Curtain Call: Is There Anything Left

Curtain Call: My Final Few Chapters
Is There Anything Left …

..:: He turns the light on the room and briefly holds his breath. He hasn't been in this room in years. It hasn't been a place he's wanted to go. He pauses in the doorway for a moment, unsure if he's ready to step inside, as if walking through that door will actually change anything. ::..

..:: It won't ::..

..:: So he enters the room and looks at the wall, the wall that was once his pride and joy. On that wall sits the United States Championship of the original JWF. Beside it sits the most recent version of the NLWF Tag-Team Championship and the NLWF Heavyweight Championship. Above those three titles sits the JWF Undisputed Championship. A Championship that at one point in SB’s career meant the world to him. Now it was a reminder about how far he has fallen. ::..

: On that same shelf sits his Awards for wrestler of the year, tag team of the year and biggest return. There is also tournament plaques and his Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame Induction plaque. ::..

..:: It's shocking how much all of those awards once meant to him and how little they mean right now. ::..

..:: He's a different person now. He's older and his body is damaged. Time and the hardships of a brutal wrestling career have destroyed him. But so much else has been destroyed as well. ::..

..:: Next to his awards and Championships is a memorial for his late wife Samantha, the Live or Die match between SB’s nephew Robbie and Brenton Cyrus has brought on this trip down memory lane. A trip he has been haunted by for years. A trip he has been trying to block out everyday. But a recent report on Pro Wrestling.com has brought on all the hurt SB has tried to burry. ::..

..:: SB puts a picture of his son Nick Ridicule right next to Sam’s picture. Johnny’s biggest fear has come true. The life he tried to protect his son from, finally took his life. SB was alone, the thoughts of suicide crept into his head every day. ::..

..:: Nothing is the same. It never would be again ::..

..:: If only he could do it all over again. Maybe he would have done things different. When he first walked into the JWF it was a very different time. He had just married Sam after a failed relationship with his now Sister-in-Law. Hell he was the reason Frank and Jada even meet. SB couldn't believe that he actually married such a beautiful, smart and kind woman. But that's not all that was different. He just felt different, more alive in every way. It's not just that he was falling in love and it's not just that he was younger... ::..

..:: His life was so much different. ::..

..:: He walked into this game with a dedicated group of friends. He'd been up and down the road with these people for years and they were almost like family. He has no friends anymore. This thing with VVR was more for SB then it was for him. Sure he was ready to help VVR break the cruse, but really he was trying to relive the days when he used to run around with Joe Santiago, a duo that killed the wrestling game ::..

..:: Even the friends he met in his run were nowhere to be found anymore. Joe Santiago, Hallow Wicked, Barleai Von’Vicious, and many others. He hadn't spoken to any of them for years. And how could he? What was he supposed to say? "Sorry my life fell apart?" "Too bad I fucked you all over?" "I know we haven't talked in years but my wife died, my only son OD and I am in the myst of a mental breakdown?" ::..

..:: There was no point. ::..

..:: There was no point to any of this. He turns and starts to walk out of the room. He walks past the photos that hung on the other wall without even looking at them. Those were different times. Those friends are gone now. That man is gone. He doesn't need photos of his former self and his former friends staring at him with their judging eyes. ::..

..:: He shuts off the lights, walks out of the room and closes the door. ::..



Once upon a time, Dan Alexander versus Johnny Styles would have sold out any arena in the world, and gotten you a hundred million in buy rate in like five minutes. Right now, Its no secret, I’m struggling to remain mediocre, and every successive loss seems to sap just a little more of my fire out of me.

And unlike my brother Frank, I no longer have a son who could replace me and restore the Styles’ name

I respect Dan, he thrives on competition. Not against people he knows about as well as he knows the real God, but people like me. People he knows he has to truly show up for. I’m not going to lie, I hated Dan when I walked into this joint, because I know that he is everything I used to pretended to be. I know that every time he's uttered that he's the best in the world, he was excluding me from consideration. I knows that each time he's said no one is better than he is, he was full of shit. Because I existed and believe me if I was in my prime Dan would be looked at as the Chris Blue(Balls) of the IWF. But as it is right know, I know the kid is vastly superior to me in every fathomable manner. Maybe I should be sitting here blaming Joe Santiago for creating a monster by feeding me false confidence, or if I really believes the lies I’ve been told all these years. I used to believe no one could do it like I did it.

Maybe Dano’s right, maybe I’m wrestling on borrowed time

When I advanced last week in the tournament, I told myself that I was going to 'expose' you for what I thought you were. But you’ve been out there exposing me 'for what I was', week in and week out ever since I came back.

This week Dan, I'm not going to attempt anything special, really. In truth, I would rather fight Death Angel at Violent Impulse next week. It would make a great ending to my story career. Me winning the briefcase, would do nothing but polite my mind and corrupt my soul. Everything I’ve been trying to change. Dan in short, your career is just starting to peek, while mine is running on fumes. You’ve done nothing but prove yourself ever since losing the IWF Championship. What did I do everytime I lost a world title? I took every shortcut I could to get it back.

It haunts me to this day, Dan

This week Dan, I'm just going to go out there, do what I do, be who and what I really am, Don’t get it twisted Dan, I’m still going out to that ring looking to stomp a mile wide mudhole in your massive, and wholly deserved ego, and by doing that, Dan...I'm going to expose you for what you're [really are.

A future two time IWF World Champion

I'm going to go out there and get down like only I can, if not for only one more last run! I’m going to go out there and try to perform like only I can, and do it in a superior style like only I used to be able to do. Maybe you’ll humble me like you did not so long ago. But this time, I’ll put forth a hell of an effort! If this is my last stand, I’m going to attempt to make it a fucking grand one! I’m going to go out there and I'm going to do my best to leave you laying in the middle of the ring, marinating in your own blood, your own spittle! But the thought of you doing the same is also in the back of my head. The thought of you leaving me laying in a puddle of my own commingled regrets and the remains of a career that likely never should have been resuscitated is also kicking the shit out of my self-conscious.

I really can’t help to feel like I’m allergic to success or something. After are last showdown, after you avoided the End Result, and then countered another attempt at one, right into pinning me.

I finally realized, that I might be doing more harm than good to my own career

And it's not that your really that great, your good Dan, but like I said in my hay day you wouldn’t have held a fucking candle to me. Really I lost to you because I've slipped THAT much.

But I know you Dan. Right now, you're sitting there thinking about what an opportunity this is, and you're Absolutely right. It's a perfect opportunity. For you, for me, for IWF itself. As I said before, this is going to be a pay per view-quality match. Not because your going to go half-speed to keep it interesting, but because I know something about you. You're going to bring the very best you can muster this week. I know it like you know my name. And I’m going to hearken back to when I used to be the man around here. I'm counting on that Dan.

This week if not only for one more match, I wont just be calling myself a Legend, I will go out there and attempt to be one. It's the only chance I have at making this match more than a waste of our time, a waste of the fans time, and a waste of some deserving contender's time.

I haven't been myself of late. It’s about time to get my mind right, Dan, and get my shit together, or I’m just going to fade into obscurity even more than I already have. And one thing I’m sure we have in common, is that the notion of not mattering in our chosen line of work galls us to no end.

And I’m already there, teetering on the brink of it. Perhaps one day you'll get you to describe what that feels like. Living on the edge of unimportance or not, though, this is a chance for me to announce my real comeback. Show the world that I can hang with the younger blood like yourself.

I’m bringing the old Johnny Styles, and don't dare trying to say you've already beaten the real SB of the past! We both know it's not true. I’m gonna go out to the ring and bring you that guy who walked around actually inspired fear in the people he'd go into the ring and own. That is who your getting, that is the SB I’m bringing to you! The guy that even those who hated his guts had to acknowledge as being superior. Because what will result is what I said will happen. A pay per view-quality match that will see two of the best ever – me legitimately, and you via self-hype and the IWF promotion machine of all modern age - provide the world with must-see wrestling that will be unmatched. I seriously hope there is some last vestige of my old self still in there.

You deserve no less.