Dangerous.

Mike, what an interesting dilemma we find ourselves in.

I’d been trying to get the attention of the champ, seeking—and earning—an audience with the supposed king of the HOFC division, and now it is you demanding a response from me like a damn child.

And since you’re acting like a child, I’m going to treat you as such. Sit down and shut up, it’s storytime with Uncle Xander.

I’ve been molded into these types of situations from the day I started in this business. Three weeks in, a title match in an unforgiving structure not too different from the cage we use for HOFC. Won that title back then, and people took notice.

It didn’t take long for me to get hurled deeper into violence, participating in the first of many underground tournaments that praised the hardcore lifestyle. I suffered many scars and bruises on route to a semifinal exit…not too different from the way I left the DeNucci Cup.

I can just picture you falling asleep over there Mikey, but I promise there’s a purpose in all this.

I know you don’t know what the WCWF, the XWF, or The Experts are, but you sure as hell are gonna care when I’m through with you.

You might not have any knowledge of “Sinister” Steven Marks, or “Black Death” James Wallace, or even what the hell a One Ring Circus might be…but you’re gonna feel the same wrath they felt by my hand.

I can be cold and calculating when I wanna be…and I can be equally as dangerous.

The reason no one talks about Steven Marks, or James Wallace, or the One Ring Circus, is that I wiped them all from the public consciousness one by one.

I took a championship away from Marks, I took a career from Wallace, and I dismantled the One Ring Circus…and I’m the one still standing.

I silenced them all, and now I have every intention of silencing you.

You talk way too damn much for your own good, Mike. On the one hand, I get it…a decade of decadence will do that to you.

By your own admission, you are far too comfortable seated upon that throne. You’re used to having things a certain way, setting yourself up for a particular outcome every single time.

Only problem is, you now face an agent of chaos…a disciple, if you will.

Perhaps my approach was too restrained, too nuanced the last time we faced off…that is a mistake I won’t make again.

I’ve learned to adapt, to change, to evolve over time…and the latest evolution is prepared to take you down a peg when we step inside that cage.

Because, stories and insults aside, that’s what it’s all boils down to isn’t it?

That bell rings, and I will enact my revenge on you one round at a time. However long it takes, however much damage I have to suffer to find the opening I need…I will take it.

If you’ve taken nothing away from this little storytime of mine, at least know that I have no problem taking in whatever you might dish out.

A little cliché, I’m sure, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

I have survived falls from atop rafters before, I have survived being sliced open by razor wire and thrown into caskets…somehow, I think I can handle a few more knees to the head.

And that is the worst news I can give you, Mikey.

For all your rambling and ranting, you cannot comprehend just how much torture I’ve put myself through over the course of fourteen years. The physical, mental, and emotional anguish is enough to break most men…but as you might’ve noticed, I’m wired differently.

Now, I know you’ll hear this and go “ANYTHING YOU CAN DO I CAN DO BETTER, AZANZIBAR…” because that’s your mindset, isn’t it?

You feel that you can say that over and over again, and get a sense of entitlement from somehow being “better” at everything…including being beat up?

Cool story, Mike.

Maybe that’s why you’ve been pressing me for a response so hard…because deep down, there are holes in your argument and now it’s a broken bucket.

Because it can’t hold water, you see.

Jokes might not be my forte, but violence is…and I’m gonna play to my strengths at Refueled.

Don’t worry Mike, I haven’t completely ignored you this whole time…you have my attention, I just like seeing you wait.

I can do this all day.