I Need You To Stay Home (Podcast) (#4)
Apr 10, 2020 21:20:49 GMT -5
Mongo the Destroyer and mosler like this
Post by anthonycaffrey on Apr 10, 2020 21:20:49 GMT -5
“...alright, Rights to Ricky Sanchez podcast listeners, once again thanks Spike and Mike for letting me get back in touch with my people despite being me being over 3,600 miles away from my city. I actually have important matches and main events to prepare for, so unfortunately I don’t have the time to shit out every spare thought I have like the verbal diarrhea we’ve seen from Rat, Sniper, and Storm.”
“I-- I asked for this time to close the podcast tonight to talk you about something really important: it’s my city. Yesterday I watched this video -- it’s like this drone shot video, if you search on Youtube ‘Covid Philadelphia drone’ you should be able to find it -- and it’s just this drone, and it’s capturing every place I’ve ever loved in my city, every part of my city is captured in this beautiful, incredibly surreal video. You might see one or two cars on the road, but other than that? There’s no people, no humans, no anything.”
“And some people have sat there and watched it and gone, ‘wow, this is really cool, it looks like an apocalypse film’, and you sit there and think yes, but also… ‘shit, are we already living in the end of the world?’’ It’s not quite the end of the world, but this is easily the craziest time I can ever remember. And you just sit there and go ‘here I am’, and like… granted, I’m still going to work. I have a tables, ladders and chairs match against the Society of the New Breed in a few days and that’s my contract, but like holy shit, can we just stop for a few seconds and acknowledge how fucking insane this all is? Like just a few seconds. Anywhere you are listening to this, I want you to take a minute and take a few deep breaths with me. I want you to know that I’m 3,000 miles away from you and in the same exact boat. This is hard.”
“But we’ve gotta try. Alright, ready? Breathe in… breathe out. Your stomach should be expanding on the breath out, not contracting. Don’t mess with your shoulders or tighten them, that’s just wrong. Breathe in… breathe out. Breathe in… breathe out. Okay.”
“I want to clarify: I’ve never once given a real shit about the fans outside out Philly, could not care less about those mouthbreathers and ingrates. AWF fans are especially the worst kind of people, frontrunners with their eyes closed watching second-rate wrestling and thinking it can hold a candle to SWAT. But if there’s a group of people I care about, people I would go to bat for, it’s my city. You all show it right back to me. There’s a lot of you who’ve been supporting me for the past ten years, and you make yourselves heard. You bump into me in bars and ask for selfies, you tell me stories about matches I can’t even remember, hell, your small kids shout funny things like ‘fuck Michael Storm!’ at me. This is the greatest city in the world, and I’m so very, very homesick for it right now. I would kill right now for a soft pretzel and a cold drink.”
“And to make things worse… to pile on all these feelings I’m having, looking at that video, really looking at all of these wonderful things so far away from me right now... I have to say I am disappointed as hell. You wanna know why?”
“It’s because I’m going to win this fucking X-Crown. I’m going to win it. Mark my words. I don’t care who I have to throw out. I am going to win it -- and not be able to throw a parade. I’m not going to be able to celebrate with all of you, all of you now who have been behind me since my days starting out as The Philadelphia Phighter.. and we’ve had a couple of really cool moments over the years, right? I’ve thrown out a few opening pitches, I’ve rung the bell at Sixers games, it’s all been great, even if we’ve had to put up with assholes like Maverick breaking our trophy.”
“Which, you know, sorry about that, by the way. Clearly some radio assholes like Cataldi will never get over it. Not my fault. I’ll always have haters, guys like Timeless who play dress-up to get attention because whenever he talks, everyone’s watching Roxy instead. I’m a feminist, but let’s be honest: we all put up with Timeless so she can be on our screens more. It was a real cute impression, though. My group chat and I were thoroughly amused.”
“It’s all been so exciting and every time I wrestle, after walking into miserable hostile hellholes like New York or dealing with international idiots like the Spanish and the French, and really handling any fans that think they know good wrestling when they clearly only watch one show, one of my favorite things is that I get to come home. I get to kick my feet up, I get to hang out with my girlfriend, or I get to go hang out with all of you... and right now, right now I don’t get to come home. And it sucks. It sucks so, so bad.”
“I can’t get over how we don’t get to celebrate when I win. So many cool things have been cancelled or postponed. I think the Sixers season is a bust, I don’t think the NBA’s finishing this season. Every summer concert I’ve been excited for has been canceled or rescheduled for the fall.”
“And so when I win, when one of the stiffest elbows in wrestling clocks that last guy in the face and I send them over the ropes and to the floor, what are we going to do? We can’t -- we can’t celebrate together. The city is sheltering in place right now. Even if it wasn’t, we can’t be closer than six feet to one another. When I’m out in public now, I wear the cloth mask, doing all that stuff, and I hope you are too. If you consider yourself a fan of me, wear it. It’s too important not to wear one.”
“But uh… but now we have an interesting set of challenges. We’ve gotta work together, and so I’m going to pull a little Monty Hall action here and make a deal with all of you. Let me tell you what it is. Let me tell you it’s the reason why you gotta wear your masks, this is why you gotta not go outside, and if you do go outside don’t get near people for fucks’ sake -- ruins the whole point of everything we’re doing here, ya morons.”
“I need you to stay home.”
“I need you to stay home. Right now I’m over in Spain. I think it’s insane that I’m still wrestling in front of fans. I understand the tradition of having the Rumble, but I even thought that should have been pushed back. But I’m contracted out and the show must go on, and for a while, you might get some entertainment out of it. I’ve been thinking about all these mouthbreathing morons packing arenas these days, these guys who are too into wrestling… and like, there’s other stuff in the world out there… like I love what I do. My passion for it rings out everytime I speak -- to the point where Chris Card sits on his million-dollar yacht, and... hang on a second because I gotta tea off on this pompous jackass--”
“-- Chris, you’re one of the few men whose egos make mine look normal. You haven’t changed one Goddamn bit! With this podcast, I am also donating my paycheck from SWAT’s Spanish Inquisition show to Philabundance so the homeless, the less fortunate than you and I, can still fucking eat during this crisis. What contributions have you given to your community? You accuse me of running to SWAT, but I’m sure some Canadian charities have come knocking on your door asking for donations. But instead of helping them, just like the school, just like with Cross… you’re only going to help someone if it helps you. Why did you put your name on the sign? It helped you. You’re telling me I ran? You literally took your wife and got on a fucking yacht to avoid the community that needs you right now, you giant jackass.”
“I don’t even think you brought Natasha, your family, on that boat, but sure, I’m the self-serving asshole..”
“Time and place, Card. Time and place. Dillinger’s got the next spot on my dance card, when I take the XHF Tag Team Championships off of LGBTKO or Dos Angeles that’ll be next, but I can always make room in between my X-Crown championship defenses. You caught me with one lucky hold, congrats. But when two of the best technicians the XHF has ever seen go head-to-head, nine out of ten times the Wrestling Emperor exposes you as Technical Imperfection. But hey, again, congrats on the one.”
“Now where were we? Sorry about that. If I hear another guy say I ran when he clearly hasn’t ever watched an episode of SWAT, I think I’m gonna lose my shit. I don’t know why I expected Card to give a shit about anyone other than himself, but, but anyway...”
“Huh? Oh. Right. Yeah you, yes you listener, ya gotta stay home. Right now, more than ever. You just have to stay home. I know it’s hard, but ya gotta do it.”
“Because if you stay home… when all of this is over… whether that’s in one month or three or God I fucking hope not six, when we can be back in public and after the Rumble has passed, here’s the thing: I’m still The Best. I will win the X-Crown championship at the Rumble, and I will keep it until we get out of this. We will get out of this.”
“And then you know what we’re going to do?”
“You see those empty Rocky steps? Those beautiful steps? We’ll get a podium together, and we will FILL those steps. AND WE WILL PARTY. We will party so fucking hard together! It’s going to be amazing. Booze everywhere, Philadelphians and friends alike gathered as far as the eye can see, a city of Brotherly Love all brought together by the X-Crown. We’re going to get all together, as close or as far apart as we have to be… and we’re finally going to be able to have fun again. It’s gonna be amazing.”
“But, and this is a big but, we can only do that if we all hold up our ends of the bargain. I’m doing my part. I’m watching so much footage while I’m holed up in my hotel rooms, I just watched a goddamn Johnny Sniper flag match for fuck sake!”
“But you guys gotta do your part too. Stop going out to the store. Do Instacart or something if you really need groceries. Don’t be an idiot. Your ice cream cone is not essential. You don’t need to be around other people, you don’t need to get close to anyone, especially if you’re not wearing a mask. You have to pull your end of the bargain. Don’t let all of my work, all of my hours studying, all of my hours in the gym, all of it go to waste.”
“And when all of us get out of this alive, safe and healthy, and when we’re allowed to be in public again, we’re still going to be as far apart as we need to be, but we’re going to be closer than ever. You and I Philly, and one X-Crown for all of us to celebrate at the greatest party ever.”
“So stay tuned, stay healthy, and be safe.”
“My name is Anthony Caffrey, and I’m going to hold up my end of the deal.. You do yours. Stay indoors. I love you Philadelphia. Take care. I’ll see you soon.”
