Matt Miles
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Posts : 36
Join date : 2023-06-27
 |  Subject: Don't Blink - Conquest Colosseum I  Thu Jun 13, 2024 7:32 am | |
| “Do you remember what happened last time we danced together, Chris?”
“Because I do.”
“You and I, we went to war. No countouts, no disqualifications, falls count anywhere. Despite the pomp and circumstance of this bizarre act you were and have continued to put on, a stipulation like that is your bread and butter. That’s what I thought at the time, anyway. In what was supposed to be your wheelhouse, where the so-called “Hero of the Masses” should have felt at home, what happened, Chris? What did you do? Or rather, what did I do to you? I hooked your arms, I lifted you up, and, to paraphrase Travis Johnson, we plummeted through the air off the stage and I put you through not one, not two, not even three, but four tables with the Midas Touch. That’s a key memory of my first reign with the PCW World Championship. When I think of that reign I think of three things. I think of the first time I held that leather and gold in my hands. I remember the weight of it like it was just moments ago. Then I think of my matches against Kasey and how they solidified how I was viewed in the sphere of PCW. Then, finally, I think of that moment. Over the months I had that championship over my shoulder, the moment I pinned your shoulders to the floor are still my proudest… but there’s more to it than that. With pride comes the fall, a tale as old as time. See, that was the last time I truly felt like I was sitting atop the mountain. I was the man everyone respected for carrying the company on his back in its first semester and that’ll always be a badge of honor… but it was after I beat you, Chris, that everything started to fall apart.”
“Maybe upon hearing this you’ll say it was fate. I was never supposed to beat you, after all, right?! You’re the savior! You’re the salvation that PCW so desperately needs! We both know that that’s all a load of crap. Not just the vitriolic preaching you’ve been doing since coming here, but any notion that what happened after Gates of Valhalla was at all your doing. It wasn’t your fault that AZAZEL wiped me out at Popular Demand. It wasn’t your fault that Damian Mordeau weaseled his way into a championship reign he never deserved and pissed it all away. It’s not even your fault that you’re now holding the PCW World Championship that never should have left my hands in the first place. I couldn’t defend it, Mordeau failed, Nayati failed, and you were left to pick up the pieces. Regardless of your pseudo-intellectual, holier-than-thou act, you’re a proven elite talent. You’ve not only won world championships countless times before but you’ve done it on the biggest shows in front of the largest crowds with contracts worth more than most people will see in their lifetimes. I look at the current PCW roster and you’re the only person, man or woman, who has accomplished more than I have. Emmanuelle is close and she’ll get there in time and Nobi has been around longer than either of us… but when I think about must-beat competitors, your name will always be one of the first names circling around in my mind. So when I see that PCW World Championship sitting on your shoulder or wrapped around your waist, my first instinct is that it’s in a good place. PCW has a champion with the gravitas and talent worthy of holding its top prize.”
“Then the picture broadens, I look at who you’ve surrounded yourself with, and I start to second-guess myself.”
“Before we faced off at Gates of Valhalla, I had an ax to grind. You waltzed into PCW with your goofy grins and insincerities and convinced Alan Friedman you deserved a shot at my title based off of name value alone. That pissed me off. Royally, as a matter of fact. And it’s that same attitude you’ve carried with you, even after I thought maybe I’d actually knocked some sense into you. Instead you’ve manipulated and crafted what you claimed to be PCW’s Salvation. You want to save PCW and yet look at who you’ve invited into your inner circle. I’d ask you what it’d take for you to see that it’s people like you who are the problem here but that would make me look real naive. Stevie Wonder could see you’re full of shit and if he couldn’t he could damn well smell you coming from a mile away the moment you opened your mouth. I don’t for a second think that even you believe what’s coming out of your mouth half the time, so why should I? The things you say are rarely of any sense, let alone factual, so this is a side of you, Chris, that I’m not going to entertain.”
“The only Christopher Sabertooth I care about is the one who showed up at Gates of Valhalla. I want the Christopher Sabertooth who I had to dump off of the stage and through four tables. I want the Christopher Sabertooth who, through sheer force of will, have overcome everything put in his path. I don’t want the Chris who gets cats caught out by Fallon Stone, or the Chris whose best friend is a Frenchman. For god’s sake, your last name is sabertooth. If you’ve got them then you and I both know you’re going to need to use them if you want to beat me because you already know I can beat you. And I can do it again. And again. And again. You knock me down, I’ll get back up. Again, and again, and again.”
“You’re the last man I ever had the privilege of defending my championship against before it was ripped away from me, Chris. Beating you was my North Star. But now we start all over again and every new story has a tendency to somehow rhyme with the old. My reign began with a victory over Damian Mordeau and ended with me standing tall over you. Now, six months later, the roles have reversed. Where I once had what you wanted, you now have what’s mine. That’s why patience is important. One of my greatest strengths, if you remember. I bided my time, I let things play out, and everything has fallen into place as it should.”
“The last step — the most important step — means having you staring me right in the face for a second time.”
“And the last time you and I locked eyes, Chris…"
"You blinked.” | |
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