A Series of Written Apologies

Posts : 5 Join date : 2022-04-24

To Whom It May Concern:

There are things that have been said and done over the past couple of months that have brought us to this pivotal and momentous occasion that I am not particularly proud to be associated with. Even someone like me, a decorated champion and one of the best wrestlers on the planet today, can make mistakes and misjudge certain things. Liz, Alyssa. I owe you two a massive apology.

I’m sorry. I truly am.

I apologize for the fact that Apex Wrestling has offered the two of you up to the most dangerous tag team ever assembled. On one hand, you have a man in Chris Sabertooth just waiting to be reborn. A World Champion in enough places to put even my older brother’s vaunted resume to shame. A man who has formed successful tag team wrestling combinations with multiple partners before me. A man who has spent the last few weeks with me honing his skills, becoming an even deadlier, more complete combatant. On the other hand, you have me. Both of you know exactly who and what I am. Tag team wrestling is not something I’m entirely unfamiliar with either, winning titles with April Song on two occasions in Japan as well as one of JET’s most prestigious tag tournaments with another partner. You two have done decently enough as a team, I’ll admit. Claiming titles. Making the APEX Tag Division a reality under your might. Granting Chris and myself this opportunity to take you on.

And we’re going to smash you.

I haven’t lost since my arrival here in your little playground. I am the reason that Azumi Goto has gone back to Japan to heal her scrawny little neck. I am the reason that Bea Havertz sticks to being part of bland, uninspired talk show segments and leaves professional wrestling to people like myself. And I am going to be the reason that the two of you lose control of the very division that you worked so hard to create.

I apologize for the apparent miscommunication that we have all had. The two of you seem to believe that I’m delusional, that I have Christopher under some evil form of mind control, that I’m trying my best to rain on your parade! Let’s sort through all of these things one at a time, starting with the last. Why do you two believe that I want to destroy the hard work that you’ve put into making this tag division a reality? I am merely trying to validate what you two are working towards. You’ve gone out of your way to slander and belittle Chris and myself, but where would you be if you weren’t wrestling me at King of the Mountain? Hmm? If I didn’t answer your call for challengers, give your precious division a reason to exist in the first fucking place..what would the two of you be doing? You would be at home. You would be spectators in the arena, being someone’s second. Being an undefeated wrestler here myself and Chris being who and what he is…we could have easily found other opponents, either as individuals or as a tag team to test ourselves against. But you two…what would you contribute to the shows other than failure if it weren’t for me and Christopher? Our presence validates and enhances everything the two of you have built but you do nothing but belittle and degrade us. Sad.

I apologize that you lack the understanding to realize that your current struggles, the identity and validity crises that both of you find yourselves in are something that I’ve already lived through. The two of you go on and on about being sculpted by violence, about being violence personified. Violence is just an everyday part of life for me. It’s nothing to glorify, nothing to prove my worth with. It’s just a matter of fact. Both my adopted hometown and my actual hometown, New Orleans and Baton Rouge, are two of the most brutally violent cities in the United States. Life means next to nothing for a lot of people there. My career has been violence incarnate from the beginning. My own family turned their backs to me. The indignities of being homeless in Mexico City and Paris, fighting in unsanctioned street fights and deathmatches just to show that I could be taught properly, starving while so many of my peers had spots in prestigious companies handed to them. It’s hilarious that I’m accused of taking shortcuts and being the beneficiary of nepotism when I have taken the most bloodied and violent road to get to where I am today. I have dealt with everything from battle royals to cage matches to beings with supernatural powers to a corrupt, hostile power structure to become one of the most feared wrestlers on the planet.

Why should the two of you startle me in the slightest?

I apologize to the two of you for this sad delusion that you two are some sort of heroes. I am very adept at sniffing out bullshit artists, you know? It’s a trait that I was blessed with and had plenty of time and experience to cultivate in this line of work. You two go on and on about how you’re building something for people. How all of this is to cultivate competition, to offer opportunity. If you two were so keen on becoming the faces of a tag division here, why didn’t you build it from the start? Why didn’t either of you bother trying to launch this division upon your arrival instead of becoming the self-entitled failures that you are? And Alyssa, you certainly can’t reject that label. I giftwrapped an opportunity to be the World Champion when I kept Goto from winning your Contender’s Match with her…and you went on to fail. It’s become a custom for you, hasn’t it? All the political machinations in wrestling behind you, a fledgling MMA career, sponsors and everyone else lined up worshiping the ground you walk on…yet you believe that the likes of me and Christopher Goddamn Sabertooth are bound to lose just because you and maybe a few mouthbreathers jerking off to porn every night in the beer-reeking arenas that Apex brings us to every week want you to add another notch to your belt. Who is delusional here? Who is out of touch with reality?

Not that your partner has fared much better, especially against me. She talks all the time about how I’m going to pay and how she’s going to do all sorts of damage to me and Chris. Just the history between the two of us alone should give her reason to retract that nonsense. She can’t beat me in a singles match. She can’t beat me in a battle royal when I had the biggest target on my back in the promotion, she couldn’t beat me in the most important match of her career by her own admission. Liz, I’ve said it for weeks, if not months. No…at this point we’re bordering on years. You have talked a great game for a long time and you have occasionally shown flashes of brilliance that I have no choice but to begrudgingly acknowledge. You were the first champion here, the first to leave a mark in the annals of this company’s history. And what did you do?

Did you cement your legacy?

Did you confirm everything that I believed you were capable of?

No. You failed. You relinquished your position as the top wrestler here as soon as it was earned. You ran and cried into the arms of your best friend and decided to pretend to be monsters….ALL WHILE THE REAL MONSTERS WERE HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT ALL ALONG, EAGER FOR NEW VICTIMS TO SINK THEIR CLAWS AND TEETH INTO.

I ask you both again? Why should I be scared? Why should I feel anxiety or fear when confronted with you two, especially now that Christopher’s therapy sessions are running so smoothly? Do you truly believe that an athlete with that talent, that charisma, that level of intelligence would be subject to someone influencing him by normal means? Not a chance. I’m not like Havoc, I’m not like the people who have turned a blind eye to him or have spat on him from afar as he’s struggled through some of the worst times of his life. I have watched him fight through some of the most horrifying circumstances and saw a man that I could happily go to war with.

I don’t honestly understand why we are made out to be the villains here. We accepted the apparently open challenge you made. We told you that we’re going to absolutely destroy you, and we left you a tiny message to remember from us before King of the Mountain. We didn’t beg to have titles created out of thin air. We have not failed when given opportunities to succeed in APEX or anywhere else. We are champions, wrestling minds that are creative and contrast starkly in styles but are completely harmonic and in sync when it comes to our passion for dominance and conquest.

We are the most dangerous combination that Apex Wrestling will ever see unleashed in its ring.

Alyssa, Elizabeth. My friends, I have one last apology to offer you two: I apologize in advance for what myself and my partner are going to do to you. So many people want you to succeed, I have no doubt. But they’re not going to see the happy ending. They’re not going to see the two friends with the catchy team name celebrating a hard-fought victory. Your fans are going to be in mourning, they’ll cry when they see what we’ve done. You two are obsessed with victories, prizes, titles.

I personally don’t give a fuck about any of that. Sure, winning a new shiny toy would be nice…but that’s not the aim here. Chris and I are coming to King of the Mountain to embarrass you. To humiliate you and leave you in such a state of disrepair that you will crawl back to your respective homes and tell your families “I can’t do this anymore! My passion for professional wrestling has been completely destroyed.” My philosophy when it pertains to pro wrestling has always been to make sure that only the strongest and most worthy are allowed to stand in my ring.

Christopher, after some extensive persuasion and assistance, shares that view of the wrestling world. And, in our first match as teammates, will redefine not only tag team wrestling but the very definition of violence itself. To us, it’s not something we have to talk about. Violence is something that we demonstrate with every broken bone, every tear shed, and every wailing scream begging for mercy from our enemies.

When King of the Mountain is finished, maybe the two of you will have the courage to stand up to the Next Level and World Champions in singles competition. Maybe there will be some solace that the two of you can take from this that builds your broken spirits to where your future endeavors don’t end with the regrets, scars and trauma that Chris and I are going to inflict upon you.

There are no happy endings here, no pacified delusions of grandeur. There’s not going to be a happy origin story for the Apex World Tag Team Championships. Just as nations were forged by blood and iron in eras long gone by, Christopher and I are going to take your blood and our iron fists and forge a legacy with these belts so brutal that even the best tag teams in the world will shudder in fear when they hear of us.

For the pain we will cause you. For the pain we will cause your fans, your sponsors, your benefactors, husbands, boyfriends….I’m very, very sorry.

For putting you in your place, though…for that, I will not feel a single shred of sorrow about doing.

Warmest Regards,

Diantha Rosso