Post by Joe Summers on May 29, 2008 1:34:27 GMT -5
“Why the fuck would he go and pull something like that?!”
“For the tenth time…I don’t know, Joe. I don’t think anybody knows. Besides, what’s it matter? It’s not really that big of a deal, is it?”
I sighed, shaking my head slowly. Yet, despite the fact that Dante’s question was absolutely ridiculous in my opinion, I couldn’t hold it against him. People outside of the business tended to view things much differently than those of us who were a part of it. That’s why that while tonight was a chance for me to think things over as far as I was concerned, to Dante it was nothing more than your average night where the two of us would sit around and bullshit. I saw a problem, and he didn’t. I seemed rather…vacant, I guess, barely taking a sip from the beer in front of me and lost more in my thoughts than the television in front of me, while he seemed to be rather engrossed by…whatever the hell we were supposed to be watching. I honestly hadn’t been paying too much attention. I was too worried about what Axl had done close to a week ago and trying to figure out why he did it…
“I’m not surprised that you don’t get it, I guess.”
“What’s there to get? You lost! This isn’t the first time that you’ve lost and it probably won’t be the last. So, what’s bugging you about it? Just ignore it, move on, and worry about Sunday. That idea’s simple enough for you, isn’t it?”
“If it were that simple, I would’ve moved on already. Figured you of all people would’ve realized that one…”
I let out an annoyed groan, a frown becoming obvious on my face. Maybe it was just me…but I had hoped that the person that I tended to go to about, well, everything would have a general idea of how I tended to view things by now.
“What’s bugging me about all of this is who did it and the way that he did it. Don’t get me wrong…I understand that at times, Axl is completely fucking insane and that you’d have to be foolish to think that you can predict what he’s going to do and when he’s going to do it. That’s what makes him so dangerous in the first place. But still, to go and walk out of a match like that when he’s the legal man…a match against the people that we’ve spent months trying to show that we’re better than…well, to be completely fucking honest…it doesn’t make a damn bit of sense! Hell, it’s not even like this is something that the two of us talked about doing before the match to mess with their heads, either…it was all spur of the moment in case my reaction didn’t give that part of it away! I had no idea that was going to happen, and if I did you could be damn sure that I wouldn’t have let the prick step into the ring! I would have preferred to try my luck alone…”
“That still doesn’t explain why you care so much, though. Well, okay, I guess it does. You don’t like that he screwed you over. But still. What makes it different than any other loss? It’s not the first time that you’ve been screwed over before! And yet this time it’s almost like it’s the end of the world…”
Hmm. I guess he had a point there. Well, at least it would probably seem like he did. He didn’t though. I sighed, taking a sip from my beer and tried to think of the best way to explain it to him.
“One of us has everything to lose, and one of us has nothing to lose. Guess which is which, and trust me, it’s not hard. Yeah, you would think that the way the match ended would make a difference but in the end…does it really? We may not be on the same side, but…think about what Karen said last week. Just about everything that the Symphony done thus far…was done by the two of us. We were the ones that defeated the Clique and FcW at the same time. When someone’s gotten hurt because of us, it was usually because the two of us were the ones doing the damage. And yet, who’s the one that the general public respects as being the man? Axl. Who’s viewed as the big badass of the company that you shouldn’t cross under any circumstances? Axl! The two of us? We’re just people in the background that help him out! We’re nowhere near as much of a threat as he is!”
I frowned bitterly, and judging by the look on Dante’s face, he finally understood where I was coming from. I could’ve probably left it there and tried to calm myself down, but who the hell was I kidding? It felt pretty damn good to vent…
“So yeah, he may have been responsible for that loss last week, but I wouldn’t be fucking surprised if the public blamed me for it! That’s just how they are! Despite everything that I’ve done, people still have a problem viewing me as this serious threat especially when you put me next to Axl! So what’s annoying me? How about the fact that he’s going to walk away from this looking like a fucking god and I’m going to have to prove to the world that I’m not some sort of a failure for not ending the match before tagging him in! Is that a good enough answer for you? I sure as hell fucking hope so, because that’s about as honest of an answer as you’re going to get out of me! And don’t even try to tell me that I have a tag-match to worry about on Sunday, because I know…I know. Sadly that isn’t going to help any because Denni and I have already proven that they’re simply not on our level! Just because some time’s passed doesn’t mean that we’ve suddenly gotten a hell of a lot worse and they managed to actually discover a buried treasure filled with the talent that they never had in the first place! If things went that smoothly for us months ago and in every match we’ve ever had with one of them after the last time we defended the titles against them, then to put it simply…things are going to remain that way! Knowing that, well…it doesn’t help take my mind off of all of this, okay?”
That awkward silence that seems to be so prevalent in conversations such as this one filled the room, as neither one of us really knew what else to say. I’m sure he was trying to be careful and not saying anything that would further set me off, and while there was much more than I could talk about…I, quite simply, didn’t feel like it. Something was going to have to give eventually though. And to my surprise, something did…as a voice spoke up. A voice that had been haunting me in recent months…one that I didn’t want to be hearing at the moment…Marc’s…
“Maybe you’ve been fighting the wrong battle this whole time. Think about it…”
And with that, the silence returned. Though, this time…I was rather content to sit in it to be completely honest. There was a question that I had to think about…one that, while it could potentially mean absolutely nothing…it could also be the answer that I was looking for:
Was I really fighting the right battle?
“For the tenth time…I don’t know, Joe. I don’t think anybody knows. Besides, what’s it matter? It’s not really that big of a deal, is it?”
I sighed, shaking my head slowly. Yet, despite the fact that Dante’s question was absolutely ridiculous in my opinion, I couldn’t hold it against him. People outside of the business tended to view things much differently than those of us who were a part of it. That’s why that while tonight was a chance for me to think things over as far as I was concerned, to Dante it was nothing more than your average night where the two of us would sit around and bullshit. I saw a problem, and he didn’t. I seemed rather…vacant, I guess, barely taking a sip from the beer in front of me and lost more in my thoughts than the television in front of me, while he seemed to be rather engrossed by…whatever the hell we were supposed to be watching. I honestly hadn’t been paying too much attention. I was too worried about what Axl had done close to a week ago and trying to figure out why he did it…
“I’m not surprised that you don’t get it, I guess.”
“What’s there to get? You lost! This isn’t the first time that you’ve lost and it probably won’t be the last. So, what’s bugging you about it? Just ignore it, move on, and worry about Sunday. That idea’s simple enough for you, isn’t it?”
“If it were that simple, I would’ve moved on already. Figured you of all people would’ve realized that one…”
I let out an annoyed groan, a frown becoming obvious on my face. Maybe it was just me…but I had hoped that the person that I tended to go to about, well, everything would have a general idea of how I tended to view things by now.
“What’s bugging me about all of this is who did it and the way that he did it. Don’t get me wrong…I understand that at times, Axl is completely fucking insane and that you’d have to be foolish to think that you can predict what he’s going to do and when he’s going to do it. That’s what makes him so dangerous in the first place. But still, to go and walk out of a match like that when he’s the legal man…a match against the people that we’ve spent months trying to show that we’re better than…well, to be completely fucking honest…it doesn’t make a damn bit of sense! Hell, it’s not even like this is something that the two of us talked about doing before the match to mess with their heads, either…it was all spur of the moment in case my reaction didn’t give that part of it away! I had no idea that was going to happen, and if I did you could be damn sure that I wouldn’t have let the prick step into the ring! I would have preferred to try my luck alone…”
“That still doesn’t explain why you care so much, though. Well, okay, I guess it does. You don’t like that he screwed you over. But still. What makes it different than any other loss? It’s not the first time that you’ve been screwed over before! And yet this time it’s almost like it’s the end of the world…”
Hmm. I guess he had a point there. Well, at least it would probably seem like he did. He didn’t though. I sighed, taking a sip from my beer and tried to think of the best way to explain it to him.
“One of us has everything to lose, and one of us has nothing to lose. Guess which is which, and trust me, it’s not hard. Yeah, you would think that the way the match ended would make a difference but in the end…does it really? We may not be on the same side, but…think about what Karen said last week. Just about everything that the Symphony done thus far…was done by the two of us. We were the ones that defeated the Clique and FcW at the same time. When someone’s gotten hurt because of us, it was usually because the two of us were the ones doing the damage. And yet, who’s the one that the general public respects as being the man? Axl. Who’s viewed as the big badass of the company that you shouldn’t cross under any circumstances? Axl! The two of us? We’re just people in the background that help him out! We’re nowhere near as much of a threat as he is!”
I frowned bitterly, and judging by the look on Dante’s face, he finally understood where I was coming from. I could’ve probably left it there and tried to calm myself down, but who the hell was I kidding? It felt pretty damn good to vent…
“So yeah, he may have been responsible for that loss last week, but I wouldn’t be fucking surprised if the public blamed me for it! That’s just how they are! Despite everything that I’ve done, people still have a problem viewing me as this serious threat especially when you put me next to Axl! So what’s annoying me? How about the fact that he’s going to walk away from this looking like a fucking god and I’m going to have to prove to the world that I’m not some sort of a failure for not ending the match before tagging him in! Is that a good enough answer for you? I sure as hell fucking hope so, because that’s about as honest of an answer as you’re going to get out of me! And don’t even try to tell me that I have a tag-match to worry about on Sunday, because I know…I know. Sadly that isn’t going to help any because Denni and I have already proven that they’re simply not on our level! Just because some time’s passed doesn’t mean that we’ve suddenly gotten a hell of a lot worse and they managed to actually discover a buried treasure filled with the talent that they never had in the first place! If things went that smoothly for us months ago and in every match we’ve ever had with one of them after the last time we defended the titles against them, then to put it simply…things are going to remain that way! Knowing that, well…it doesn’t help take my mind off of all of this, okay?”
That awkward silence that seems to be so prevalent in conversations such as this one filled the room, as neither one of us really knew what else to say. I’m sure he was trying to be careful and not saying anything that would further set me off, and while there was much more than I could talk about…I, quite simply, didn’t feel like it. Something was going to have to give eventually though. And to my surprise, something did…as a voice spoke up. A voice that had been haunting me in recent months…one that I didn’t want to be hearing at the moment…Marc’s…
“Maybe you’ve been fighting the wrong battle this whole time. Think about it…”
And with that, the silence returned. Though, this time…I was rather content to sit in it to be completely honest. There was a question that I had to think about…one that, while it could potentially mean absolutely nothing…it could also be the answer that I was looking for:
Was I really fighting the right battle?
