.
Eddie: Would jou do me a favour Mrs Conway?
Kathy: Anything.
Eddie: At the end of class today, could jou sign an autograph for my niece? She's a big fan of jours. She says jou're a real inspiration to her and proof that businesswomen can be smart and sexy....and with NCW closing, the value of the last ever Starlets World Champion's autograph would be priceless.
Kathy: Oh, of course Eddie, I'd love to. She sounds like a smart young lady...
Eddie: How jou Americans say? Takes one to know one, eh Mrs Conway...
This time I could not supress the giggle that burst from me.
I realise that it would be rather cliche at this point to say that ever since I was a little girl growing up in Wichita, Kansas that I've always wanted to be a World Champion, so I won't. Besides it wouldn't be true and the last thing I want to do is actually validate Jasmine's favourite argument against me and actually make something up because it sounds like something good to say. If I was going to make something up Jasmine, it wouldn't be something as intricate as the life I've lived, no, it would be something far simpler like...oh I don't know, how much I respect you as a competitor in that ring and in this match. I know you'd like the world to believe you are a threat not only to me in this match but to Zelda's record setting reign as Starlet's World Champion, but tell me this Jazz, if you've got your pretty little head stuck so far up your own peachy ass that you won't believe a single word I say, then why should I extend you the same courtesy?
I shouldn't. So I won't.
You may not like it but that really is the truth of the matter. It really is that simple. See what you need to realise about me Jasmine is that I don't need to make up a damn thing about my life, this is NCW, not the X-Factor, I don't need the sympathetic back story where I sit here and tell the world that I don't want this, I need this. The fact is I don't need to win the World Championship for my sick Grandma or my dead pet dog Bingo, if anything I want to win this for myself. To close out my career by actually achieving the one thing I've let everybody else achieve ahead of me or at least given them their shot to try, and that includes you Jasmine.
You know I figured you'd be a little more grateful about the fact that I haven't stood in your way, even after I've had every right to, even after I put you flat on your back in the middle of the ring and earned my rightful shot at Zelda. I could have kicked up much more of a fuss than I did about the fact that you've basically cried your way into this match like a small petulant child, you've deprived the NCW fans of a real match worthy of the final A Night To Remember - Zelda Knite vs Kathy Conway. The Definition Of Starlet vs The Original Incarnation, for the World Championship? How epic would that have been? But no...
Now we've got the world asking who the hell is Jasmine Barrera and what the hell is she doing in this match?
Congratulations Jasmine, you've got your name out there, trending on Twitter and being shared and commented on on Facebook as the most undeserving Starlet to ever be given a shot at the top prize in this company, I hope you're proud of yourself Jasmine and I hope for your sake it was all worth it and that you actually step up and make it count because if you don't, the last memory the world will have of Jasmine Barerra is how she ruined a real dream match because she was far too stubborn to let go of her own impossible dream.
Say what you want about my trainer for the biggest match in my career, but I wanted her to train me and teach me not necessarily because we're friends, but because she knows exactly what it takes to get to the top in this business. You may laugh but I've learned a lot from Emma Danielson, primarily about how important it is to play to your strengths in a match like this. I've learned a lot from you too Jasmine in the last few weeks. I've learned there are two things you excel at, the first is ending up on your back looking up at the lights and the second is crying like a little bitch about it, it's just such a shame then that those particular strengths have been neutralised and won't help you win this Reverse Ladder Match or the Starlets World Championship...
Tiffany giggles as both sisters are changing after their yoga class.
Tiffany: "Oh of course Eddie, I'd love to..."
Tiffany bats her eyelids at her elder sister who rolls her eyes.
Kathy: Shut up!
Tiffany laughs.
Tiffany: What would Jake say if he saw you I wonder?
Kathy: Nothing. Because we're both adults, we both trust each other and we both know where the line is...
Tiffany sighs, a little envy bubbles to the surface.
Tiffany: How do you do that by the way?
Kathy: What?
Tiffany: Earn the trust of a man like Jake? I don't think Caleb trusts me...not completely.
Kathy: Well, you might start with not hanging around with Rich so much...
Tiffany: We're just friends...
Kathy: Are you sure Caleb knows that?
Tiffany: He's heading back to New York after the PPV anyway, besides I never knew we had so much in common.
Kathy: All I've seen you talk about is dogs and babies and how you both want them.
Tiffany: Well yes, a girl can dream can't she?
Kathy notices an issue of NCW Magazine stuffed into her locker, highlighting an interview with three time NCW Starlets World Champion Zelda Knite on the cover, Kathy looks at the glossy photo of Zelda proudly displaying the World Championship around her waist and sighs at the undisputed cover girl of an entire division.
Kathy: Yes...yes I guess she can.
I will fully admit right here and now Zelda that I'm at quite the disadvantage going into this match, as are so many of your opponents, but unlike them I'm not going to try and ignore it, I'm not going to try to downplay it, instead I'm going to confront it - and you - head on, because I realise that only when you have the courage to step up and face something do you truly attain the courage to conquer it. Now it's pretty obvious that I have neither your record or your wrestling pedigree. I wasn't born into a wrestling family, I didn't want to do this since childhood, in fact the height of my dreams as a child was to be a ballroom dancer, so it was perfectly fine with me that I had no ties to the business. I didn't want any. I ended up following my daddy's footsteps and for a while that really was enough for me. It was my sister Tiffany who used to watch wrestling on a Saturday morning to drool over the beefy hunks, not me. It was Tiffany that sought out liaisons with men like Spike Kane, not me - and yet here we are, years later and I'm further down the rabbit hole than I've ever been before.
I suppose there's some irony to the fact that the sister who had absolutely no interest in the business growing up could end her career in the greatest wrestling company in the world at the top of her division and on top of the world as the final Starlets World Champion. Sure, some people might say its an impossible dream and maybe it is, but ultimately when it has come to realising my impossible dreams, I really haven't done all that badly. People told me I was dreaming if I thought I'd ever see Jake Conway again, much less end up earning his heart - but here we are five years later and we couldn't be happier. Don't look at me like that Z, I know it burns you especially when you've had your bean flicked by men as if they were playing pinball with your heart, but its true. He's my strength, he always has been and he's the only one who's ever believed in me so I'm going to play my Ace card whether you like it or not, consider it my revenge for having to sit through another weekly installment of 'Knite and Daye: The Cross We Bear.'
While your personal life plays out like a bad soap opera even at the best of times, nobody can argue with your professional successes so I'm not even going to try, instead I'm going to tell you why I wanted this match, and its simply because I've always been a "have your cake and eat it too" kind of girl, and sure you can sit there and condescend and tell me that for an average wrestler like me the cake is a lie, but the fact is until I wake up one morning and see Josie Everyman staring back at me in the mirror I refuse to believe any World Championship is beyond me, even one held by the great Zelda Knite. See Z, can I call you Z or do we have to get to at least second base first? Anyway Z, the point is you had your chances to carry that belt, to take it and an entire division to new heights, you've scaled the ladder of success and since I will never get that chance in an NCW ring ever again, I picked a match that would make the most of my moment. When I have that title in my hands, when I climb the ladder to the top and suspend it, well then, for that brief moment at least, I will know exactly what it is like to be you. I will know exactly what it is like to be Zelda Knite - and the best part, I won't even have to open my legs and assume the position whilst men like Cross, Daye and Diamond have their way with me.
It really is win-win.
At least it is for me, maybe not for Jasmine or you, speaking of winning, you see Zelda, I'm all too well aware that few people hold a win over you, and even fewer hold a clean pinfall victory over you, so I figured if this match had to be my last in an NCW ring I was going to make every second of it count, and so by virtue of the rules of a Reverse Ladder Match, I get to potentially be not only one of the few to beat you but also one of the very select few who has ever pinned you down outside of the bedroom.
It's quite a radical idea I grant you, but its no less radical than the notion of Kathleen Conway: Final Starlets Champion. It may well be a moment the people will always remember when they reminisce about the good old days of New Championship Wrestling, but for you Zelda and for you Jasmine it will be a moment you may well never forget....and really what could be more fitting or more appropriate as the final chapter in the Legend of Zelda and the legacy of this great company than knowing that even as the final curtain fell, this organisation stayed true to its name and gave the World one last...
New Champion?
