Post by Dave D-Flipz on Apr 28, 2020 10:36:26 GMT -5
*We open up in the beautiful sunshine of a parking lot. We must be prerecorded earlier today. We zoom out to see we are standing outside the entrance to a Stop and Shop in Boston, MA. We walk to the entrance and out walks a shopping cart full of groceries being pushed by a man in a gray beanie and a Metallica t-shirt. It’s XHF Legend and part-time comedy act Death Trap.*
: Oh boy I just love grocery day. It really gives me time to think. Think about things like where to get the best screwdrivers, how to reach the employee lounge, what IS hummus? Such a calming activity. It really does well to quiet the voices … in my head. Ya know it’s funny when I look back on things and think about my heyday like it was just yesterday. But hey I haven’t been XHF Champ in like … at least a week now.
*he laughs and starts walking to the classic blue corvette in the back of the lot with no other cars around, ignoring the camera. Talking to himself.*
: It’s weird. I have to say looking back I feel odd about it all. Like I wasn’t really myself. Like I didn’t understand this whole wrestler thing. I was talented yes, but the archives make me look like a petulant teenager who is still learning the English Language. I felt so often like a tool for someone else. Like my personality and disposition towards the fans and other wrestlers was someone else talking in my head, telling me to be angry. Telling me to beat up Mongo Corp. Who to work with, who to rail against. I dunno I felt like … like a non-player character in my own life. But I’m free to do … anything now.
*He holds out his arms to the sky*
: The voices haven’t been around. I feel like I can be my own well-developed self. Like an adult with a fully formed personality. Like someone else would have to pretend to be ME to see what I’m going to say rather than me spewing bile out of some angry teenager who has been miffed at having 8 guys pin him at once or some shit. But that’s all silly and my doctors say it’s a side effect of the concussions and the role playing … the therapy they have me doing.
*He points at a squirrel*
: So YOU can’t judge me anymore.
*He points at a guy named Al, a worker with a nametag saying Randy, and a group of administrators to the store*
: You all … think of me as some comedy act, some washed up guy. But you all see a legend. But I am far from a legend in my own eyes. I am nothing. I am broken. If the doctors declared me sane I still wouldn’t be the same DT who was X*Crown Champion, XHF Champion, European Champion, Phoenix Champion, ECF Champion … I’m someone new. Someone with a lot of age and world experience on me. Someone who has a new outlook on life.
*He spins to the camera*
: Someone … who just maybe … had a little sense knocked into him and has one more bit of clarity in him.
*He drops the ruse and pushes the cart to his car*
: This schtick … this isn’t the same type of DT promo you all in the XHF classic era are used to seeing. I can’t in good faith be the guy who spouts catch phrases and lives life by whatever nickname he has at the moment. Master of Puppets … stolen from a music album I liked. Main Attraction, stolen from a man I was very bitter towards and wanted to upend. Submission master, angry at the man who I couldn’t beat. No what I am … is David. I am Death Trap. I am … me. And I see clearly now. I am not defined by my friends or previous exploits. Just this once I am talking from the heart, not out to woo or curse the fans, not out to speak a novel length promo to sound like Reeshi or Rage. I am done taking bits of everyone else and loading them into myself. When I first came to the XHF Network it was on a Dark Ages special, showing how I had declined due to my in ring career and all the head shots. I had trouble remembering and it only got worse. And then I ended up at dinner with Jeffrey Viper. There might be a decent man behind all the bluster on the video promos … but what he really did was set my mind straight. And seeing what Michael Storm has accomplished, being so much farther gone than I ever was … seeing that there was still a competent man and a good wrestler in there … it cleared away the fog.
*He loads his groceries as he talks*
: And now here I am with one more match in the tank. One more chance to be the guy I wanted to be. One more chance to be the guy I was away from XHF. I am not going to waste this opportunity with grocery shopping and hardware stores. I am not going to take this chance and spend my allotted time talking to a bear or playing in the gym with Venom, Mueller, and 85% of Magnus. No I’ve said my piece. I’ve made my point about the state of my mind and the risk I am taking. I am laser focused and there is no turning me away. This will be the retirement I always deserved and never got. I stepped away with no fanfare then used that popularity to sell books. Meanwhile my greatest rival is dead, my best friend walked away and is happy with his life, and so few people who even knew my name in the original XHF are still around. No this match deserves a classic DT moment … without all the shit that bored everyone out of their skulls or made people run away from the DT promo. And for that … we need a change of scenery.
*He hops in his car and drives away*
*Cut to the gorilla position inside the O’Keefe Sporting Complex in Salem, MA where End of Days Prelude: Witching Hour will be happening. There we zoom out and see DT standing in his interview position in his classic black tights with gold barbed wire around the thighs, DT in silver and red on the right, a stack of skulls on the left. A black shirt … emblazoned with his interlocked DT in yellow and red with the Italian Flag in miniature on the T and the Mariners compass faded into the background behind it. On his head? His signature Bowler’s hat. We zoom out more to see a man with a microphone holding it to DT’s face. He brings it down and it zooms out and we see XHF NUMBA ONE ANNOUNCA FUNAKI!*
: XHF Network NUMBA ONE ANNOUNCA Funaki here with Death Trap, Funaki’s good friend and returning legend. DT what made you come back?
: Honestly I started palling around with the Guns and somehow ended up in a few matches there when I really shouldn’t have been. I’m pretty sure Nelly Angel punched me in the dick … always knew he was a hashtag heel. And then I looked up and I was booked in a match nobody asked me about. I mean I’m pretty sure that all five guys in the match were booked against their will … Nelly and Curtis moreso than the others … *he winks at the camera* but then I thought about it. And I had a moment of zen man. I saw a chance to get one more effort under my belt for serious. One last ride. Put simply this is my riding off into the sunset Funaki. After this match … I will never wrestle again.
: What??? You retiring?
: Hell Funaki, you and GD and Dagger have been retired for so long and you are happy. Mostly. Except when I drag you out of retirement against YOUR will and make you interview me. This is coming from the heart. I can’t be Death Trap anymore. I have one more gasp in me but life has changed. The world has moved on. And there is no place for a guy like me in the business. I’m a straight laced, baby face, technical wrestler in an era of super soldiers and gaijin kingdoms and … presidential salsas. Look there is a style I have no matter if I’m playing the good or the bad and I can’t keep it up. The world itself has changed. My outlook has changed. And it’s time to move on. I needed one more showcase to put my true self out there and let this all off my chest. One moment of clarity and sanity and this match was the only way to FORCE a promo out of myself where I could speak to the XHF, it’s wrestlers, it’s showrunners, everyone and just say Thank you. For 15 years of my life I have been here and it’s been a second home. Enough so that I came back and did way more than anyone ever asked or I ever signed up for. And I enjoyed myself. I had fun. But it’s time to stop playing a character, stop being a joke. And take my legacy seriously one last time. In one more epic showcase of Death Trap at his best. Making suckers tap out, kicking mofo’s in the head. Hell it’s not even about winning. It used to be all about winning and that’s why if you look back at my archives I always seem so high strung and angry. Even when I was on top I was so cocky. I thought the titles and win-loss records were the point. But it was always about the people, the camaraderie. That is why I am still here. And that is why some part of me, maybe the voices in my head, will remain when I am gone. But I am not the man the XHF needs at the top. Or at the bottom. Guys like Venom, Mueller, Kanyon … they endure because they are their own personalities. They are organic and honest about who they are. I never was. And I refuse to simply play a blank slate anymore. This place needs defined champions. Guys like Hyperion, Jackson Steele, Bobby Barratt, Kira Izumi, Danny Ray. Young blood with heart and talent like Maverick, Dreadvan, Seth Dillinger, Chris Card, or the Nihilists.
: Funaki understand. So this whole legend showcase. You be in it … just for this promo here? And you need people to fight to justify you coming here. And now four other men forced into fight with you … to … showcase new match type and be your big send off? Isn’t that selfish?
: Abso-fucking-lutely! But in the end I felt the ends justify the means … just this once. Giving these new guys a show with five seasoned veterans to show the people just what he XHF Network is capable of …that’s not such a selfish attitude. To showcase the work the match organizers and bookers of ALL the feds here do … it’s not PURELY selfish. In the end I think the product people see Sunday will be honest and raw. And it will make them want more. And it will inspire them to keep going with fire. It will pump up the guys in AXW, AWF, SSS, RSW and all the rest. It will give them that extra entertainment that they didn’t have to be part of and reward them for their hard work. And it will give them one last look at the former champion, one of the best of all time in XHF (in my biased opinion) in a true DT match. One where I can unload all the tricks and show just what made me great. And in my own way, repay the XHF community for all the love and friendship it has given me over 15 years. I don’t know how much time the voices in my head will be around so I better act while I have a drive to do so. It’s time to dust off the fingerless gloves, straighten my bowler hat, get in the ring, and see if I can still run a show the way I used to. Command the crowd, dictate the pace, and come out on top. And it won’t be easy.
: So your foes? What about Kris Quake?
: Underrated tag team star. The man is good I will give him that. You can see the heart in that guy. Hopefully he is sober and ready to go one more match. Michael Storm … you showed me a lot about what someone in my condition can do. I regret that in your greatest moment, one well earned after all this time, that you didn’t get to see the victory through in the end. But … if you wake up for this match? Maybe we all get to see one more fantastic showing. And if not? Maybe I’ll kick Randy Angel’s head off for you just this once.
: What about my rival Announca Nelly!?
: Just because I have you do my personal interviews Funaki doesn’t mean I don’t respect Nelly. Honestly the guy deserves credit. He was just an announcer and look at the wrestling career he’s had. Hell he held titles in THREE XHF Network feds. Not even Jackson Steele has done that. The kid can fly and it’s good to see him getting the respect he deserves for his achievements. He is a legend. And he deserves to know it. As for Kanyon. Well he’s the one who speaks for himself isn’t he? I would love one more fight with Chris … ya know he never beat me right? None betta than DT … but I guess he can watch the show his bro and I will be putting on and have a good laugh about it … How Curtis became president … I really don’t understand … it hurts the brain to think about it. But the man is in the best shape of his career and he wants to win and get that X*Crown title back. I feel bad he got forced into this but the fans deserve a Kanyon in this match. It’s a showcase of everything XHF has to offer and he is one of the best. And that’s that Funaki. No gloating, no showboating about how I’m gonna wreck them or whatever. I said what I needed to. The rest? Will be decided in the spotlights … on Sunday. Thanks buddy.
*We fade out*
: Oh boy I just love grocery day. It really gives me time to think. Think about things like where to get the best screwdrivers, how to reach the employee lounge, what IS hummus? Such a calming activity. It really does well to quiet the voices … in my head. Ya know it’s funny when I look back on things and think about my heyday like it was just yesterday. But hey I haven’t been XHF Champ in like … at least a week now.*he laughs and starts walking to the classic blue corvette in the back of the lot with no other cars around, ignoring the camera. Talking to himself.*
: It’s weird. I have to say looking back I feel odd about it all. Like I wasn’t really myself. Like I didn’t understand this whole wrestler thing. I was talented yes, but the archives make me look like a petulant teenager who is still learning the English Language. I felt so often like a tool for someone else. Like my personality and disposition towards the fans and other wrestlers was someone else talking in my head, telling me to be angry. Telling me to beat up Mongo Corp. Who to work with, who to rail against. I dunno I felt like … like a non-player character in my own life. But I’m free to do … anything now.*He holds out his arms to the sky*
: The voices haven’t been around. I feel like I can be my own well-developed self. Like an adult with a fully formed personality. Like someone else would have to pretend to be ME to see what I’m going to say rather than me spewing bile out of some angry teenager who has been miffed at having 8 guys pin him at once or some shit. But that’s all silly and my doctors say it’s a side effect of the concussions and the role playing … the therapy they have me doing.*He points at a squirrel*
: So YOU can’t judge me anymore.*He points at a guy named Al, a worker with a nametag saying Randy, and a group of administrators to the store*
: You all … think of me as some comedy act, some washed up guy. But you all see a legend. But I am far from a legend in my own eyes. I am nothing. I am broken. If the doctors declared me sane I still wouldn’t be the same DT who was X*Crown Champion, XHF Champion, European Champion, Phoenix Champion, ECF Champion … I’m someone new. Someone with a lot of age and world experience on me. Someone who has a new outlook on life.*He spins to the camera*
: Someone … who just maybe … had a little sense knocked into him and has one more bit of clarity in him.*He drops the ruse and pushes the cart to his car*
: This schtick … this isn’t the same type of DT promo you all in the XHF classic era are used to seeing. I can’t in good faith be the guy who spouts catch phrases and lives life by whatever nickname he has at the moment. Master of Puppets … stolen from a music album I liked. Main Attraction, stolen from a man I was very bitter towards and wanted to upend. Submission master, angry at the man who I couldn’t beat. No what I am … is David. I am Death Trap. I am … me. And I see clearly now. I am not defined by my friends or previous exploits. Just this once I am talking from the heart, not out to woo or curse the fans, not out to speak a novel length promo to sound like Reeshi or Rage. I am done taking bits of everyone else and loading them into myself. When I first came to the XHF Network it was on a Dark Ages special, showing how I had declined due to my in ring career and all the head shots. I had trouble remembering and it only got worse. And then I ended up at dinner with Jeffrey Viper. There might be a decent man behind all the bluster on the video promos … but what he really did was set my mind straight. And seeing what Michael Storm has accomplished, being so much farther gone than I ever was … seeing that there was still a competent man and a good wrestler in there … it cleared away the fog.*He loads his groceries as he talks*
: And now here I am with one more match in the tank. One more chance to be the guy I wanted to be. One more chance to be the guy I was away from XHF. I am not going to waste this opportunity with grocery shopping and hardware stores. I am not going to take this chance and spend my allotted time talking to a bear or playing in the gym with Venom, Mueller, and 85% of Magnus. No I’ve said my piece. I’ve made my point about the state of my mind and the risk I am taking. I am laser focused and there is no turning me away. This will be the retirement I always deserved and never got. I stepped away with no fanfare then used that popularity to sell books. Meanwhile my greatest rival is dead, my best friend walked away and is happy with his life, and so few people who even knew my name in the original XHF are still around. No this match deserves a classic DT moment … without all the shit that bored everyone out of their skulls or made people run away from the DT promo. And for that … we need a change of scenery.*He hops in his car and drives away*
*Cut to the gorilla position inside the O’Keefe Sporting Complex in Salem, MA where End of Days Prelude: Witching Hour will be happening. There we zoom out and see DT standing in his interview position in his classic black tights with gold barbed wire around the thighs, DT in silver and red on the right, a stack of skulls on the left. A black shirt … emblazoned with his interlocked DT in yellow and red with the Italian Flag in miniature on the T and the Mariners compass faded into the background behind it. On his head? His signature Bowler’s hat. We zoom out more to see a man with a microphone holding it to DT’s face. He brings it down and it zooms out and we see XHF NUMBA ONE ANNOUNCA FUNAKI!*
: XHF Network NUMBA ONE ANNOUNCA Funaki here with Death Trap, Funaki’s good friend and returning legend. DT what made you come back?: Honestly I started palling around with the Guns and somehow ended up in a few matches there when I really shouldn’t have been. I’m pretty sure Nelly Angel punched me in the dick … always knew he was a hashtag heel. And then I looked up and I was booked in a match nobody asked me about. I mean I’m pretty sure that all five guys in the match were booked against their will … Nelly and Curtis moreso than the others … *he winks at the camera* but then I thought about it. And I had a moment of zen man. I saw a chance to get one more effort under my belt for serious. One last ride. Put simply this is my riding off into the sunset Funaki. After this match … I will never wrestle again.: What??? You retiring?: Hell Funaki, you and GD and Dagger have been retired for so long and you are happy. Mostly. Except when I drag you out of retirement against YOUR will and make you interview me. This is coming from the heart. I can’t be Death Trap anymore. I have one more gasp in me but life has changed. The world has moved on. And there is no place for a guy like me in the business. I’m a straight laced, baby face, technical wrestler in an era of super soldiers and gaijin kingdoms and … presidential salsas. Look there is a style I have no matter if I’m playing the good or the bad and I can’t keep it up. The world itself has changed. My outlook has changed. And it’s time to move on. I needed one more showcase to put my true self out there and let this all off my chest. One moment of clarity and sanity and this match was the only way to FORCE a promo out of myself where I could speak to the XHF, it’s wrestlers, it’s showrunners, everyone and just say Thank you. For 15 years of my life I have been here and it’s been a second home. Enough so that I came back and did way more than anyone ever asked or I ever signed up for. And I enjoyed myself. I had fun. But it’s time to stop playing a character, stop being a joke. And take my legacy seriously one last time. In one more epic showcase of Death Trap at his best. Making suckers tap out, kicking mofo’s in the head. Hell it’s not even about winning. It used to be all about winning and that’s why if you look back at my archives I always seem so high strung and angry. Even when I was on top I was so cocky. I thought the titles and win-loss records were the point. But it was always about the people, the camaraderie. That is why I am still here. And that is why some part of me, maybe the voices in my head, will remain when I am gone. But I am not the man the XHF needs at the top. Or at the bottom. Guys like Venom, Mueller, Kanyon … they endure because they are their own personalities. They are organic and honest about who they are. I never was. And I refuse to simply play a blank slate anymore. This place needs defined champions. Guys like Hyperion, Jackson Steele, Bobby Barratt, Kira Izumi, Danny Ray. Young blood with heart and talent like Maverick, Dreadvan, Seth Dillinger, Chris Card, or the Nihilists.: Funaki understand. So this whole legend showcase. You be in it … just for this promo here? And you need people to fight to justify you coming here. And now four other men forced into fight with you … to … showcase new match type and be your big send off? Isn’t that selfish?: Abso-fucking-lutely! But in the end I felt the ends justify the means … just this once. Giving these new guys a show with five seasoned veterans to show the people just what he XHF Network is capable of …that’s not such a selfish attitude. To showcase the work the match organizers and bookers of ALL the feds here do … it’s not PURELY selfish. In the end I think the product people see Sunday will be honest and raw. And it will make them want more. And it will inspire them to keep going with fire. It will pump up the guys in AXW, AWF, SSS, RSW and all the rest. It will give them that extra entertainment that they didn’t have to be part of and reward them for their hard work. And it will give them one last look at the former champion, one of the best of all time in XHF (in my biased opinion) in a true DT match. One where I can unload all the tricks and show just what made me great. And in my own way, repay the XHF community for all the love and friendship it has given me over 15 years. I don’t know how much time the voices in my head will be around so I better act while I have a drive to do so. It’s time to dust off the fingerless gloves, straighten my bowler hat, get in the ring, and see if I can still run a show the way I used to. Command the crowd, dictate the pace, and come out on top. And it won’t be easy.: So your foes? What about Kris Quake?: Underrated tag team star. The man is good I will give him that. You can see the heart in that guy. Hopefully he is sober and ready to go one more match. Michael Storm … you showed me a lot about what someone in my condition can do. I regret that in your greatest moment, one well earned after all this time, that you didn’t get to see the victory through in the end. But … if you wake up for this match? Maybe we all get to see one more fantastic showing. And if not? Maybe I’ll kick Randy Angel’s head off for you just this once.: What about my rival Announca Nelly!?: Just because I have you do my personal interviews Funaki doesn’t mean I don’t respect Nelly. Honestly the guy deserves credit. He was just an announcer and look at the wrestling career he’s had. Hell he held titles in THREE XHF Network feds. Not even Jackson Steele has done that. The kid can fly and it’s good to see him getting the respect he deserves for his achievements. He is a legend. And he deserves to know it. As for Kanyon. Well he’s the one who speaks for himself isn’t he? I would love one more fight with Chris … ya know he never beat me right? None betta than DT … but I guess he can watch the show his bro and I will be putting on and have a good laugh about it … How Curtis became president … I really don’t understand … it hurts the brain to think about it. But the man is in the best shape of his career and he wants to win and get that X*Crown title back. I feel bad he got forced into this but the fans deserve a Kanyon in this match. It’s a showcase of everything XHF has to offer and he is one of the best. And that’s that Funaki. No gloating, no showboating about how I’m gonna wreck them or whatever. I said what I needed to. The rest? Will be decided in the spotlights … on Sunday. Thanks buddy.*We fade out*
