Post by Thaddeus Duke on Jun 18, 2023 12:49:34 GMT -5
Summer of 2021. I had a vision. A vision for my former promotion, OCW. Keep it small. Keep it exclusive. Keep it intimate.
And, it worked. So much so that I was able to go out and hand-pick any wrestler I desired.
That wrestler was Thaddeus Duke. He made me court him a bit but we both knew when I initially approached that a deal would get done.
He made his debut in OCW and won the Savage Championship shortly thereafter. He was my next star. The next face of OCW.
Only he wasn’t. He took a leave from the company, promising to return. Shortly after his departure, I lost my patience with the now inflated roster, inflation that seemed to begin with his arrival and I initiated the Great Purge.
I suffered via the Purge. The OCW roster suffered due to the Purge. And, obviously, the purged suffered from The Purge.
“But not Thad,” Leo’s voice breaks in. We come to our wits and realize we’re hearing Welsh speak these thoughts aloud inside a private jet, escorting them to a specific location.
Welsh’s hand cups a Gin and Tonic while his thumb slides across the rim, “Nope. Not Thad.”
Spring 2022. We’re lost on some deserted island. Captured by natives. Our lives teetering on the edge of extinction.
I turn to the one person I know capable of rescuing us. I turn to Thaddeus Duke. The infamous Golden Phone.
He answered. He swooped down just in time to save every single member of the OCW roster from the very worst of fates. But, in doing so, he acquired majority ownership of OCW.
Sure, I’d have preferred to keep my share in the company. But, I’m not an idiot. He did us the biggest favor you could ever ask of someone so he earned what he received. I was deadset on being a team player. Plus I hoped that maybe the initial hype and promise from his 2021 debut would come to fruition. The chosen one would finally ascend to his proper place at the top of OCW.
Sadly, a group of wrestlers backstage poisoned the well, so to speak. They did their best to convince the roster that Thad was poison, even though he saved all of their lives. I went to bat for Thad and Sahara.
Damage was done, sadly. The very same outcasts that had been accepted with opened arms into OCW sought to reject the arrival of Thad, as well as a few other new names. Hypocrisy is never in short supply in the wrestling business.
The plan was always for Thad to return to the ring. That never happened because the backstage politicking became too much of a headache. A headache he never deserved.
So, he left. Soon after OCW would once again suffer. I’d suffer. The wrestlers would suffer. Everyone affiliated with the fed would suffer.
“But not Thad,” Leo again jumps in.
Welsh takes a sip, “Nope. Not Thad.”
And now here we are. Nearly two years since I first recruited him to join OCW. I’ve got a new venture. I’m helping lead the expedition for The Triad.
Lo and behold, who wants to join? You guessed it, Thad. I shouldn’t be surprised, something like this sounds like the very thing he’s built for.
He’s already enlisted and now he wants to meet with me. What do I do? Do I hold a grudge? Do I completely forget the past?
It’s hard to do either if we’re being fair. So I’ll settle for a mixture of both. I can’t forget everything he’s done nor can I forgive everything he hasn’t. All I can do is guess what the future holds.
We’re thrust in a unique situation. He’s no longer my boss. I’m no longer his. We’d, potentially, be working in tandem to acquire this mythical piece of power. A level playing field, so to speak.
Is this how it was always meant to be? One person leads, then the other until both realize they just need to walk together.
This is The Triad. So maybe third time’s a charm.
We’ve landed. I can see his yacht off in the distance. It’s as ostentatious as his personality. I’d be jealous if I weren’t excited at the prospect of spending a day out at sea on that marvelous creation.
Soon we’re off the jet and standing next to the yacht that somehow went from looking giant to fucking gargantuan. I look around and it appears everyone’s here.
“But not Thad,” Leo observes, disappointed his favorite pro wrestler has yet to emerge.
I sigh and can’t help but to wonder if he isn’t playing mind games with me. But I decide to think positive thoughts rather than allowing my cynical nature to wrangle the worst-case scenario, so I respond, through a half-genuine smile, “Nope. Not Thad.”
It had to happen. Marcus and I go way too far back. Maybe not as far as most, but our history has always been pockmarked with turbulence. I don’t think he’s a bad guy, but the business world is pretty cutthroat. He’s cunning and conniving because of it… and likely has a touch of paranoia. Not that I can blame him. He and I hail from different backgrounds but there’s definitely some paranoia, some cunning, some conniving in my world too.
Welsh and I… we’ve never been on the same side. In a manner of speaking, I pretty much stole his last promotion from him and I think, after all this time, I owe him an explanation as to why.
Making my way up the long pier, on the Atlantic coast of Florida, the great ship looms ahead. The 700 foot super yacht that I call ‘Tranquility.’ The open air, with nothing but the wind and the waves has long been a bit of a sanctuary to me. When life gets tough, I’ve always found some solace aboard this ship.
Ahead of me, two figures stand on the pier with their backs to me. One scrawny, one… you know, regular sized.
“Leo!” I called out. Just as the intern starts to turn, I wrapped him up in a bearhug from behind before setting him down again. Marcus scowls a little at the warm rapport Leo and I have, but we always have had it.
“Thaddy!” Leo says as he extends his hands in an attempt at a bro hug.
Giving him what he was after, I turned my attention to Marcus.
“Well Marcus… Tranquility awaits,” I said to him before Leo and I continue toward the ship.
Once on board, the long, throaty maritime horn cries out signaling our departure. Tranquility isn’t a small boat and she needs to be towed out to deeper waters. After a few minutes with her engines running and the propellers churning beneath the waves, Tranquility is left alone by the tuggers as we set sail. It was my first true sail of the season and I’m equally surprised and disappointed that I’m spending it with Marcus Welsh.
I stood standing along the port side railing on the bow, letting the ocean breeze wash over me. Tranquility isn’t just a name, out here, it’s also a way of life. While the crew works to hastily put away the tow ropes, Welsh approaches me.
“What d’ya think man?” I asked my former employer then employee.
“It’s really a work of art,” he answered. I could tell he had something on his mind.
“I don’t mean the boat, man,” I said as I left the railing and made my way toward some deck chairs. Waiters are on hand to serve us drinks as we sail away from the godforsaken swamp that is Florida.
“I think this is a…”
“Good opportunity to clear the air,” I interrupted.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“Look, we’ve never been friends,” I began. “Likely we never will be, but I feel like I owe you an explanation as to why I did what I did in taking OCW away from you.”
“I’d be glad to hear it,” he said as he adjusted his chair and sipped his drink.
“Wait Thad,” Leo chimes in as he pauses his running around the deck like an excited seven year old at Christmas. “They told me you got a pool on board. That true?”
Built into the table beside me is a small control panel that controls a number of things. With a few selections, the wood floor in front of us lowers, then opens and tucks inside revealing an olympic sized swimming pool.
“Have at it bro,” I said to Leo before returning my attention to Marcus. “I loved OCW. I left the only professional home I ever knew to put a brand new place on my back. To put your company on the fuckin’ map.
“Yeah it was unfortunate that I needed to take time off. Then weeks later, you squandered everything that I put my reputation on the line to help you build.”
“I get that, but…”
“Let me finish,” I snapped. “You purged nearly the entire roster and I get that OCW exploding the way it was, was overwhelming. I know there’s a lot of big ego’s in this business. Hell, if you ain’t got an ego in this business, you ain’t in it for long.
“Fact is, I put the wheels in motion to take OCW from you. To save it from your own incompetence and dude, I know that sounds like an insult. But you lost the vision you had when you signed me. You took a thriving OCW and dwindled it down to all your best ass kissers and maybe a few new ones along the way.
“Then I heard you were taking Strader money to pay for the legal fees from all those contract breaches. I’ll tell you that I have nothing personal against any of the Strader’s. But professionally, those people are a fucking cancer. They kill everything they touch and I’ll be damned if I was gonna let them kill OCW.
“I waited for the right time,” I paused to take a sip of my Vodka and cranberry. “By the time I got to act… I didn’t know it. You didn’t either, but the well was already poisoned.
“You know me well enough that I don’t do politics and I don’t do ass kissing,” I continued on. “I saved all their lives and truth be told, I was sending that plane whether you made the call or not. Why do you think it was there so quickly?
“I’m not sayin’ I was perfect,” I paused for a moment as I reflected on last year. “I came in as the owner wanting to work with all of them. I wanted to groom new stars. I wanted the OCW mainstays to continue to up their game. I wanted OCW to thrive again like it did when I first signed.
“I never asked for a thank you. I never asked for anything, but it would’ve been nice if even one man or woman on that roster said ‘you know, I’mma give that guy a chance.’
“They didn’t. They couldn’t. Because Strader was a poison pill and you sealed OCW’s fate the moment you accepted a dime from ‘em.
“It was all futile,” I paused once more. “I could not succeed in my efforts because Strader wouldn’t allow it. In her perverted, twisted, deranged little mind, I was the enemy sent to bury OCW.
“I grew tired of the bullshit. Taking heat from this guy and that for no other reason than I showed up to work that day. I can take the heat if I deserve it Marcus. But I didn’t deserve it. All I wanted was to make OCW the place everyone wanted to be… again.
“In business, you know as well as I do that you gotta know when to pull the plug on a bad deal,” I paused to gauge his stoic reaction. “I woke up one day in October or November or whenever the hell it was and decided enough was enough. OCW was too far gone to be saved so I sold out. Low and behold, some time later, everything I thought about Strader was proven right. She owned it for two months and now OCW is closed.
“Contrary to certain peoples opinions, I did not celebrate the demise of OCW. I mourned it. I even made a last ditch effort to work with Strader to try and save it. Those calls went unreturned.”
While Leo splashed around in the pool, Marcus and I sat quietly for a few minutes. I couldn’t begin to imagine what was going through his mind, but it felt good to finally get the truth of it all off of my chest. Regardless of what people think, I truly did love OCW. Mistakes were made on my part too, I’ll never deny that. Even still, when you’re branded the villain by the perceived heart and soul of a company, it’s an uphill fight from the word go. I am many things. I can be hard headed. I’m supremely confident. I’m a little arrogant, I’m a bit narcissistic. I certainly have an ego. I’m loved by many and hated by some. But I’ve never sucked my own dick hard enough to put myself in the hall of fame the moment I took control of a company.
To be honest, what that did is prove everything I thought, everything I talked about privately and publicly… was true. Sometimes it’s a hell of a burden being this right.
“I told you your mistakes,” I cut through the silence like a knife. “The biggest mistake I made was letting you talk me out of firing those fucking cunts the day I took over. All that ‘bad roster morale’ and ‘she’s the locker room leader’ horse shit… that was manufactured. They were driving down the morale on purpose.
“Like I said. Cancer.”
That’s a whole lot to digest. Thad is sure to give Welsh all the time he needs to process and respond. Marcus squints his eyes, the water magnifying its presence. He looks down and watches Leo swim…or try to, wondering if someone might need to dive in there and save him from drowning at some point.
He then looks back at Thad. Thad raises an eyebrow. He’s given him ample time.
“Truthfully, I can’t argue a word you’ve said. Hindsight brings 20/20 vision and it’s easy for me to look back and identify the mistakes that were made. To look at these hands and see that they aren’t devoid of blood.”
Welsh leans back in his chair, staring up. One different decision here. One alternate take there and the entire situation these two men find themselves in could very well be completely different. The initial dream might have actually reached maturity. Alas, that’s not how life works.
“Fuck it,” he sits up, suppressing the temporary bout with vulnerability. “We’re here now, aren’t we? We’re alive and we’ve got another shot to make this thing work. Different banner. Different prize. But the goal is the same. Work together to own the wrestling world.”
And, it worked. So much so that I was able to go out and hand-pick any wrestler I desired.
That wrestler was Thaddeus Duke. He made me court him a bit but we both knew when I initially approached that a deal would get done.
He made his debut in OCW and won the Savage Championship shortly thereafter. He was my next star. The next face of OCW.
Only he wasn’t. He took a leave from the company, promising to return. Shortly after his departure, I lost my patience with the now inflated roster, inflation that seemed to begin with his arrival and I initiated the Great Purge.
I suffered via the Purge. The OCW roster suffered due to the Purge. And, obviously, the purged suffered from The Purge.
“But not Thad,” Leo’s voice breaks in. We come to our wits and realize we’re hearing Welsh speak these thoughts aloud inside a private jet, escorting them to a specific location.
Welsh’s hand cups a Gin and Tonic while his thumb slides across the rim, “Nope. Not Thad.”
Spring 2022. We’re lost on some deserted island. Captured by natives. Our lives teetering on the edge of extinction.
I turn to the one person I know capable of rescuing us. I turn to Thaddeus Duke. The infamous Golden Phone.
He answered. He swooped down just in time to save every single member of the OCW roster from the very worst of fates. But, in doing so, he acquired majority ownership of OCW.
Sure, I’d have preferred to keep my share in the company. But, I’m not an idiot. He did us the biggest favor you could ever ask of someone so he earned what he received. I was deadset on being a team player. Plus I hoped that maybe the initial hype and promise from his 2021 debut would come to fruition. The chosen one would finally ascend to his proper place at the top of OCW.
Sadly, a group of wrestlers backstage poisoned the well, so to speak. They did their best to convince the roster that Thad was poison, even though he saved all of their lives. I went to bat for Thad and Sahara.
Damage was done, sadly. The very same outcasts that had been accepted with opened arms into OCW sought to reject the arrival of Thad, as well as a few other new names. Hypocrisy is never in short supply in the wrestling business.
The plan was always for Thad to return to the ring. That never happened because the backstage politicking became too much of a headache. A headache he never deserved.
So, he left. Soon after OCW would once again suffer. I’d suffer. The wrestlers would suffer. Everyone affiliated with the fed would suffer.
“But not Thad,” Leo again jumps in.
Welsh takes a sip, “Nope. Not Thad.”
And now here we are. Nearly two years since I first recruited him to join OCW. I’ve got a new venture. I’m helping lead the expedition for The Triad.
Lo and behold, who wants to join? You guessed it, Thad. I shouldn’t be surprised, something like this sounds like the very thing he’s built for.
He’s already enlisted and now he wants to meet with me. What do I do? Do I hold a grudge? Do I completely forget the past?
It’s hard to do either if we’re being fair. So I’ll settle for a mixture of both. I can’t forget everything he’s done nor can I forgive everything he hasn’t. All I can do is guess what the future holds.
We’re thrust in a unique situation. He’s no longer my boss. I’m no longer his. We’d, potentially, be working in tandem to acquire this mythical piece of power. A level playing field, so to speak.
Is this how it was always meant to be? One person leads, then the other until both realize they just need to walk together.
This is The Triad. So maybe third time’s a charm.
We’ve landed. I can see his yacht off in the distance. It’s as ostentatious as his personality. I’d be jealous if I weren’t excited at the prospect of spending a day out at sea on that marvelous creation.
Soon we’re off the jet and standing next to the yacht that somehow went from looking giant to fucking gargantuan. I look around and it appears everyone’s here.
“But not Thad,” Leo observes, disappointed his favorite pro wrestler has yet to emerge.
I sigh and can’t help but to wonder if he isn’t playing mind games with me. But I decide to think positive thoughts rather than allowing my cynical nature to wrangle the worst-case scenario, so I respond, through a half-genuine smile, “Nope. Not Thad.”
It had to happen. Marcus and I go way too far back. Maybe not as far as most, but our history has always been pockmarked with turbulence. I don’t think he’s a bad guy, but the business world is pretty cutthroat. He’s cunning and conniving because of it… and likely has a touch of paranoia. Not that I can blame him. He and I hail from different backgrounds but there’s definitely some paranoia, some cunning, some conniving in my world too.
Welsh and I… we’ve never been on the same side. In a manner of speaking, I pretty much stole his last promotion from him and I think, after all this time, I owe him an explanation as to why.
Making my way up the long pier, on the Atlantic coast of Florida, the great ship looms ahead. The 700 foot super yacht that I call ‘Tranquility.’ The open air, with nothing but the wind and the waves has long been a bit of a sanctuary to me. When life gets tough, I’ve always found some solace aboard this ship.
Ahead of me, two figures stand on the pier with their backs to me. One scrawny, one… you know, regular sized.
“Leo!” I called out. Just as the intern starts to turn, I wrapped him up in a bearhug from behind before setting him down again. Marcus scowls a little at the warm rapport Leo and I have, but we always have had it.
“Thaddy!” Leo says as he extends his hands in an attempt at a bro hug.
Giving him what he was after, I turned my attention to Marcus.
“Well Marcus… Tranquility awaits,” I said to him before Leo and I continue toward the ship.
Once on board, the long, throaty maritime horn cries out signaling our departure. Tranquility isn’t a small boat and she needs to be towed out to deeper waters. After a few minutes with her engines running and the propellers churning beneath the waves, Tranquility is left alone by the tuggers as we set sail. It was my first true sail of the season and I’m equally surprised and disappointed that I’m spending it with Marcus Welsh.
I stood standing along the port side railing on the bow, letting the ocean breeze wash over me. Tranquility isn’t just a name, out here, it’s also a way of life. While the crew works to hastily put away the tow ropes, Welsh approaches me.
“What d’ya think man?” I asked my former employer then employee.
“It’s really a work of art,” he answered. I could tell he had something on his mind.
“I don’t mean the boat, man,” I said as I left the railing and made my way toward some deck chairs. Waiters are on hand to serve us drinks as we sail away from the godforsaken swamp that is Florida.
“I think this is a…”
“Good opportunity to clear the air,” I interrupted.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“Look, we’ve never been friends,” I began. “Likely we never will be, but I feel like I owe you an explanation as to why I did what I did in taking OCW away from you.”
“I’d be glad to hear it,” he said as he adjusted his chair and sipped his drink.
“Wait Thad,” Leo chimes in as he pauses his running around the deck like an excited seven year old at Christmas. “They told me you got a pool on board. That true?”
Built into the table beside me is a small control panel that controls a number of things. With a few selections, the wood floor in front of us lowers, then opens and tucks inside revealing an olympic sized swimming pool.
“Have at it bro,” I said to Leo before returning my attention to Marcus. “I loved OCW. I left the only professional home I ever knew to put a brand new place on my back. To put your company on the fuckin’ map.
“Yeah it was unfortunate that I needed to take time off. Then weeks later, you squandered everything that I put my reputation on the line to help you build.”
“I get that, but…”
“Let me finish,” I snapped. “You purged nearly the entire roster and I get that OCW exploding the way it was, was overwhelming. I know there’s a lot of big ego’s in this business. Hell, if you ain’t got an ego in this business, you ain’t in it for long.
“Fact is, I put the wheels in motion to take OCW from you. To save it from your own incompetence and dude, I know that sounds like an insult. But you lost the vision you had when you signed me. You took a thriving OCW and dwindled it down to all your best ass kissers and maybe a few new ones along the way.
“Then I heard you were taking Strader money to pay for the legal fees from all those contract breaches. I’ll tell you that I have nothing personal against any of the Strader’s. But professionally, those people are a fucking cancer. They kill everything they touch and I’ll be damned if I was gonna let them kill OCW.
“I waited for the right time,” I paused to take a sip of my Vodka and cranberry. “By the time I got to act… I didn’t know it. You didn’t either, but the well was already poisoned.
“You know me well enough that I don’t do politics and I don’t do ass kissing,” I continued on. “I saved all their lives and truth be told, I was sending that plane whether you made the call or not. Why do you think it was there so quickly?
“I’m not sayin’ I was perfect,” I paused for a moment as I reflected on last year. “I came in as the owner wanting to work with all of them. I wanted to groom new stars. I wanted the OCW mainstays to continue to up their game. I wanted OCW to thrive again like it did when I first signed.
“I never asked for a thank you. I never asked for anything, but it would’ve been nice if even one man or woman on that roster said ‘you know, I’mma give that guy a chance.’
“They didn’t. They couldn’t. Because Strader was a poison pill and you sealed OCW’s fate the moment you accepted a dime from ‘em.
“It was all futile,” I paused once more. “I could not succeed in my efforts because Strader wouldn’t allow it. In her perverted, twisted, deranged little mind, I was the enemy sent to bury OCW.
“I grew tired of the bullshit. Taking heat from this guy and that for no other reason than I showed up to work that day. I can take the heat if I deserve it Marcus. But I didn’t deserve it. All I wanted was to make OCW the place everyone wanted to be… again.
“In business, you know as well as I do that you gotta know when to pull the plug on a bad deal,” I paused to gauge his stoic reaction. “I woke up one day in October or November or whenever the hell it was and decided enough was enough. OCW was too far gone to be saved so I sold out. Low and behold, some time later, everything I thought about Strader was proven right. She owned it for two months and now OCW is closed.
“Contrary to certain peoples opinions, I did not celebrate the demise of OCW. I mourned it. I even made a last ditch effort to work with Strader to try and save it. Those calls went unreturned.”
While Leo splashed around in the pool, Marcus and I sat quietly for a few minutes. I couldn’t begin to imagine what was going through his mind, but it felt good to finally get the truth of it all off of my chest. Regardless of what people think, I truly did love OCW. Mistakes were made on my part too, I’ll never deny that. Even still, when you’re branded the villain by the perceived heart and soul of a company, it’s an uphill fight from the word go. I am many things. I can be hard headed. I’m supremely confident. I’m a little arrogant, I’m a bit narcissistic. I certainly have an ego. I’m loved by many and hated by some. But I’ve never sucked my own dick hard enough to put myself in the hall of fame the moment I took control of a company.
To be honest, what that did is prove everything I thought, everything I talked about privately and publicly… was true. Sometimes it’s a hell of a burden being this right.
“I told you your mistakes,” I cut through the silence like a knife. “The biggest mistake I made was letting you talk me out of firing those fucking cunts the day I took over. All that ‘bad roster morale’ and ‘she’s the locker room leader’ horse shit… that was manufactured. They were driving down the morale on purpose.
“Like I said. Cancer.”
That’s a whole lot to digest. Thad is sure to give Welsh all the time he needs to process and respond. Marcus squints his eyes, the water magnifying its presence. He looks down and watches Leo swim…or try to, wondering if someone might need to dive in there and save him from drowning at some point.
He then looks back at Thad. Thad raises an eyebrow. He’s given him ample time.
“Truthfully, I can’t argue a word you’ve said. Hindsight brings 20/20 vision and it’s easy for me to look back and identify the mistakes that were made. To look at these hands and see that they aren’t devoid of blood.”
Welsh leans back in his chair, staring up. One different decision here. One alternate take there and the entire situation these two men find themselves in could very well be completely different. The initial dream might have actually reached maturity. Alas, that’s not how life works.
“Fuck it,” he sits up, suppressing the temporary bout with vulnerability. “We’re here now, aren’t we? We’re alive and we’ve got another shot to make this thing work. Different banner. Different prize. But the goal is the same. Work together to own the wrestling world.”