Post by caffrey on Aug 5, 2018 22:11:12 GMT -5
Doing something different. Click here to hear this promo.
Strongly recommend a listen if you've got the time, but it's about the length of a short podcast.
TRANSCRIPT BELOW
________
Caffrey: Ya got me, Rock. I am a soulless bastard. I sold my soul to the wrestling gods a long time ago. Decent trade, if you’ve ever seen my trophy case. GWA was not my first home, the championships are from around the world…
Caffrey: You know, I was gone for about three years. I did wrestle at another company for a while, but that shuttered its doors, and in between then-- in between then, and then after for a long, long time, was a break. A bad break. It’s like when your relationship is going well and then next thing you know you’re single. You sit there with a broken heart and wonder how the hell you’ll ever feel full again. I was out of the game for years.
Caffrey: And people -- it’s amazing, amazing how goddamn persistent people can be. Everytime I did a press junket: “When you coming back?” “Are you following this?” Everyone was relentless. And as… as the Firestarters crossed the line, and made their returns, they stuck their hands back out, to reach back. I went back and counted. Before I made my return at Thunderdome, GWA officials and the wrestlers paired with them offered me four separate deals to come back. And every conversation went like this:
Caffrey: “Come back, come back, we’ve got this great idea-” “Is Rockshade still there?” “Yes.” “Then no.”
Caffrey: “I know we reached out a long time ago, but things have changed - and like, we want to see you.” “Is Rockshade still there?” “Yes.” “No.” “But-”. “No.”
Caffrey: The first time I wanted to quit wrestling, I was leaving a company already. The Bastion of Light Wrestling Federation. Longtime fans of mine know there’s where I got my start, but I was young - hopeful, optimistic, and I just wanted to go chase greater pastures. It was a very small company. I was sent out to the ring to give the fans a goodbye - and the next thing you know, I found myself flat on my ass. Three big assholes and their leader stomping on me. I didn’t know this was coming. They broke my ribs and I couldn’t breathe.
Caffrey: Time has passed and I don’t remember why I wanted to leave GWA in the first place. I just remember the people that pushed me out, even as champion. The execs that would never listen. The pushy bookers. The human snakes that we call lawyers. But I do remember a certain wrestler who was always in their pocket. Their company man, their golden boy. I’m talking about Mr. GWA himself, Rockshade. Always telling me that I needed to sit down, shut up, be respectful --- three years later he still does the same thing when I make points. The leader of the locker room calling me out for not being a mindless stooge, not wearing GWA on my sleeve, for objecting to the way the ship is pointing, even if it’s headed towards an iceberg.
Caffrey: It’s funny, Rock. You’re obsessed with this record Wraith set- and you’ll toot the company’s horn for it, through and through. Do you know how many of the fans have actually seen a Wraith match? How many of our fans were even born when he was wrestling? You were here in 1996. A fan of legal drinking age wasn’t even born when you debuted. The kids in this arena don’t know who I’m talking about. You praise this company because it gave you everything. It gave you everything because you were the ONLY ONE to stay and you have the most influence. Is Tony Pride still here? Nick Blade? Cage? Ace McCool? Coronado? The amount of wrestlers that wrestled here when I debuted and are still here actively can be counted one hand -- and don’t get me started on your 1996 crew because I don’t even know who they are. Your original matches are so old I can only find them on VHS - and I haven’t seen a VCR in six years. Six.
Caffrey: Flashforward to Thunderdome. I hadn’t watched GWA in about a year when I got the call and the contract in my email. Come back, wrestle some guys -- and they put up this list of guys, and I said to myself -- this would be the grand return. I looked at that list and I was so pumped up to work with them. I didn’t even know who half of them were, but the ones I did? Oh hell yeah would I jump at the opportunity to fight some of them.
Caffrey: The first thing I did when I got my signing bonus was have my guy make shirts. It says Caffrey’s Vengeance Tour on it -- the V is actually two middle fingers, which I thought was clever -- and I had this grand idea that I would come back and destroy every single person who stepped over the line, who crossed it, who betrayed me and stabbed me in the back worse than those four giant pieces of shit from years ago. The men who told me that they were friends and that I was making the right move and then crossed the line -- in pursuit of what??
Caffrey: Look at everything that I missed because I held my moral grounds. Michael Brewer is a nine-time World Champion -- do you think he ever reaches nine World Championships if Anthony Caffrey is on the roster? Do you think Dexter Point becomes as beloved as he did? Hunter Storms became a Hall of Fame tagteam wrestler even though he can’t even wrestle in the first place. I look at my cold, ringless fingers and I understand that the reason that all of my former friends have rings and I don’t is that I have a heart that beats in my chest a mile a minute.
Caffrey: That was the thing you said that got me, Rock. That I don’t have a heart. I have the biggest heart of any wrestler that’s ever set foot in the GWA. I suffered two different injuries in the same match and am the first person in the history of this company, dating back even to ol’ 1996 - to still win the damn match. I wrestle for an hour a night for television that doesn’t even cost the fans anything. The difference between me and the rest of the roster is that I actually follow my heart because I have a working goddamn brain to go along with it. I am not a mindless stooge who goes out there and phones shit in and comes back and complains that life is hard.
Caffrey; That’s the sick thing. I was so excited for this Vengenance Tour and to beat down every single one of my former friends who stabbed me in the back, the men without morals who when push came to shove showed that they were spineless cowards. The sweet, sweet sound of snapping ankle was going to make me so happy. I was going to make some inner peace with this crazy wrestling world and show them all that their milestones and Hall of Fame rings don’t mean shit because they got achieved them without me being there. That is why I call myself the Unlegend. It was going to be like the Baseball Hall of Fame -- the reason we know the names of so many white guys is that they didn’t let a black guy play until 1947. I was going to crush them all.
Caffrey: And then I came back.
Caffrey: They crushed themselves.
Caffrey: This is not the GWA I so fondly remembered. Yes, the ratings are up, but the wrestling and down. The mic work is down. The stories being told are either garbage or nonexistent. I walked back in and have wrestled multiple Matches of the Night and the Match of the Season already with considerable ring rust because no one can wrestle like me anymore. Yes, chicks dig the long ball - but it’s a nine inning game and these days it’s rare I see people go four innings. You see Max Rex and Doomtrain rule over this company nowadays because no one knows how to chop down a giant wrestler. It’s NOT HARD. ATTACK A LEG AND KEEP MOVING, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!
Caffrey: When I get on the microphone, I’m praised in the back like I’m some kind of God. I’m not. This is standard for me. This is Sunday and Tuesday for me. Oh wow you said this -- oh that was really well done -- when I was coming up, this level of work was expected. This level of skill wasn’t considered skilled, it was normal. It was just a regular thing to talk this much. It was a regular thing to wrestle like I do. It was a regular thing -- to do all of this.
Caffrey: When I walk through the back now -- I came back to extinguish the Firestarters. They’ve already put themselves out. Crimson Dragon is now a shitty wrestler named Mike that makes me embarrassed to be from Philadelphia. You’ll notice I left him out of the Firestarters who accomplished things list I just made because I don’t even know if he actually accomplished anything while I was gone. Hunter Storms up until last Tuesday had been showing the world why I call him a mediocre wrestler and the worst Hall of Famer in the history of the GWA, and now he snapped out and is Stabbo the Clown because he can’t take being such a shitty wrestler anymore. We both know that he doesn’t win that match if he doesn’t stab me fifteen times with the ref turning a blind eye because the front office doesn’t like me. Michael Brewer lost to a man who had prostitutes dancing on him on Sunday, and I almost put him to sleep two weeks ago, but I felt it -- he’s a man who’s gone soft and he doesn’t have it anymore. I think he knows it too with the retirement he’s planning, because unlike you Rock he understands when he’s done and should move on. And Dexter Point? Well, we all know that Dexter Point is delaying his rehab to take it slow as possible because we know that when he gets back I’ll send him back to the hospital. He knows that all of the praise that he got over the past few years was because I wasn’t there to get it myself and he doesn’t want to be exposed as a phony. That’s the Firestarters, and I can’t tell you how pissed off I am that I’ve come back and NONE OF THEM live up to the old standards. You’re supposed to get BETTER after years of doing a thing -- not WORSE. The phrase is NOT it takes 10,000 hours to start sucking at something. I don’t need to beat them or show anyone that I made the right decision because the fact that I’m not some worn down cog in a machine giving a half-ass effort week-in week-out, proves my point already.
Caffrey: The GWA World Champion -- a title of pride even if I did try to burn it -- is being held by a man who is an embarrassment to the community that he represents. The International Championship was lost to a man who had never even won a singles match before -- the dignity of fighting the best wrestlers in the back to defend your championship apparently dried up in the years I was gone. People do weird shit because money --- guess what, money will buy you happiness, but that happiness runs out when the alcohol stops -- and now Doomtrain is a tagteam champion because my partner apparently wants to go back to the Shadows of the Loserdom, a family that to my knowledge has always sucked and is being led by a man who won’t even make time for this company anymore. He claims to be for the fans but can’t even be bothered to show up.
Caffrey: Rock, you got me on the whole walking out after matches. I walk out nowadays because the matches suck and aren’t worth my time. There are two wrestlers that wrestle to my standard now -- one of them is you, and the other doesn’t even know how to finish off a man he’s injured twice.
Caffrey: But when I go to the back and I’m in earshot of you I hear you heaping praise on all of this. I see you on the morning shows talking about how great everybody is, how the company is doing better than ever… that’s because of me, but I never hear you give me that praise, but whatever. I see you walking around -- and I see how happy you are. And I’m not sure why you’re happy with this. As a thinking man, it truly baffles me. Sometimes I think it’s just ignorant bliss. Sometimes I think you’re like the fans -- just too stupid to know better. Sometimes I think it’s that your skills have dwindled with your age and you really do think these people around you are truly equals or at least worthy competitors, and then sometimes I just think it’s the power thing. You like the influence, you like the power that your voice has. Well congratulations, Rock. You’ve been ruling the roost of this locker room for the time I’ve been gone, and congrats - you’re the King of Trash Mountain. Woohoo.
Caffrey: You say you don’t like me. Let me one-up you, the same as I’ve done recently: I hate you. You are the face of the second time I’ve ever quit professional wrestling and I can’t wait to break your ankles with the finishing move I stole from you and made better all those years ago. You know, I think I am going to pull out the Vengenace Tour shirt for when we do meet up -- I’ve watched all the men who betrayed me destroy themselves, and at Pick Your Poison -- I’m going to destroy the man who made me walk out on something I love so dearly. Someone who took from me what I wanted since I was a little kid.
Caffrey: And the bonus to me, at Pick Your Poison -- the slick, sweet bonus -- is that I get to stop you from achieving one of the only things left that you don’t have. Something that I know that you crave and desire that gets you and your broken body out of bed in the morning. Just like I did with the tagteam championships and the Triple Crown when I defended my championship against you. After all, it’s just like I said about all the others -- you wouldn’t have half of what you had, had I been around. But right now, you’re at two wins away. I want you at one. I want to slam the door shut on you just as you did to me in the past. So here’s the deal: let it be known the challenge is official: Caffrey vs. Rockshade, Pick Your Poison. You win before Pick Your Poison, I’ll let you pick whatever stipulation your heart desires, because the sweet sweet embarrassment of you losing out on the greatest achievement of your life in a match you hand-picked, is something that I want you to feel so bad. I’ll even let you have a rematch at Revelation after I beat you, just so I can watch you die in shame again. And if you don’t win between now and Pick Your Poison, I’ll pick the match.
Caffrey: And trust me, Rock… after all of the things you’ve done… I’ve got ideas on how I’m going to make you suffer.
Caffrey: But hey, how would I know? I’m just the man with no soul. And the man with no heart.
Strongly recommend a listen if you've got the time, but it's about the length of a short podcast.
TRANSCRIPT BELOW
________
Caffrey: Ya got me, Rock. I am a soulless bastard. I sold my soul to the wrestling gods a long time ago. Decent trade, if you’ve ever seen my trophy case. GWA was not my first home, the championships are from around the world…
Caffrey: You know, I was gone for about three years. I did wrestle at another company for a while, but that shuttered its doors, and in between then-- in between then, and then after for a long, long time, was a break. A bad break. It’s like when your relationship is going well and then next thing you know you’re single. You sit there with a broken heart and wonder how the hell you’ll ever feel full again. I was out of the game for years.
Caffrey: And people -- it’s amazing, amazing how goddamn persistent people can be. Everytime I did a press junket: “When you coming back?” “Are you following this?” Everyone was relentless. And as… as the Firestarters crossed the line, and made their returns, they stuck their hands back out, to reach back. I went back and counted. Before I made my return at Thunderdome, GWA officials and the wrestlers paired with them offered me four separate deals to come back. And every conversation went like this:
Caffrey: “Come back, come back, we’ve got this great idea-” “Is Rockshade still there?” “Yes.” “Then no.”
Caffrey: “I know we reached out a long time ago, but things have changed - and like, we want to see you.” “Is Rockshade still there?” “Yes.” “No.” “But-”. “No.”
Caffrey: The first time I wanted to quit wrestling, I was leaving a company already. The Bastion of Light Wrestling Federation. Longtime fans of mine know there’s where I got my start, but I was young - hopeful, optimistic, and I just wanted to go chase greater pastures. It was a very small company. I was sent out to the ring to give the fans a goodbye - and the next thing you know, I found myself flat on my ass. Three big assholes and their leader stomping on me. I didn’t know this was coming. They broke my ribs and I couldn’t breathe.
Caffrey: Time has passed and I don’t remember why I wanted to leave GWA in the first place. I just remember the people that pushed me out, even as champion. The execs that would never listen. The pushy bookers. The human snakes that we call lawyers. But I do remember a certain wrestler who was always in their pocket. Their company man, their golden boy. I’m talking about Mr. GWA himself, Rockshade. Always telling me that I needed to sit down, shut up, be respectful --- three years later he still does the same thing when I make points. The leader of the locker room calling me out for not being a mindless stooge, not wearing GWA on my sleeve, for objecting to the way the ship is pointing, even if it’s headed towards an iceberg.
Caffrey: It’s funny, Rock. You’re obsessed with this record Wraith set- and you’ll toot the company’s horn for it, through and through. Do you know how many of the fans have actually seen a Wraith match? How many of our fans were even born when he was wrestling? You were here in 1996. A fan of legal drinking age wasn’t even born when you debuted. The kids in this arena don’t know who I’m talking about. You praise this company because it gave you everything. It gave you everything because you were the ONLY ONE to stay and you have the most influence. Is Tony Pride still here? Nick Blade? Cage? Ace McCool? Coronado? The amount of wrestlers that wrestled here when I debuted and are still here actively can be counted one hand -- and don’t get me started on your 1996 crew because I don’t even know who they are. Your original matches are so old I can only find them on VHS - and I haven’t seen a VCR in six years. Six.
Caffrey: Flashforward to Thunderdome. I hadn’t watched GWA in about a year when I got the call and the contract in my email. Come back, wrestle some guys -- and they put up this list of guys, and I said to myself -- this would be the grand return. I looked at that list and I was so pumped up to work with them. I didn’t even know who half of them were, but the ones I did? Oh hell yeah would I jump at the opportunity to fight some of them.
Caffrey: The first thing I did when I got my signing bonus was have my guy make shirts. It says Caffrey’s Vengeance Tour on it -- the V is actually two middle fingers, which I thought was clever -- and I had this grand idea that I would come back and destroy every single person who stepped over the line, who crossed it, who betrayed me and stabbed me in the back worse than those four giant pieces of shit from years ago. The men who told me that they were friends and that I was making the right move and then crossed the line -- in pursuit of what??
Caffrey: Look at everything that I missed because I held my moral grounds. Michael Brewer is a nine-time World Champion -- do you think he ever reaches nine World Championships if Anthony Caffrey is on the roster? Do you think Dexter Point becomes as beloved as he did? Hunter Storms became a Hall of Fame tagteam wrestler even though he can’t even wrestle in the first place. I look at my cold, ringless fingers and I understand that the reason that all of my former friends have rings and I don’t is that I have a heart that beats in my chest a mile a minute.
Caffrey: That was the thing you said that got me, Rock. That I don’t have a heart. I have the biggest heart of any wrestler that’s ever set foot in the GWA. I suffered two different injuries in the same match and am the first person in the history of this company, dating back even to ol’ 1996 - to still win the damn match. I wrestle for an hour a night for television that doesn’t even cost the fans anything. The difference between me and the rest of the roster is that I actually follow my heart because I have a working goddamn brain to go along with it. I am not a mindless stooge who goes out there and phones shit in and comes back and complains that life is hard.
Caffrey; That’s the sick thing. I was so excited for this Vengenance Tour and to beat down every single one of my former friends who stabbed me in the back, the men without morals who when push came to shove showed that they were spineless cowards. The sweet, sweet sound of snapping ankle was going to make me so happy. I was going to make some inner peace with this crazy wrestling world and show them all that their milestones and Hall of Fame rings don’t mean shit because they got achieved them without me being there. That is why I call myself the Unlegend. It was going to be like the Baseball Hall of Fame -- the reason we know the names of so many white guys is that they didn’t let a black guy play until 1947. I was going to crush them all.
Caffrey: And then I came back.
Caffrey: They crushed themselves.
Caffrey: This is not the GWA I so fondly remembered. Yes, the ratings are up, but the wrestling and down. The mic work is down. The stories being told are either garbage or nonexistent. I walked back in and have wrestled multiple Matches of the Night and the Match of the Season already with considerable ring rust because no one can wrestle like me anymore. Yes, chicks dig the long ball - but it’s a nine inning game and these days it’s rare I see people go four innings. You see Max Rex and Doomtrain rule over this company nowadays because no one knows how to chop down a giant wrestler. It’s NOT HARD. ATTACK A LEG AND KEEP MOVING, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!
Caffrey: When I get on the microphone, I’m praised in the back like I’m some kind of God. I’m not. This is standard for me. This is Sunday and Tuesday for me. Oh wow you said this -- oh that was really well done -- when I was coming up, this level of work was expected. This level of skill wasn’t considered skilled, it was normal. It was just a regular thing to talk this much. It was a regular thing to wrestle like I do. It was a regular thing -- to do all of this.
Caffrey: When I walk through the back now -- I came back to extinguish the Firestarters. They’ve already put themselves out. Crimson Dragon is now a shitty wrestler named Mike that makes me embarrassed to be from Philadelphia. You’ll notice I left him out of the Firestarters who accomplished things list I just made because I don’t even know if he actually accomplished anything while I was gone. Hunter Storms up until last Tuesday had been showing the world why I call him a mediocre wrestler and the worst Hall of Famer in the history of the GWA, and now he snapped out and is Stabbo the Clown because he can’t take being such a shitty wrestler anymore. We both know that he doesn’t win that match if he doesn’t stab me fifteen times with the ref turning a blind eye because the front office doesn’t like me. Michael Brewer lost to a man who had prostitutes dancing on him on Sunday, and I almost put him to sleep two weeks ago, but I felt it -- he’s a man who’s gone soft and he doesn’t have it anymore. I think he knows it too with the retirement he’s planning, because unlike you Rock he understands when he’s done and should move on. And Dexter Point? Well, we all know that Dexter Point is delaying his rehab to take it slow as possible because we know that when he gets back I’ll send him back to the hospital. He knows that all of the praise that he got over the past few years was because I wasn’t there to get it myself and he doesn’t want to be exposed as a phony. That’s the Firestarters, and I can’t tell you how pissed off I am that I’ve come back and NONE OF THEM live up to the old standards. You’re supposed to get BETTER after years of doing a thing -- not WORSE. The phrase is NOT it takes 10,000 hours to start sucking at something. I don’t need to beat them or show anyone that I made the right decision because the fact that I’m not some worn down cog in a machine giving a half-ass effort week-in week-out, proves my point already.
Caffrey: The GWA World Champion -- a title of pride even if I did try to burn it -- is being held by a man who is an embarrassment to the community that he represents. The International Championship was lost to a man who had never even won a singles match before -- the dignity of fighting the best wrestlers in the back to defend your championship apparently dried up in the years I was gone. People do weird shit because money --- guess what, money will buy you happiness, but that happiness runs out when the alcohol stops -- and now Doomtrain is a tagteam champion because my partner apparently wants to go back to the Shadows of the Loserdom, a family that to my knowledge has always sucked and is being led by a man who won’t even make time for this company anymore. He claims to be for the fans but can’t even be bothered to show up.
Caffrey: Rock, you got me on the whole walking out after matches. I walk out nowadays because the matches suck and aren’t worth my time. There are two wrestlers that wrestle to my standard now -- one of them is you, and the other doesn’t even know how to finish off a man he’s injured twice.
Caffrey: But when I go to the back and I’m in earshot of you I hear you heaping praise on all of this. I see you on the morning shows talking about how great everybody is, how the company is doing better than ever… that’s because of me, but I never hear you give me that praise, but whatever. I see you walking around -- and I see how happy you are. And I’m not sure why you’re happy with this. As a thinking man, it truly baffles me. Sometimes I think it’s just ignorant bliss. Sometimes I think you’re like the fans -- just too stupid to know better. Sometimes I think it’s that your skills have dwindled with your age and you really do think these people around you are truly equals or at least worthy competitors, and then sometimes I just think it’s the power thing. You like the influence, you like the power that your voice has. Well congratulations, Rock. You’ve been ruling the roost of this locker room for the time I’ve been gone, and congrats - you’re the King of Trash Mountain. Woohoo.
Caffrey: You say you don’t like me. Let me one-up you, the same as I’ve done recently: I hate you. You are the face of the second time I’ve ever quit professional wrestling and I can’t wait to break your ankles with the finishing move I stole from you and made better all those years ago. You know, I think I am going to pull out the Vengenace Tour shirt for when we do meet up -- I’ve watched all the men who betrayed me destroy themselves, and at Pick Your Poison -- I’m going to destroy the man who made me walk out on something I love so dearly. Someone who took from me what I wanted since I was a little kid.
Caffrey: And the bonus to me, at Pick Your Poison -- the slick, sweet bonus -- is that I get to stop you from achieving one of the only things left that you don’t have. Something that I know that you crave and desire that gets you and your broken body out of bed in the morning. Just like I did with the tagteam championships and the Triple Crown when I defended my championship against you. After all, it’s just like I said about all the others -- you wouldn’t have half of what you had, had I been around. But right now, you’re at two wins away. I want you at one. I want to slam the door shut on you just as you did to me in the past. So here’s the deal: let it be known the challenge is official: Caffrey vs. Rockshade, Pick Your Poison. You win before Pick Your Poison, I’ll let you pick whatever stipulation your heart desires, because the sweet sweet embarrassment of you losing out on the greatest achievement of your life in a match you hand-picked, is something that I want you to feel so bad. I’ll even let you have a rematch at Revelation after I beat you, just so I can watch you die in shame again. And if you don’t win between now and Pick Your Poison, I’ll pick the match.
Caffrey: And trust me, Rock… after all of the things you’ve done… I’ve got ideas on how I’m going to make you suffer.
Caffrey: But hey, how would I know? I’m just the man with no soul. And the man with no heart.