- Event: Chaos 038
i’M nOt GoNnA tAlK sHiT tO yOu GuYs.
Proceeds to talk shit.
Look, I get it, Conor. It’s smart. Why waste ammo when you’re headed into a shootout, I can respect that. And to be honest with you, yeah, I had this match penciled into my dance card, too. I thought it would be Sektor and I versus you and Townsend, but hey… if I could predict the future, I’d have worn a condom when I banged Mrs. Fuse.
Jokes.
Don’t do the math.
I don’t have a lot to say about you either, Conor. Plenty to say over the next couple of weeks, and plenty more to say once we step into that cage. But this is a go home show, and go home shows DO dictate that guys in PPV matches are gonna face each other in a tag match. Those are the rules. Been the rules since long before HOW, and will be the rules long after HOW is gone. Maybe PRIME doesn’t do it, but then, PRIME doesn’t do a lot of shit the way literally the entire wrestling world would have done it.
THE SHADE.
THE COMPLETE RADIO SILENCE.
THE PROBABLY ASSUMING I’M SERIOUS ABOUT ANY OF THIS.
So instead of talking about Conor Fuse, and instead of talking about Charles de Lacy (because to be honest, this dude has worked here for a minute and I still know nothing about him but his name and the fact that he looks like if Bobby Dean was a 1990s action figure where the face looks wrong but you still get the gist), I want to take a minute to talk about addiction.
That’s correct.
Addiction.
I’ve been addicted to two things in my life. One of them is cocaine, and that’s long behind me. It was hard to kick. Hardest thing I’ve ever stopped doing, next to that one time I tried No Nut November and failed by Black Friday. Nothing makes me cum like a cheap flat screen TV, I really don’t know what else to tell you about that. But I bought the TV, I quit the coke, and I’ve been free and clear for five years. Five years. That’s a long time, five years. That’s a car loan. That’s a bad marriage. Birth to kindergarten. It took me a long time, and a lot of effort, but I managed to get clean.
And stay clean.
I’ve talked about that a little bit since I came back. Talked about my addictions, and my struggles, and I know that none of you really give a fuck either way. I even talked a little bit about being addicted to the wrestling business, and the fighting, and the violence. I think I talked about that when Sektor and I teamed up against the Sadboy Express, a couple of weeks ago. But the more I dwell on it, and the more I come back to it time and time again, I don’t think it’s the wrestling that I’m addicted to. I don’t think it’s the fighting, or the violence. I think that if there was another industry in the world that allowed me to sustain my body, repair my knees, and save myself from dying at 50 due to a CTE related violent outburst, I’d probably walk away from this shit in an instant. Not even a second thought.
Because I’m not addicted to fighting.
I’m addicted to competition.
I am addicted to the supremacy of all of this. I’m addicted to being the fucking best at something. When Lee Best did the math and figured out who the greatest champion of all time was, by the numbers, I felt a rush no different than the one I felt when I won my first world championship. When I made Scott Stevens swear his fealty to me on Stabber, it felt just as good as going undefeated for the last thirteen years in HOFC matches. I am completely and totally hooked on dominating the lessers of my species. On wearing a fat fucking crown on my head in the shape of a target, and stepping up to that plate time and time again to defend my place at the top of the mountain. You don’t get that from golf. You don’t get that from fucking volleyball.
You get that from combat.
I said it before, and I’ll say it again– I don’t give a fuck about the Final Alliance. STRONKY BABY, it’s nice to finally step into a ring with you. It’s an honor. You might be the most impressive athlete on this planet not named Michael Lee Best, and it’s cool as fuck to be in a tag team match with you this week. I’m glad that you get your moment in the sun, and I’m happy for you. But that big red belt over your shoulder? That’s my goddamned belt. That’s my legacy. I have business with Mr. Fuse at 97 Red, and I have a dance card waiting for me that is going to take up a lot of my year, but if you’re still holding that belt when my schedule comes up a little emptier?
I’m coming for it.
I’m coming for that belt, STRONK.
I don’t even want to. I have to. That’s what none of you seem to understand, even after all these years. I have a fucking disease. I have an addiction. I don’t want bad blood with STRONK. I don’t want to put Conor Fuse into a fucking wheelchair. I don’t want to go into a blind rage inside of a HOFC cage and leave guys like Zion to be shoveled into the back of an ambulance, while a crowd watches on in sheer horror.
I just can’t stop.
I’m physically incapable.
Ten times will become eleven times will become twelve times. I’ve retired from this business three times and I can’t stop coming back. I’ve turned the word “retirement” into a fucking joke. Cocaine almost ruined my life forever, but competition? It doesn’t feel like a disease. It feels like a cure. It feels like release. It’s the only thing that’s ever made me feel have as good as being fucked up, and they pay me a fuck load of money to do it. It’s the only thing that makes me feel alive, and I am so very fucking alive right now. I’ve stopped pretending that I can quit anytime I want to, because I can’t.
I’m an addict.
Always have been.
————-
“Hey little sister shotgunnnnn.”
Have you ever felt truly invincible?
Not confident. Not powerful. Not “oh boy, I could take on the whole world today”. Invincible. Impenetrable. Literally unstoppable. As though you could step in front of a hail of gunfire and walk it down, as the bullets bounced harmlessly off your chest. Superman shit. Brain igniting, heart racing, blood pumping invincibility.
Honestly, it’s better if you haven’t.
You’re not supposed to feel invincible. It’s against every fiber of your biological programming to feel like you can’t fucking die. Survival instinct. Will to live. That’s why we have things like paranoia, and anxiety, and fear. If you’re afraid to go to the mailbox, see a doctor, but you’re supposed to be afraid of heights. You’re supposed to be afraid of shit like bears, and wild dogs. It’s called fight or flight, not fight or fight.
But invincibility?
Invincibility is some shit.
“It’s a nice day to…. start againnnn.”
It’s just sitting there in the center of the glass coffee table, white as a ghost from his past. A single line of cocaine, fresh cut and spliced using the powdery 97Red Liberty card discarded beside it. Five years. It has been five years since Michael Lee Best last pinched that hundred dollar bill between his fingertips.
Five years since he felt invincible.
He hovers over the glass, his arms trembling as he stares down at the one that got away. His throat feels as dry as his hands feel clammy— this is the point of no return. Five years of sobriety down the drain. Absolute godhood, at the expense of a five year chip and and a half decade or recovery.
Why is he doing this?
It makes no logical sense.
“Don’t be a buzzkill, dude.” Michael rolls his eyes, speaking into the ether. “When did you get all preachy?”
Oh. He can hear me.
He hasn’t heard me in a long time.
I mean, he can’t hear me. I’m not really here. Like the talking squirrels, overdose-induced visit to Purgatory, the talking head of Michael Oliver Best… the delusions of a junkie, sick from his own medicine. He hasn’t heard my voice in so many years that I’d practically forgotten that he ever could in the first place.
“Get on with it.” Mike sneers, rolling up a hundo. “What good is a five year chip you never cash in?”
Five years down the drain.
Everything was so good right now. Tyler was back home, where he belonged. Finances were in the green, HOW was the success story it was always meant to be. XPRO launched strong, Michael and his father have the best relationship they’ve ever had. He finally owned a new car and a real piece of property. Five years of sobriety had turned around the life of the Son of God in a way that hardly seemed fathomable just a couple of years ago, and now here he is.
Staring down the barrel of a straw.
Ready to throw it all away.
He leans further over the table, taking a deep breath as he steels himself. For a moment, even he wonders why he’s doing this. There’s no giant trigger. No huge emotional event ready to throw him violently from the wagon. Nothing… happened. Maybe that’s just the life of an addict. Maybe there doesn’t need to be some wild trigger. Maybe it isn’t just about one bad day. Maybe he’s just a shitty addict, and being a shitty addict means relapsing from time to time. Everything in his life is going so well… maybe it’s just destiny that has him ready to do a bunch of questionable cocaine off of a table that looks like it was stolen from the 1980s.
Or maybe he’s just… happy.
Maybe that’s the problem.
For thirty two years, Michael Lee Best lived a life that was never too many steps away from chaos incarnate. He burned down his own home in a coke fueled haze and spent four months homeless. Blew his entire savings account on 97Red dildos with his face on them and enough drugs to kill a small village. In and out of toxic relationships— divorces, betrayals, and even that one broad who straight up got murdered by Shane Reynolds. Killed his own brother in a literal death match, years of Daddy issues, constant controversies.
Maybe he’s not a victim of the chaos.
Maybe he’s the eye of the fucking storm.
“You’re really killing this for me.” Michael sighs, running a hand over the sweating stubble on his skull. “Would you just wrap it up so I can do some fucking blow?”
He’s happy.
So happy that it’s become unacceptable. The same man who put his own career on the line every single time that he needed to manufacture some stakes is suddenly back into the ring just to feel a little bit of that old chaos. Maybe a little bit of ring rust. A little bit of anxiety. But guess what? The champ is fucking back— undefeated since his return, running roughshod over everyone in his path. Right back to the way things used to be. Right back to the same old, same old.
He has nothing to sabotage.
Nobody is cheating on him. Nobody is gunning for him. Nothing is just around the corner, waiting to fuck his whole life up. Stability. Comfort. Happiness. The three mortal enemies of any man with the last name Best, and with no other force in his life trying to fuck it all up, he’s left with no choice.
He’s gonna fuck it up for himself.
He’s gonna burn the fucking wagon.
I mean, why not, right? Michael Lee Best is a lemon. A fundamentally broken human being. A mentally ill narcissist incapable of seeing the world through anyone’s eyes but his own. Fuck Tyler, right? Fuck being a mentor or a role model to your fucking son. Fuck the friends and family in your life who have finally found some sense of normalcy. Fuck the life foundation you’ve built for yourself, right Mike?
Burn it all down, right?
You fucking loser.
I know you can hear me.
The LSD and HOFC champion drops the hundred dollar straw, running both of his hands anxiously over his scraggly beard. He swallows sand, heart starting to pound in his chest as he realizes the crossroads he’s reached. The decision that he’s about to make. The consequences of it, which is more than he’d ever considered during his last go round with this shit.
He can see his reflection in the table.
He isn’t even sure what he sees.
“Fuck.” He murmurs, before it becomes a roar. “FUCK!”
With a guttural scream, the Son of God grabs the edge of the table, flipping it over onto the hardwood floor and dumping its contents all over the living room. For the briefest moment, it’s as serene as a winter snowfall— five years of sobriety floats harmlessly to the floor, instead of swirling down the drain. Chest heaving, Michael Lee Best watches in a mixture of relief and horror as pure invincibility vanishes right before his eyes.
But you’re not supposed to feel invincible.
Here’s to five more years.