Latest Roleplays
This is it. Maybe the last blog of my career.
What should we talk about, guys?
I had this idea in my head that I’d go through the whole roster, one by one, and just tell you legit what I really think of you. A sort of Best Bets Junior Edition, just because I can. I thought about writing a letter to Katy, telling her how much she meant to me and how win or lose, this was all for her now. I thought about ending it all off with the last one, and Michael Scotting off to the airport without ever truly saying goodbye.
But fuck all that.
For me to retire, I gotta lose.
Don’t go getting excited yet. It’s something that I haven’t done since before COVID— I’m the fucking pandemic of HOW, and it isn’t quite time to take your masks off yet. I have successfully defended this title nine times, shattering the previous impossible to break record, and two of those defenses are against the guy I’m facing in the March to Glory fucking opener with his job on the line. I have defied the odds, time and time again, and spat in the face of the laws of probability. So instead of getting too wishy washy before I go, I thought I’d take a minute to remind you that for as long as I’m here, I’m gonna hold this motherfucker down with an iron fist.
I’m not going down without a fight, Dan.
And I’m not going out like a bitch either, Jiles.
I was wholly disappointed with your output for this fucking show. It proved nothing other than that I was right about you all along. You yawned your way through a bunch of unremarkable garbage on a boat, more concerned with Bobby Dean than you were with the biggest opportunity of your life. You got a few shots in here and there where you thought you could get them, peaked early, and then proceeded to vomit up your usual half-assed effort. No fire. No spark. No desire to be anything more than an angry guy on a boat, still pissed off about some sunglasses. You showed me nothing, I’m disappointed in you, and you do not deserve to be the HOW World Champion.
You have to want to be here, Jiles.
I can’t give you that drive.
I can’t slap that stupid look off your face and motivate you to get ahead on your fucking own. I can’t give your taint a little tickly and convince you that HOW is the place you need to be. If you don’t want to put in the fucking work and the effort and give even a half of a single fuck, then lay down in that cage and take your fucking beating and get your walking papers, Cancer. I have won nine motherfucking HOW World Championships, and you have won zero. That’s not luck. That’s not an accident. I keep saying that, and no one seems to understand the significance, so let me just say it a few more fucking times.
NINE HOW WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS.
NINE HOW WORLD FUCKING CHAMPIONSHIPS.
NINE FUCKING HOW WORLD FUCKING CHAMPIONSHIPS.
NINE FUCKING HOW FUCKING WORLD FUCKING CHAMPIONSHIPS.
I didn’t slip on a fucking crack and find nine belts laying in the gutter, you tartar topped bundles of fried fucking trout taint. I wrestled in nine different matches with that title on the line, and I fucking won them.
But Mike, that’s only because Lee is your father.
Yeah, you’re probably right. I mean, I was just sitting at home every week waiting for him to call and give me a World Title match, right? I definitely wasn’t out there every week, working my ass off. I sure as fuck wasn’t working new programs with guys all the time, making things catch fire and getting noticed so that I could earn high profile matchups. And I definitely didn’t win literally every fucking singles World Title match I was ever granted, further proving that I deserved to get more in the future.
No, I was definitely just sitting at home, waiting for Dad to call.
When I came into this company eleven years ago, people used to talk trash to get heat. They got heat to get main events. They won main events to get title shots, and then they got titles to become legends. But now? Now, you wait around for your chance. Hold out for a War Games lottery ticket. Now, you should be able to earn it through your good fucking looks and how many weeks in a row you’ve coasted through tag team matches. Literally every single person who regularly complains that I don’t earn anything in HOW spends more than half their fucking career whining about what I’ve gotten, while doing LITERALLY FUCK ALL to earn anything of their own.
And that’s you, Jiles.
You’re fucking embarrassing yourself, and you’re embarrassing this company.
You don’t understand what this belt actually means.
Not just to me, either. I’m talking about the legacy of the HOW World Championship. This belt has been worn by the very best in the history of the sport, and Scott Stevens. This belt has had literal wars fought for it. This belt has survived gauntlets, and explosions, and an entire reign of David Black that got so boring that people forgot that the title existed. It has always survived. It has always prevailed. It has always risen back to the pinnacle of professional wrestling, and become the most important thing that a man can have strapped around his waist. This belt is legacy. This belt is immortality. This belt is respect.
This belt is everything you’ve never earned.
I won my first HOW World Championship in the Best Ladder Match at ICONIC 2010, just one year after I debuted in a Santa hat and attacked Aceldama with a loaded gift bag to begin my HOW career. I survived Paul Paras, Aceldama, James Varga, David Black, Ethan Cavanaugh and Mario Maurako to walk away with the strap for the first time, and it was what cemented me into the annals of history. It’s what set the stage for the man I am today, and the champion that I have become. I clawed, and fought, and scraped, and fucking bled to hold this title. Never forgot that night. Never forgot that feeling, either. I’ve been chasing it ever since.
I chased it seven more fucking times.
Chased it back out of the hands of Adonis Smyth, and the most humiliating defeat of my career. Ripped it from the hands of fate in a Solitary Confinement match, after Max Kael took a fucking chainsaw to my chest. Stole it back from the cold, unconscious hands of Rhys Townsend after he handed me the first submission of my career and embarrassed me on Monday Night Mayhem. There’s a story and a memory for every single HOW World Championship reign of my career– the hardcore match with John Sektor, after a hard loss at March to Glory. The savage destruction of Evan Ward after War Games 2013.
Actual War Games, in 2014.
Passing the title back and forth between Townsend and Sektor for two fucking years, back when anyone could beat anyone on any given night. Big wins, very few defenses. The old fucking West of High Octane Wrestling, the best time to make your bones in this company. Back when every defense meant something. When you didn’t have to be a savage psychopath and defend the title EVERY SINGLE WEEK just to make your records mean something. It was the most fun time of my life, and the most dangerous. I got shanked and concussed and maimed seemingly every other fucking pay-per-view, and I wouldn’t change a second of it. It made me who I am. It made me as dangerous as I have become. It made me work harder than anyone else in wrestling to stay on top.
And now, the ninth reign.
The final reign.
I am 100 days short of holding the HOW World Championship for an entire calendar year. It has never been done before, in any era, in any context. No one else has even come close. I’m just a few more defenses from setting a record that will literally never be broken– ANOTHER record that will literally never be broken. I may be at peace with who I am, and I may be fucking bored of beating the same people over and over, and I may be out of new things to achieve, but Jiles?
You’re gonna have to fucking take it from me.
I get why Lee booked an escape only cage match. I do. It makes sense to me. It’s a heat saver. It’s a way to keep lt from taking a pin— no matter what happens at March to Glory, I literally cannot be pinned. He’s protecting his son and his number one meal ticket, and I honest to shit really do appreciate that. It’s a nice gesture. It’s a solid thank you. But fuck, is it a shit way to go if I lose this belt. Jiles doesn’t have to take it from me. He doesn’t have to earn it. He doesn’t have to BEAT me.
He just has to run away.
That’s why I’m not gonna let him. That’s why I said that I’m in no hurry to escape that cage. That’s why I called my shot and said he’s eating three knees before I climb that cage and take my championship with me to the main event. Because I fought my way to this title nine fucking times, and I earned it. I won a lot of matches for it. I lost a lot of matches for it. I bled for it, and nearly died for it, and the one thing I never did was ESCAPE for it. I don’t care if I’m double booked. I don’t care if I’m committing ritual sudoku. I don’t care if it costs me my entire career. Cancer Jiles will not end the greatest World Championship reign of all time by running away. He will not win it by escaping. He will not win it with fucking cowardice.
He will fight me like a man, and he will BEAT ME.
I don’t just throw a fucking knee, Jiles. I throw hands. I throw suplexes. I throw my heart and fucking soul into every single wrestling match I’m booked in, whether you respect my hustle or not. I have lied for this title, cheated for this title, and KILLED for this title. I took a fucking double booking and I’m gonna wrestle twice in one night for this fucking title. The last time that Lee Best booked me into an escape the cage fucking World Title match, I slept on Adonis Smyth and he beat me in his FUCKING HOW DEBUT. He humiliated me. He embarrassed me. He made a fucking mockery out of my career, because he wanted into a match that he had no business being in and he lost because I refused to take him seriously.
I don’t fucking make mistakes twice.
You’ve had a Smyth of a fucking career, Jiles. You have wandered into a main event that you don’t deserve, with a piece of shit attitude, hoping that I’ll be so focused on Dan Ryan that I’ll fall asleep in that fucking ring. That I’ll give you an opportunity to kick me in the face and scramble up over the top. You will not humiliate me. You will not embarrass me. You will not make a mockery out of the greatest title reign in history, no matter how bored I am of maintaining it. No matter how tired I am of lacing up these boots. No matter how ready I am to call it a day. And if you’re sick of hearing me saying “the same shit over and over”, then fucking do something about it. Make this the last repetitive MIke Best blog of all time. Give a fuck. Even half of one.
Or else get the fuck out of my company forever.