Post by kincaid on Aug 26, 2021 17:04:19 GMT -5
"Pittsburgh. Been a long time since I’ve been in Pennsylvania.”
We hear the voice before we see the speaker. The camera comes in from the darkness, zooming in on a dusty yellow lightbulb in a long brick hallway. Alex Kincaid walks past the cameraman and draws a sharp breath through his nose, bouncing up and down on his toes to prepare for an upcoming contest. Even if no one knew Kincaid were a wrestler they would know there was something different about him. He’s a ball of energy, pacing back and forth with manic intensity in his eyes as he thinks about what is to come in the next week.
"It’s funny. After doing this long enough, you know, you get used to a certain standard. A certain way of things getting done. Before I walked away from wrestling I was a big deal. A big enough deal where - if you put Alex Kincaid on the marquee - you had the courtesy to give me a call. Someone up in that office calls me up and they tell me ‘Big K, you’ve got so and so in the main event at the Ted Reeve.’ But here I am tonight, Toronto, Ontario and I’m getting ready to go out there to fight my heart out in the first match on the show and what do I see get posted on the Rev 1 website? ‘Alex Kincaid vs The Overbaker.’ And that’s all the notice I get.
No calls here. I’m not special. I’m just another cog in the machine to a company that doesn’t know me yet. Maybe you think that upsets me? After all, anybody who knows Alex Kincaid knows that I have had a reputation for being a little bit of trouble behind the scenes. No. Not this time. This time things are a little bit different. See, that wasn’t bad news for me. It’s terrible news for my opponent here in Toronto tonight and it’s worse news for The Overbaker but for me...it’s exactly what I need.”
He pauses in place for a moment and looks down the hallway where a few members of the ring crew are hauling some equipment through. One of them gives him a half hearted, nervous wave having realized they interrupted his promo. Kincaid doesn’t return the gesture. He simply stares them down, his expression hardening. The techs rush further down the hall out of frame and he turns back to address the camera again.
"When I was younger I thought respect was something we were all owed. When I got a little older, I figured out what every real man figures out and realized it had to be earned. But after doing this for as long as I have been doing it I realized something new: Respect is currency. Yeah, you’ve got to earn it but every decision you make day by day you’re either earning more of it, or you’re spending it. And the last few years I spent a whole hell of a lot of what I’ve earned over the years. I picked fights I shouldn’t have picked. I didn’t take matches seriously the way I should have, and I’ve made myself a liability on more shows than I’ve made myself an asset. Like they say, some folks are greedy for money. Some folks are greedy for respect. Last few years I drove myself into poverty. In just a few days, in Pittsburgh, that’s going to change.
I’m not going to sit here and unpack the down-to-the-roots silliness of me fighting a giant killer chef at Legacy. I’ve seen all sorts of things in this line of work, from the black boots and kneepads headlock brigade all the way up to real life, honest to god monsters who’d walk through fire and snatch the life right out of you. I’ve stopped assuming I know what an opponent is going to bring to the table. This is Revolution 1. Before I asked them to give me a chance, my wife sits me down and we look over that roster list. She tells me ‘There’s a lot of guys who are going to give you trouble here’. All I could think is those are only the ones we know about. You never know who’s going to surprise you. You never know when guys you think are a little silly are going to crack you in the mouth and rattle your brain. All you know is what you bring to the table.”
There’s more movement down the hallway. The camera moves over his shoulder to show his wife walking down the hallway. Where her husband is all nervous energy, Alyssa Kincaid is smiling warmly as she approaches him. She gives him a quick peck on the cheek and whispers something in his ear the cameras don’t quite pick up. Whatever it is, it’s enough to draw a smile from him. She hands him his ring robe and he pulls it on. The contrast is striking. He looks like a caveman dressed as a superhero, in his sleeveless shining orange and blue robe. She looks elegant as can be in a matching dress. He looks at her the way Kong looked at Ann Darrow, smiling a little, before he turns back to the camera again.
"I know I’ve got the skill to succeed here. I know I’ve got the experience. I know that I’m going to come at Overbaker like somebody taped a boxing glove on the end of a lightning strike, we both know that. But what I don’t have, what I can’t get without your help, is respect. See, this is my first match in a while in a company that is full of hungry people who don’t give a good goddamn about Alex Kincaid. They’re thinking about Remembrance in Madison Square Garden and that Battle Royal. They’re thinking about whether or not a villain with a heart of gold can keep what she earned when she gets in there in front of Prince who wants to become King. I don’t factor in. I never will until I make it so I do.
So many guys come out here and they unpack all these personal reasons why the people at home should cheer for them. They give them the hard sell. They tell you how much they deserve to be something more than they are. That’s not me. I’m not special, I’m not different, I’m just like everybody else who has to get up in the morning and go in to prove they deserve that little slice of heaven they’ve carved out for themselves. Some of them do it standing twelve hours in the emergency department, giving medicine to screaming kids who don’t know how bad they need it. Some of them do it holding that stop sign on the middle of I-95 in the sweltering heat to get those potholes filled in. Work is work. I do my work with these.”
He holds one balled up fist to the camera. It’s taped up, ready to fight, but longtime wrestling fans eyes can’t help but be drawn to his forearm. Ugly, winding scars that stretch from elbow to wrist. He’s taken a lot of damage over the years. Maybe the tape is all that’s holding him together.
"I need people to care. If you’re a smart man, when you have that first match under the bright lights of a new company you go in ready for the match they’ve put you in. You don’t think ahead. You don’t start planning your elaborate run to the title. You plan on cracking the man in front of you in the jaw and making everybody else understand what you are. While back, I started getting really obsessed with the sheer potential wrestling had. The infinity of little battles, little lessons, little tests of character that we go through every time we step in the ring. Guys like you are part of that potential. Guys you might not think are dangerous, then you get in there and they surprise you. You can be as goddamn silly as you want but I don’t relax around dudes who are twice my size. I don’t chill out around guys who can hit me with a chokeslam like you did on Legacy.. Maybe you want to laugh, maybe you want people to think you’re a joke. Whatever. You’re a wrestler and you’re a big son of a bitch. You’re a tree that’s going to get chopped down because I’m not fooled for one second.
Ten years ago I would have complained about getting put in there against a joke my first match in. But in this place? There are no jokes. Maybe you’re a test. Maybe Kylie wants to see how I react to this, see if I’m going to bitch instead of taking advantage of the opportunity. Well, go ahead and watch. Watch as I put on the kind of show only I can. This is the start of something special. The start of me proving, once and for all, that I’m everything I say I am. That wrestling can be something special if done the right way. It’s simple. Me. An opponent. The bright lights. Magic like nothing else.”
He seems satisfied with that and he smacks his fist into his palm, testing the feel of his first tape. He seems satisfied and looks over to a grinning Alyssa.
"We ready?”
She nods and she turns to head down to the hallway ahead of him. Kincaid follows after, ready to go to work. The camera finds the same light it did at the beginning of the promo and we fade...to...black...
We hear the voice before we see the speaker. The camera comes in from the darkness, zooming in on a dusty yellow lightbulb in a long brick hallway. Alex Kincaid walks past the cameraman and draws a sharp breath through his nose, bouncing up and down on his toes to prepare for an upcoming contest. Even if no one knew Kincaid were a wrestler they would know there was something different about him. He’s a ball of energy, pacing back and forth with manic intensity in his eyes as he thinks about what is to come in the next week.
"It’s funny. After doing this long enough, you know, you get used to a certain standard. A certain way of things getting done. Before I walked away from wrestling I was a big deal. A big enough deal where - if you put Alex Kincaid on the marquee - you had the courtesy to give me a call. Someone up in that office calls me up and they tell me ‘Big K, you’ve got so and so in the main event at the Ted Reeve.’ But here I am tonight, Toronto, Ontario and I’m getting ready to go out there to fight my heart out in the first match on the show and what do I see get posted on the Rev 1 website? ‘Alex Kincaid vs The Overbaker.’ And that’s all the notice I get.
No calls here. I’m not special. I’m just another cog in the machine to a company that doesn’t know me yet. Maybe you think that upsets me? After all, anybody who knows Alex Kincaid knows that I have had a reputation for being a little bit of trouble behind the scenes. No. Not this time. This time things are a little bit different. See, that wasn’t bad news for me. It’s terrible news for my opponent here in Toronto tonight and it’s worse news for The Overbaker but for me...it’s exactly what I need.”
He pauses in place for a moment and looks down the hallway where a few members of the ring crew are hauling some equipment through. One of them gives him a half hearted, nervous wave having realized they interrupted his promo. Kincaid doesn’t return the gesture. He simply stares them down, his expression hardening. The techs rush further down the hall out of frame and he turns back to address the camera again.
"When I was younger I thought respect was something we were all owed. When I got a little older, I figured out what every real man figures out and realized it had to be earned. But after doing this for as long as I have been doing it I realized something new: Respect is currency. Yeah, you’ve got to earn it but every decision you make day by day you’re either earning more of it, or you’re spending it. And the last few years I spent a whole hell of a lot of what I’ve earned over the years. I picked fights I shouldn’t have picked. I didn’t take matches seriously the way I should have, and I’ve made myself a liability on more shows than I’ve made myself an asset. Like they say, some folks are greedy for money. Some folks are greedy for respect. Last few years I drove myself into poverty. In just a few days, in Pittsburgh, that’s going to change.
I’m not going to sit here and unpack the down-to-the-roots silliness of me fighting a giant killer chef at Legacy. I’ve seen all sorts of things in this line of work, from the black boots and kneepads headlock brigade all the way up to real life, honest to god monsters who’d walk through fire and snatch the life right out of you. I’ve stopped assuming I know what an opponent is going to bring to the table. This is Revolution 1. Before I asked them to give me a chance, my wife sits me down and we look over that roster list. She tells me ‘There’s a lot of guys who are going to give you trouble here’. All I could think is those are only the ones we know about. You never know who’s going to surprise you. You never know when guys you think are a little silly are going to crack you in the mouth and rattle your brain. All you know is what you bring to the table.”
There’s more movement down the hallway. The camera moves over his shoulder to show his wife walking down the hallway. Where her husband is all nervous energy, Alyssa Kincaid is smiling warmly as she approaches him. She gives him a quick peck on the cheek and whispers something in his ear the cameras don’t quite pick up. Whatever it is, it’s enough to draw a smile from him. She hands him his ring robe and he pulls it on. The contrast is striking. He looks like a caveman dressed as a superhero, in his sleeveless shining orange and blue robe. She looks elegant as can be in a matching dress. He looks at her the way Kong looked at Ann Darrow, smiling a little, before he turns back to the camera again.
"I know I’ve got the skill to succeed here. I know I’ve got the experience. I know that I’m going to come at Overbaker like somebody taped a boxing glove on the end of a lightning strike, we both know that. But what I don’t have, what I can’t get without your help, is respect. See, this is my first match in a while in a company that is full of hungry people who don’t give a good goddamn about Alex Kincaid. They’re thinking about Remembrance in Madison Square Garden and that Battle Royal. They’re thinking about whether or not a villain with a heart of gold can keep what she earned when she gets in there in front of Prince who wants to become King. I don’t factor in. I never will until I make it so I do.
So many guys come out here and they unpack all these personal reasons why the people at home should cheer for them. They give them the hard sell. They tell you how much they deserve to be something more than they are. That’s not me. I’m not special, I’m not different, I’m just like everybody else who has to get up in the morning and go in to prove they deserve that little slice of heaven they’ve carved out for themselves. Some of them do it standing twelve hours in the emergency department, giving medicine to screaming kids who don’t know how bad they need it. Some of them do it holding that stop sign on the middle of I-95 in the sweltering heat to get those potholes filled in. Work is work. I do my work with these.”
He holds one balled up fist to the camera. It’s taped up, ready to fight, but longtime wrestling fans eyes can’t help but be drawn to his forearm. Ugly, winding scars that stretch from elbow to wrist. He’s taken a lot of damage over the years. Maybe the tape is all that’s holding him together.
"I need people to care. If you’re a smart man, when you have that first match under the bright lights of a new company you go in ready for the match they’ve put you in. You don’t think ahead. You don’t start planning your elaborate run to the title. You plan on cracking the man in front of you in the jaw and making everybody else understand what you are. While back, I started getting really obsessed with the sheer potential wrestling had. The infinity of little battles, little lessons, little tests of character that we go through every time we step in the ring. Guys like you are part of that potential. Guys you might not think are dangerous, then you get in there and they surprise you. You can be as goddamn silly as you want but I don’t relax around dudes who are twice my size. I don’t chill out around guys who can hit me with a chokeslam like you did on Legacy.. Maybe you want to laugh, maybe you want people to think you’re a joke. Whatever. You’re a wrestler and you’re a big son of a bitch. You’re a tree that’s going to get chopped down because I’m not fooled for one second.
Ten years ago I would have complained about getting put in there against a joke my first match in. But in this place? There are no jokes. Maybe you’re a test. Maybe Kylie wants to see how I react to this, see if I’m going to bitch instead of taking advantage of the opportunity. Well, go ahead and watch. Watch as I put on the kind of show only I can. This is the start of something special. The start of me proving, once and for all, that I’m everything I say I am. That wrestling can be something special if done the right way. It’s simple. Me. An opponent. The bright lights. Magic like nothing else.”
He seems satisfied with that and he smacks his fist into his palm, testing the feel of his first tape. He seems satisfied and looks over to a grinning Alyssa.
"We ready?”
She nods and she turns to head down to the hallway ahead of him. Kincaid follows after, ready to go to work. The camera finds the same light it did at the beginning of the promo and we fade...to...black...