Post by santiago on Jan 25, 2021 23:59:30 GMT -5
Back in the days when he dreamed of being Detroit’s own Flash Gordon, nights spent within the confines of streets he’d often been too concussed to remember felt like time was standing still. Busted lips and black eyes were essentially the price of admission, almost a guarantee for anyone putting fist over elbow looking to be the lucky sonova bitch walking home with the guarantee of a hot meal sitting in their pocket. Stepping into a circle of of fire, where men waited their turns to feel tough, to enjoy the suffering of others, to beat the piss out of people while envisioning their fathers, to do whatever the hell they felt like coming into an absolute shithole to find, it was easy to feel small, but strong. Small enough to disappear into something bigger than oneself, strong enough to survive everyone tryin’ to step on you on their way. In the heart of the Motor City, men became roaches, capable of surviving anything and everything one could throw at them. It was these same cold, warehouse floors that his upbringing became immortalized in his flesh, with the careful hand of one Michael Simoni.
What’s it take to make sure a man never has a chance to forget where he comes from?
For Drago Santiago, it takes a Bic lighter, a motor, a battery, copious amounts of tape, and a straightened compression string from a lighter. The kinda tattoo gun Michael was able to make a name for himself spreading his art across the backs of anyone in I-Max with the right affiliation isn’t the prettiest, nor is it the kind that’s having customers running in and out of the doors of his business that’s currently only a bad day or two from shuttering the doors, but for a person who wants to feel each pulse of the needle along their skin, it’s worth traveling halfway from Kalamazoo to experience. Each jab, each stab, each warm trickle of his own crimson life force down his neck merits the bite of his bottom lip and venomous scowl, but the surges of pain are a memory he’d never forget, no matter where he’d gone in his career or what he’d accomplished, it all started where he currently is sitting, clinging onto the leather of the dark tattoo chair he’s currently sitting in. Minding his meltdown, inhale, exhale, repeat, and his heads screwed on straight enough for him to speak.
“Part of sticking around this coffin we call a ring for so much time is getting very intimate with the knowledge that when it comes to fightin’, you don’t know jack shit, and everyone pretending they do has this snake oil you absolutely have to try. You don’t have to know a thing, do a thing, or believe in a thing, because people are gonna’ put you where they want you.”
These words are said as casually as a man who is reading from the back of Wheaties cereal box.
“Calling us competitors is putting it lightly - we’re conduits for truths others believe. Maybe it’s the same-old same-old bs about what types of bodies deserve to be fightin’ in the squared circle. Maybe, the other side of the coin, about what types of people really belong in the ring. Hell - these boxes might seem like prisons to some, but for others, those four walls are canvasses for them to come up with truths of their own - apparently, some of our truths are that of walking, talking human shitposts, a la LA Johnny Styles. Maybe those truths reside in a shoebox hidden in the back corner of a Spirit Halloween, Daniel Dream style. Y’all got mouths to feed and minds to fill? Well, we got fighters slinging truth like hot cakes, telling you their way is tried and true, their beliefs are battle-tested, and they’re stepping into the ring to show why their beliefs are gonna’ get them ahead.”
“My truth? It’s changed across decades in the biz. See, I used to want people to think I was as strong as the men standing across the ring. When that didn’t work, my truth resided in my brain - see, for all the gold and silver on the ol’ wall back home, ain’t a single diploma, but god damn it felt good taking my lack of size and weaponizing it tryin’ to be this brilliant badass and… so what I’m getting at is, the truth ain’t only about place, it’s about a place in time. Form follow function - a younger me was willing to say anything to have a counter argument about why I belonged in this ring. Now my curse is to sit back and others make the same mistakes. Now, why’s he rambling about truth?“
The alabaster man’s chest is as tatted as his passport, and is currently as bloody as his intentions, while nodding his head to the black ink finishing Simoni’s outline tracing down to the crook between his neck and his cheek - and the giddy laughter makes the steel trap cutting into his flesh and leaving ink it’s its place seem like sweet kisses.
“Cuz Portia and Amelia, you two just committed the mother of all fuckups by proving me right.”
“Cuz everyone’s got a plan for winning until they get hit in the mouth, and everyone’s got a truth that’s polished and spit-shined until it's held up to scrutiny.”
“After all, when Amelia was talking down to Pasha about how she had the ‘killer instinct’ for this industry, taunting Miles for not fighting any real competitors as champion, and taunting Derrick for not having testicular fortitude behind his actions, I kept an ear to the ground. She spoke - and people moved. Chica tells you who she is when she tells you who you ain’t. What’s not to love? She talked about others being cowards and being meek and not being champion material while telling her truth that she’s none of the above. So I, acting as a young dog learning new tricks, take fifteen minutes out of my day to tell /my/ truth. I beat a champion twice, I deserve a match, blase blah. In all honesty? Don’t let the ink fool you - I do everything I can to garner some sort of deep and meaningful understanding, you think I could give two shits about a title named after a genre dedicated to shock value?”
“Nah. But I knew that when confronted with cold, hard facts, you’d immediately drop the facade of ring warriors who ain’t afraid of anything. In the modern age of wrasslin, Ameria Heart’s got home-field advantage cuz you can’t get a field goal when she gets to move the goalposts. See, all this blase blah and yapping to anyone within ear shot about merit both Portia and Amelia love to do goes out of the window when they’re facing the most experienced fighters in this company. Truths are fickle, they’re flimsy, and most importantly, they don’t matter whatsofucking ever because I ain’t Denzel and yall sure as shit ain’t Forest Whittaker, we ain’t here to be The Great Debaters, we put our lives on the line to let our actions speak for us.“
“So can we stop with this classroom level debate club nonsense?
Can I take ten seconds to bitch-slap all the bad-faith nonsense?
I know, I know, if you give Portia and Amelia an inch, they’ll think they’re a ruler, but I come from a background where you get the opportunities you want by being the only person left, so two ‘warriors’ crumbling like they took an arrow to the knee when I apply a lil’ pressure in 280 characters or less was saddening enough to look at you two like a father who isn’t mad, but is disappointed. Does it matter that my partner hasn’t gotten a pinfall victory, other than to speak to the fact that she’s level-headed and focused enough to focus on winning the tag titles more than she is to let her ego get in her way? Does it matter that you two have done the amazing accomplishment of signing contracts before us two? Does it matter that neither my partner nor myself are as familiar with this place as those two?”
Can I take ten seconds to bitch-slap all the bad-faith nonsense?
I know, I know, if you give Portia and Amelia an inch, they’ll think they’re a ruler, but I come from a background where you get the opportunities you want by being the only person left, so two ‘warriors’ crumbling like they took an arrow to the knee when I apply a lil’ pressure in 280 characters or less was saddening enough to look at you two like a father who isn’t mad, but is disappointed. Does it matter that my partner hasn’t gotten a pinfall victory, other than to speak to the fact that she’s level-headed and focused enough to focus on winning the tag titles more than she is to let her ego get in her way? Does it matter that you two have done the amazing accomplishment of signing contracts before us two? Does it matter that neither my partner nor myself are as familiar with this place as those two?”
“Nah, because ain’t nobody in the ring got on a wig, and this ain’t fucking parliament. This is the holy-ever-loving king of nothing propped up by two women in a trenchcoat. You two sling insults recklessly and build yourselves up into images of fighters with much more success and experience and it might impress everyone else who hasn’t been watching people fight since super nintendo days, but I’ve seen and heard it all. The people most equipped for this ring ain’t the ones dreamin’ about being here, it’s the ones actually living in it. You read over these rehearsed lines you two practice in the mirrors about the fighters you are so much that you believe it, but truth ain’t a chant. It ain’t truth just cuz you said the shit fifteen times over. Truth is the shit you carve into your body, you carve into reality, and you make absolutely fucking undeniable so much so you can carve it into the bodies of others. I spent decades with the mic in my hand croonin’ about the fighter I was, until I decided to actually be him.”
Another deep breath in, another deep breath out. He rushes to speak in a rush of bitterness, and in realizing the shakiness of his own voice, he halts for a beat before picking up where he left off.
“A good offense beats a good defense because reaction will never outpace the action. You two can rewrite history to look like more formidable opponents all you want - but you’ll just be the next shiny toy we break. We don’t care if we’re seen as withered ring veterans, bitter to the ways of the world, tucked away in a corner of the wrasslin’ word for one last run. Call us past our prime, call us egotistic, call us whatever you can think of because I feel at home when others don’t see me as I am. Cuz I’ve made a career out of being called ‘AND YOUR NEW CHAMPION”, and that’s the only thing that matters.”
A Cheshire grin from Santiago says everything he needs to say.
“When a dangerous striker and a submission artist completely change their game to work on a team that’s bigger than the sum of its parts, that’s not because we’re trying to sell something. We both got all the letters in the alphabet soup in federations and enough gold to make a dragon cry, and all it lets us know is that none of it freakin’ matters unless you can repeat it. So two women eating when they’re supposed to eat, shitting when they’re supposed to shit, and speaking when they’re supposed to speak without any purpose or meaning, won’t be the end of us. We’re built different - cuz we ain’t trying to tell you why, we put all our work into showing you. That’s the line separating us - people like us do what we can, and people like you do what you can about it. “