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Eight Days Ago
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I have decided that I need a white board calendar for my kitchen. I have entirely too much stuff going on in my life, and I can no longer remember where I’m supposed to be and when. Honestly, I don’t even know why either half the time. And this white board idea may not even work in the end, my three year old probably has better handwriting than me and he can’t even read or write yet. That I know of, anyway.
“DAD!”
“What’s up?”
Mini-Human has been having “battle royals” with his collection of stuffed animals. I am honestly amazed at how many wrestlers have stuffed animal merchandise. He spins Stuffed Ollie Dorito around so his tail whips into Stuffed Blue Unicorn Tara Fenix, and then has her fall over.
“OLLIE WINS!”
“Yes, son. Ollie wins.”
I look up at my whiteboard, filled out to the point there’s not even room for the eraser to clear it off. In nice, pretty gold marker on the 30th of August is written “pwE - Victory I”. I have so much stuff to prepare for, in order to stand the slightest of a chance at winning that tournament. But the first thing I have to prepare for is my son’s lunch.
“You hungry, homie?”
“Baby Yoda Chicky Nuggies!”
“Oh, you already know. With the sauce?”
“With da sauce!”
“Coming right up.”
Work can wait. I'm gonna go eat chicky nuggies with my son.
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Six Days Ago
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I had exactly 45 minutes to get Mini-Human over to Graham and Ken’s and it’s gonna take every bit of 44 with this traffic. It doesn’t help that I’m coming back from Reynoldsburg, and there’s so much construction on the split downtown that I had to go all the way around the city just to get somewhere that would only take 43 minutes normally.
“You still there?”
And I was arguing with Graham Clauson about him not being a dick to everyone he meets.
“Yeah, I’m just trying not to kill my son and I while dealing with Columbus traffic and your bad attitude. For real dude, what did you think was gonna happen? You picked a fight with the whole roster and the whole roster gave it to you.”
“The name of the company is FIGHT. What did YOU think was gonna happen? I was gonna shake hands with everyone and then let Austin Ramsey braid my god damn beard so I could get Twitter clout I didn’t want in the first place?”
Mini-Human covered his mouth. Yeah, he was in the back listening to this whole conversation happening through the car phone.
“Sorry I care about you to the point where I wanna see you do right, and get done right. I figured you’d shut the hell up and just fight.”
“Same here, ‘Mr. Best Pure-Wrestler In The World’. I’ve seen you in more bullshit sitcom skits than me the last two weeks. You had your spawn check the mail and thought that was going to impress PWExcellence.”
“Hey man, can you please call back and bitch at me some other time? I’m trying to merge onto 670 from 71, and I need all of my concentration…”
Nope. He’s just gonna ignore me, break my concentration, and get me shoved up the tailpipe of a cement truck.
“Ross… Let’s get real, okay? You go back and forth between flirting with anybody who’ll look at you, politicking to get on a vain-at-heart Best Hair list, and doing everything BUT the one thing you claim you’re good at - wrestling. Look at you. If you mess this up, you’re boned for the rest of your life and you know it. You ever gone to get your goddamn GED yet?”
“Hey. Eat my ass with a rubber spoon.”
That was a clear scoff of superiority.
“That’s what I thought. How’s it feel to have everything you do questioned for a change?”
“You know I have no control over that.”
“Yeah yeah, I know your damn sob story. You’ve told me already.”
“Then why would you hold it against me?”
“You know what? Fine. I’m done wasting both our time on this. Go call your boy Thaddie and see if he wants to listen to you cry about not having anyone to love you growing up.”
“I’m hanging up now, Graham. When I get there, you’re getting hiptossed into the bushes in your front yard.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time, big boy. Oh, Ken says to tell the little shit he loves him.”
“Ken, or Ken and you?”
End call.
“Daddy, Uncle Ass-Whole is mean.”
I glanced back in the rear view mirror, where Mini-Human was just boppin’ along in his carseat.
“Yes, he is…”
You know what? Getting ready for this tournament can wait until tomorrow.
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Four Days Ago
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Okay, turns out that yesterday was actually filled on the schedule book. I hadn’t actually bought the whiteboard yet, so I was just going off memory at this point. Fortunately, I did remember that I had an important hearing with some people about my stepmom. So, once again, I found myself putting off the pertinent promotional materials that pwE required of me.
“Thank you for coming in, Mr. Hanson.”
“Not a problem, Doctor. I’m not trying to be rude or disrespectful, but I want to just get right down to it.”
“All right, have a seat.”
What is it with mental health professionals and painting their office the most dull grey in existence? Or insisting on leather chairs that cost more than season tickets to Ohio State games? Wait, forget I complained. This is comfortable as all get out.
“I’m going to warn you now, before I play this, it’s not pretty. At all. We didn’t release this bodycam footage to the public because honestly, there’s no way to edit it into something that wouldn’t be outright lewd.”
I just nodded, realizing that I should probably wait until I watch this shit before I start cussing this guy out for locking my mom up in a nut ward.
“There are going to be two angles of this, one from the bodycam of Officer Mitchell and the other from Officer Miranda. Can you see the monitor if I turn it around?”
I give this guy a little bit of credit. He’s one of the only doctors I’ve seen that would go through the trouble of turning his computer screen around for me, rather than just read stuff off and hope I took his word for it. But then again, this is technically a mental hygiene hearing on Ariel...excuse me, Mom...to determine whether or not she’s going to be coming home with me or if she’s gonna be stuck here. So I'm glad I'm getting to see this for myself.
“Yessir.”“Okay, here we go.”
Here we go indeed…
The psychologist stopped the video. We looked at each other in silence.
“...here or jail?”
“Here or jail.”
I stood up, extending my hand towards him.
“Thank you. Let me know if her condition changes.”
“We’ll be in touch, Mr. Hanson. Thank you.”
Looks like Mom's not coming home anytime soon. Being alone sucks.
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Two Days Ago
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But as of Friday night slash Saturday morning, that’s no longer something I have to worry about. And that’s not something she’ll have to worry about, either. You’d be surprised what you find when you just stop looking so hard. Or maybe this was a case of who found me. I don’t know. I’m just not sure I should tell her she’s only the second girl I’ve ever gotten past the passing notes and texting after 8pm phase, or that I have less than zero clue what I’m doing in the bedroom, or that I have no high school diploma or any formal education beyond the second grade. I’m definitely sure she’ll never meet any of my biological family, but that’s not something I needed to list in all of my insecurities as a human being because I’m not insecure in admitting that shit.
Oh, yeah. You're probably lost because the visuals for this scene are just me talking to myself while I'm standing in line at Kroger. Well, let me fill you in.
I've had a crush on Chelsea Skye for a while now. Problem is, I have zero self confidence with women. An even bigger problem is being associated with Thaddeus Duke when you have any form of confidence issues, because he is not going to stop until you've overcame them.
Turns out, I should have said something sooner about all of that Twitter stuff being my bad attempts at flirting and just came out with it.
As far as my other thoughts about her, they're staying private. I'm definitely not ready to show that much of Ross Hanson yet. At least not for free.
It’s good that I finally feel like I have stuff going right for me: I’m not worried about keeping the lights on anymore, I’m not worried about having nobody to keep warm when it’s cold and I’m hot, and I’m not worried about not getting an opportunity to prove I'm the best wrestler in the best pure wrestling promotion.
But, for some weird reason, I just have this weird feeling that some bad shit is fixing to happen. I really need to just hurry up, pull something out of my ass that will fulfill my contractual obligations for marketing related appearances, and get back to her.
Finally, my turn to check out. Meh. It can wait just one more day.
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Last Night
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I spent all day in the hospital. I had to have walked around the whole thing 30 times. I couldn’t sit still. Thad arranged to have Chelsea flown out to be with me, which to me only solidified my belief that she is the real deal. No weekend fling drops everything and tells their people “hey, I’m gonna hang out with this guy I just met at work, his friend is in the hospital so I’m gonna see if he needs a hug or two”. Maybe it’s too soon to tell. Maybe that friend in the hospital, who is Graham “Uncle Ass-whole” Clauson if you couldn’t tell by
our mutual friend Denzel Porter’s Tweet, has my judgement clouded? Or maybe Ken isn’t in the right frame of mind to tell me that we’re moving too fast? Jesus Christ, I can’t even keen track anymore of what happens to me on what day. I thought 21 year olds were only supposed to be worried about college and beer.
“You sure they’re fine out in the car?”
Chelsea, Mini-Human and I followed Ken back to his house from the hospital just to make sure he got home safe. They were talking about upgrading Graham’s condition to stable, that’s all we knew when the hospital made us leave after visiting hours.
“Oh yeah. They have air conditioning, snacks, and a Nintendo Switch. It’s not like we’re leaving them out there to come in here and smoke all of Graham’s weed.”
“That could take a while... He’s been buying a lot lately. Like...amounts I’m not comfortable having in the house, to be honest with you.”
“Has he at least been using Mom’s money and not yours?““I honestly have no clue… I really hope he hasn’t been, that’s not what that cash is for, but he’s been really hitting it heavy. I don’t know if he was smoking for two or trying to use it to cope, I honestly don’t know… I’m at a damn loss right now…”
“He better not be getting it fronted to him, these dealers up here don’t play with their money…Are you sure you’re gonna be fine and you don’t just want to hang out with us, man?”
“I’m sure… Wait, I won’t be able to sleep right away, I’m too fucking upset to try to…”
Ken unlocks and opens the door to the house, pushing the door open and stepping in. No matter how many times I have walked into this house, I’ll always wait at the door until I’m let in like a dog.
“Yeah, we’re probably not gonna sleep for a bit either to tell you the truth. Then again, watch us all just pass out on the brand new furniture I got with my advance money. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about that…”
“Advance money?”
“Yeah, let’s just say I went from not having any place to work, to having too many places to work. And if you couldn’t tell by how quick he got Chelsea down here, Thad’s got...I don’t know how to say this...actually, Ken, it doesn’t matter. He can get stuff done. Just grab your stuff and get out of the house for the night.”
“True… Just let me grab a couple things and we can head off… I can’t look at these walls right now and not want to just collapse…”
Ken begins to head down the hall. I look around, and to be honest I wouldn’t want to look at these walls for too much longer either. This color just screams solitary confinement grey. Also, I need to try and cheer Ken up because I’m trying to hold it together too. Chelsea isn’t gonna be able to hold it together for all of us tonight.
“Hey, fam, look at it like this. We know he’s alive, and we know he’s not going to die anytime soon. There’s that…”
Ken can be heard responding, but distant.
“Don’t even joke about that! That’s not funny in the slightest!”
“I’m not trying to...I’m just saying, odds are tomorrow we’re going to go down there, they’ll tell us it was something minor, he’ll have to take some kind of pill the rest of his life and maybe stop eating bacon...it’ll be fine, man…”
“You know how meticulous Graham is about his diet - he goes and figures out how many additional sit-ups he has to do for eating a couple pieces of Sour Patch Kids!”
“All the more reason to believe he’s gonna pull through…”
“I mean, he was drunk...maybe he didn’t drink enough water after all the cardio he did yesterday? He was really pushing himself...more than usual… They won’t tell me shit, even though he’s my fucking husband, they just keep saying he’ll be fine...”
Sure enough, right there on the kitchen table sits an empty bottle of Knob Creek. That’s the strongest 90 proof bourbon that ever existed, let me tell you. And the fact that it’s empty tells me that Graham must have been playing a drinking game or something.
“Maybe, man…”
“Well, I guess you’re right, Ross. We might as well head out of here, grab some pizza or something, head back, and I’ll get to know your new girlfriend better. Almost ready, just need one more thing... ”
Wait, that’s not a shot glass beside that bottle…
“...hydrocodone...10mg...30 count….Clauson-Felder, Graham X…”
No.“Hey Ken… where did you kind Graham this morning?”
“He was in the entrance to the living room, face down…”
And that’s not the label that gets peeled off the bottle before you sell them…
“Get in here... NOW!”
“Huh?! Why?”Gotta bless Ken’s loyalty, even his personal travel bag has GCC and TW Sports logos on it.
“What did-”
Ken sees the bottle...the other bottle...and the piece of paper under them. At this point, I had already picked both of them up. I knew this wasn’t a love note. There wasn’t a name on it, and this wasn’t a script of Viagra. The note was written in cursive, meaning I had no way of knowing what it actually said. But I knew. I knew, because I knew before I knew.
“What...what is that?”
Suddenly, I remembered. I remembered
my half-assed premonition that I thought was just some kid not changing his gloves before he made my breakfast burrito at McDonalds. I remembered that feeling I had Sunday morning. And I knew. I knew exactly what that piece of paper was about to say, even if I didn’t know what words were used to say it.
“Is that…?”
Ken picks up the orange bottle, realizing what the contents were. I just handed him the unfolded paper.
“I can’t read cursive, dude...?”
Ken takes the piece of paper, beginning to read it. As he gets through some of it, he eventually begins stumbling back as if he is about to faint. At that moment, I heard footsteps outside the door along with my son telling Chelsea he had to pee, and I realized that I had about two seconds to stop them from walking in and seeing this.
“Shit! Don’t come in!!”
“Dad! I have to pee!”
“Pee in Uncle Leglock’s bushes! Chelsea, do not let him come in here! Please! He knows how to pee like a big boy, do not let him lie to you!”
“Is everything okay?”
“I'm not sure..."
I locked the door as quickly as I could, turning back to Ken. He has since stepped back into the wall and slid down, the note dropped from his hands. He appears lost in his own thoughts, something I can definitely respect.
“He...oh God, why didn’t I...”
Ken, skin flush, sits in shock as tears begin to well-up in his eyes. I just stayed silent, stayed still, stayed anything but what I wanted to actually do which was the same fucking thing he was doing. I knew I had to unlock the door. I knew I had to open it. I knew that our night of terror wasn’t over. It just fucking started.
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Have you ever felt that no matter what exactly you did, no one actually cared? No matter how notably you may excel at whatever the subject in question was, it had no value? Even when people would say directly to your face that they feel you’re one of the best, but you know that behind those words were silver tongues and false pretense.
For years, you apply yourself to something, and you get nothing but stabbed in the back when you finally start standing up for yourself. Everyone only cares about what you can do for them. When you ask for them to do something for you, they get pissed and act like you’ve always been nothing but an inconvenience and being around is a personal favor.
You don’t have to do any favors for me. I never wanted any favors. But you all always wanted something from me, and then would stab me when you got it. Maybe I was the naive one, believing anyone needed me, let alone wanted me around. I couldn’t even keep myself up, so why should I be a burden on anyone else any longer?
The only one who deserves any apology in all this is my husband. You didn’t deserve having to haul around a horrid deadbeat of a human being around, but I was going to eventually bring you nothing of value. I thought it wouldn’t be now, but I took too long to realize that I wasn’t going to amount to much of anything for anyone. I realized that it wasn’t that it was one thing that I applied myself towards that wasn’t appreciated, but everything. I couldn’t keep asking for you to be the one to keep me standing up. I realized asking that is too much for anyone.
Goodbye, and thanks for all the fish.
- G
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I hope you read that.
I hope all of you read that, so that hopefully none of you have to find a note like this.
Because I should be talking about something other than this right now. I should be talking about all of the many different people I may possibly face at Victory I, and how I'll beat them to be crowned the first Excellence Champion. I should be talking about the people I WILL face in the first round.
But instead, I have to show you what a man thought would be his last words.
Thankfully they weren't his last words. Thankfully, Graham Clauson will live. He will never be the same after this, but he will still be.
So...if those aren't going to be his last words, they sure as hell won't be mine either.
I can’t let the fear of not succeeding stop me from trying. I know what feeling like the whole world is counting on you feels like. I know what pressure is. But I also know that my existence does not depend on me winning the Excellence Championship in Vegas. I know that losing this tournament will not break Ross Hanson.
But man….oh man...if I DID win it?
You have no idea what that would mean to me. I wouldn't just be beating one person for the title. I would have to outlast five in an over-the-top elimination, then beat someone else who did the same thing one-on-one...then beat someone else who did that same thing too!
Now THAT is an accomplishment worth bragging about!
Think about it!
“Ross Hanson outwits Betsy Granger, or overpowers Tank Ferdinand! Ross Hanson out wrestles Kayla Richards because she cared too much about me locking lips with Chelsea and not me locking her in an armbar! Ross Hanson sends Allen Cheney back to doing oil changes at Sam's Club!”
And there’s the problem. That's a lot of thinking. That's too much thinking. That's how you set yourself up for failure. It really goes against the true nature of wrestling.
Wrestling is the oldest and simplest sport in existence. It requires nothing but two players and an empty space the size of a one car garage. It doesn't require you to know who the other person is until you meet them face to face, right before the whistle blows or the bell rings. And after thousands of years, it's still the same as it was when it first existed.
All of these lights and cameras, all of this money and attention, even all of the light hearted fun we have with ourselves and each other...all of it is just extra stuff that other people added on to try and make it seem like something different or brand new.
It's not.
It's all just trying to distract you from what really matters...and that's wrestling. Those distractions do get people off their game; and that’s why everyone nowadays focuses on the glitz, the trashtalk, the head games, or the influencer role.
Even now, I’m writing a blog to promote my match and I’m scared they’re going to be mad I didn’t film myself talking to a camera for ten minutes instead. I've kept putting it off because I've dreaded all of the work that it takes to find stuff to use against people in the public forum, when I should be scouting their moves. I should be watching to see Kai Driscoll's tells when he's going to go for that ten-powerbomb combo move of a finisher he has listed, so I can know how to bust out of that. Instead, I have to watch and see who he talks trash about on social media so I know who he's going to be feuding with next. I have to rinse, lather, and repeat this process for every single person on the roster. Including the owner's adorable as fuck cat.
That’s a lot of irrelevant bullshit when my sole job description is to wrestle.
No wonder the stress got to Graham. I can see how it would get to anybody.
But not me.
Not Ross Hanson.
I didn’t come here to get featured on a magazine cover. I came here to wrestle, plain and simple. If I’m good enough of a wrestler to be considered the most Excellent among you, then awesome. I kind of want to see if I can do it, to tell you the truth. I like the challenge. So you could say, that I want to be the inaugural Excellence Champion.
What I don't want to do is spend the next few days running numbers like a simulation trying to figure out what defensive scheme I need to run to beat all y'all. It doesn't do any good. Neither am I gonna do some corny speech about winning one for Graham. Me winning the title isn't going to magically make what happened to him unhappen, nor would it stop him or anybody else from breaking down under the stress that this business puts on you. So dedicating my performance at Victory I to him wouldn't do any good either.
The only thing I can do is just wrestle, and stick to what I know. I know that if I plant my feet and I don't want to move, it will take a fleet of bulldozers to move me. I know that if I need to pick somebody up and dump them over the top rope, I can do it if they weighed as much as one of Saturn's moons. I know that if I want to go hold for hold with anybody in pwE, I can.
And most important to all of you...I know that if I want to go all the way and win the Excellence Championship, it's going to take a miracle to stop me.
Like the rest of you, I’m coming to Vegas to gamble. Like the rest of you, I’m all in. But unlike the rest of you...I’m not afraid to lose.
On August 30th, Victory I in Vegas for the Excellence Championship…
I’m calling.
Check, bet, or fold?
