- Event: Chaos 047
mIkE gEtS sPeCiAL tReATmEnt!
I’m in my feelings today, boys, so let’s fucking go. As I write these words, I’m sitting on a toilet in the stall of an airport bathroom, squeezing out literal liquid shit because I trusted the wrong Mexican restaurant. Do you know how annoying it is to write the SpongeBob sarcasm bullshit in italics on a Google Doc while you’re bracing a foot against the door of an airport bathroom stall because the latch doesn’t work?
WHY CAN I NOT STOP SHITTING?
This will not be my last flight of the week.
See, for all that special treatment that you all insufferably berate me for on a weekly basis, and use as a way to downplay my exhaustive resume in this business, you certainly love to ignore shit like me having to wrestle in a meaningless tag team match on the Go Home show before my title match at the pay-per-view. I requested this week off specifically. Made a whole special phone call to say “hey, I’m not available next week, but I’ll pre-record something for the show”. It’s not like I’ve been fucking slacking off, here– I’m thirty seven years old, and since my last date with Conor I have defended the LSD Championship against nothing but Hall of Famers in desperately dangerous ladder matches. A fucking no-holds-barred gimmick match every two weeks since the last pay-per-view. And now, to top it all off, I’m wrestling a requested week off just for the hell of it… and Conor Fuse gets the extra week to fucking prepare?
Are you fucking kidding me?
Let me be real clear, I’m not throwing shade at Conor here. I’m not throwing shade at Dan Ryan, one of the best to ever do this and one of my closest friends. I’m not even throwing shade at my father. Promoters gon’ promote, and all that. I don’t want special treatment. That’s been the point for a long time. But do you want to know who I’m throwing shade at?
I’m throwing shade at you.
You. The one reading this right now and rolling your eyes, because you think that I take all of my meals on a fucking silver spoon. You, the one who looks at my title records and thinks that everything was handed to me. You, the one who ignores that my ninth reign as World Champion ended after I started willingly defending the belt every single week until someone finally beat me, and it took two hundred sixty six days.
You. Fuck you.
Everybody in this fucking business, within HOW and outside of it, has some kind of an opinion on me. They love to put words in my mouth, thoughts in my head, and keep my name on the tips of their tongues like it fucking burns to swallow it. And I’m just tired of it, man. I’m shitting my brains out in the middle of O’Hare right now, hoping I don’t miss my flight, and some dickhead is playing some shitty mobile game on his phone in the stall next to me right now. Loud. Like, turn the fucking volume down, man. What are you, twelve? I’m tired. I’m angry. I’m a little in my feelings today, because I was supposed to have this week off.
“Yeah man, no problem, I don’t need you for the Go Home.”
And then the card drops.
It’s extra shitty, because I fucking love teaming with Dan Ryan. Dan has been my all-time favorite wrestler since I was seventeen years old. I haven’t gotten to team up with him even remotely enough since he came to HOW, so this should be such a cool match for me. And Townsend and Ward? The OG Ground Zero? This is the single coolest tag team match that has ever been given away on free television, with no build up, for absolutely no reason. It’s like Lee Best grew an awkward afro, did a bunch of cocaine, and made the first thirty minutes of Chaos ad-free this week. I should be so fucking psyched up for this match, and instead, I’m staring at this card and I’m just annoyed. I’m angry. And none of it is about the match itself.
It’s about the why.
I’m not in the fucking Final Alliance. Does Townsend still have beef with my dad? Maybe, I don’t know. What about Ward? Where does he factor into all this, again? Is he feuding with Townsend right now? Are either of them feuding with my dad? I sincerely have no clue. I don’t watch our show unless I hear that someone used my name. Why would I? Why would anyone tune in weekly to a show that they’re one of the stars of? Seems like a weird, narcissistic thing even to me. I have never had a damned thing to do with any of this Final Alliance nonsense… you’re all just pigeon-holing me into the plot because my last name is Best, and because my father has continued to reward you motherfuckers with title shots for getting on his bad side.
I’m just here to fight, man.
Fight and win titles.
I’m here to walk into God’s House in three weeks time and take the HOW World Championship from Conor Fuse before he ever has the opportunity to wear it around his waist. I’m here to defend my LSD Championship, and walk away with both belts. I’m here to be undisputed. That’s why I got between the Final Alliance and Conor Fuse. That’s why I saved him from getting his shit any further wrecked by Dan Ryan and Steve Solex. Because I needed to protect that title match, and protect that opportunity, and when I walk away with both of those championships, to protect what that means. I have spent more time trying to distance myself from this fucking stable than I’ve spent doing anything else for the last couple of months, and it has become absolutely exhausting.
I’m not in it.
I’m not in the Final Alliance.
No soy miembro de la Alianza Final.
Lee Best is my father. Dan Ryan is my friend. Steve Solex is my friend. And… I don’t even know who the fuck else is in that stable. I honestly don’t. I don’t follow any of your stupid stories or your melodramas. I don’t keep tabs on any of it. When I eventually am able to wipe my ever-leaking ass clean and make it to Tampa this week, I’m going to have a banger of a tag team match with my friend, against two Hall of Fame guys who I respect the hell out of, and I’m going to do it because I like to fight and and it’s my job. Not to further some agenda. Not because I do everything my Daddy tells me to do. Not because of some weird Alliance that has existed in some form since the beginning of time and that every single member of the roster has been a member of at some point.
It’s because I’m a wrestler.
A wrestler who was supposed to be off this week.
A wrestler with diarrhea.
But a fucking wrestler.
Sooooo, fuck, let’s do the promotion, right? RHYS TOWNSEND, BROTHER, YOU AND I HAVE BEEN AROUND THE BLOCK A FEW TIMES, BUT THIS WEEK AT THE AMALIE ARENA, WE AREN’T GOING AROUND THE BLOCK, BROTHER, WE’RE GOING AROUND THE WORLD, AND IT’S GONNA BE A WORLD OF HURT, JACK. Fuuuuck, this match is so cold. Just the coldest match I’ve ever been inserted into for no reason. Just to put me in the arena. Just to keep up my “engagement”, or whatever, because every time I’m on a Playstation for thirty seconds, Lee is afraid that I’m back in my sweatpants.
I’M NOT LEAVING, MAN.
I ENJOY IT HERE.
I AM HAVING FUN AND I AM ENGAGED.
So engaged that I won the LSD Championship at War Games under a stupid mask, beat the shit out of my own kid to legitimize my reign, and have taken on so many ladder matches since. So engaged that I had a banger with Conor at the last show, and immediately asked him to run it back, long before I had any idea that the World Title would be involved. Yes, the marketing department is running a little thin the last couple of months, but fuck, man, it’s ebbs and flows. Circle of Life, and shit. Do you know what kind of shit makes me feel disengaged? It’s requesting the week off and getting fucking booked anyway. Just weeks out from the biggest match I’ve had since I came back in the first place. What do I have to do? Do I need to grab MMA star Ken Shamrock, a two by four, and form a Union? Do we need to collectively bargain for certified vacation time around here?
Wait, didn’t I do a union thing back in the last era?
Been fourteen years, can’t remember shit.
I don’t know, man. Whatever. Like I said, I’m in my feelings today. I’ve been taking inspiration from MMA for half my career, and those guys get months between fights. I’m old. I’ve had a metric fuck ton of ladder matches over the last couple of months. I asked for a single week off– the first week off that I have requested in literal years– and now I have to take multiple flights to handle the business I have to handle this week and still make the show. To wrestle this tag team match, with people I genuinely like, but for no actual reason. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m the asshole here. Maybe I should just shut up and do my job.
Are we sold out yet?
Is this pushing ticket sales?
Nah, come on, I’m better than this. Lee and I, we haven’t done the ol’ petty back and forth in years and years, and I don’t want to start now. We’re good, Dad. No check in required. I was annoyed when I looked at the card this week, I’m annoyed now that I’m blowing liquid lunch into the porcelain kingdom at O’Hare, and I’ll be annoyed as I’m flight hopping to make it to Tampa. But we’re all good. And I doubt that I need to tell you that the second I walk through that curtain in the Amalie Arena, I’ll do what you pay me for.
Not for being your son.
Not for the commercials.
For being the best wrestler on the planet.
Usually when I drop one of these things, you get the best of me. This week is weird, and I get it. You’ve just been getting a lot of “me”, lately, and it’s been in all kinds of directions. I’m going through a lot of stuff lately and I’m trying to figure myself out– something that I should have done years ago, and unfortunately, the best way for me to work shit out is to do it like this. Just type it all out and see what happens… the good, the bad, and the ugly. But you all know that when it comes down to doing the work, I will do the fucking work. Day in and day out. Whether it’s endless ladder matches turning my knees into strudel, World Title matches in Miami, or yes… even meaningless tag matches on Go Home shows.
I show up.
I work hard.
And I fucking win.
So with no sarcasm this time, I apologize for being a cranky dickhead. This is my job. Dan, it’s been years since you and I laced up boots together and worked as a team, and that’s fucking dope. We’re the last two members of the Group of Death that didn’t seemingly lose their fucking minds, so even though I will never be part of the “Final Alliance”, it’s pretty cool to reunite GoD, even if it’s just for one night. And Rhys? Evan? So much history, so much I could say, so many classic matches… if there are any three guys on the planet I can go out and have a five star “meaningless Go Home” match with, it’s gonna be you guys.
Good luck out there.
Because meaningless or not?
I’m shooting to kill.