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We are outside the dingy two-storey "apartment" complex that our Champion, Jamie Krenshaw, has called home for nearly a year. It's a rundown, tacky-looking venue. The kind of place you could see being used as a motel for hookers. It's far less than the Virtuoso of Violence deserves but it is what he's become accustomed to. This is his life for now. For a few seconds we are left with this establishing shot, taking it in, feeling intense sympathy for our hard-living hero. Well you can stop right now. Jamie Krenshaw doesn't need your sympathy.
JAMIE: Let me show you something.
Stepping into view, dressed casually in torn jeans and a "Melvins" T-shirt is Australia's Greatest Export, Jamie Krenshaw. JK leans to the camera and indicates for it to follow him. The man behind the lens obediently obliges, tracking Krenshaw as he walks closer to the building.
JAMIE: You know, I couldn't help but laugh while watching Saber's latest promotional piece. And no, it wasn't his ridiculous southern drawl or his olympic level point-missing. No, it was a simple statement he made regarding my family. Well, he made many statements about my family...
Jamie has now reached ground floor elevator of his building. He presses the button and waits.
JAMIE: Quite a lot of ignorant grandstanding but hey, I've learnt to expect that from Saber by now. But what was it he said after all the shots he took? Oh, that's right: "It makes me wonder how many times you have had to fool your wife and daughter into thinking that you actually give a damn about them."
Krenshaw turns to the camera, shaking his head, grinning.
JAMIE: Charming, isn't he? He just knows everything doesn't he? About me, my family, my life.
Jamie turns to the elevator door which still hasn't opened.
JAMIE: Ah, must be broken again. * talking to camera man * That's all right, we'll take the stairs. Pretty lazy to take an elevator up one flight anyways. Will you be right carrying that up stairs?
The camera nods "Yes". Isn't your World Champion considerate? The camera follows Jamie as he heads for the stairs and slowly makes his way upward, talking all the while.
JAMIE: But I had to laugh about Saber's little diatribe. I mean, I call him out on all his flaws, point out the inconsistencies in his character, lambast him for ignoring my sage advice and what does he do? Make a bunch of baseless, ill-informed and quite frankly, insulting statements about my family.
We are now on the second storey of the building, following Jamie as he walks along the decking, past numerous doors before coming to "24", his apartment.
JAMIE: He claims that I use them. That I deny my true need for wrestling by using them as an excuse. He claims that I don't care about them. That I actively fool them into thinking I care. And what does he base this on? Nothing but his own assumptions. He assumes that I talk about my family in order to excuse my return to the wrestling industry. He thinks I use them as justification. No, Saber. I talk about my family because I'm proud and when you're proud of something, you tend to verbalize it. Just like how you constantly bang on about nearly beating me that one time. Anyway I digress. The reason I've brought you here, to my "apartment" as it's laughably referred to in my bills, is to prove just how incredibly wrong you are, Saber. See...
Jamie pulls a key from his pocket and unlocks the door. He gently pushes it open, giving us access for the very first time to the living quarters of the Virtuoso of Violence. As the visage becomes clear, your jaws unhinge and drop to the floor with shock. For what you see is not a room befitting a man of Jamie Krenshaw's stature. No, what you see is a room you'd expect a lower-class hilbilly moron, someone like Saber perhaps, to live in. It's not squalid by any means. The room is clean and organized. It's not so much what the room is but what it isn't.
Krenshaw turns to camera.
JAMIE: Follow me.
The camera follows Krenshaw into the room. Jamie takes a few steps before he finds himself in the middle of the (very) humble abode. He turns to camera again.
JAMIE: This is where I live. It's where I've lived ever since returning to America and the wretched circus of wrestling. Look at it, Saber. This is it. Behind me, that's my lounge area.
Jamie gestures behind him. A tatty old orange couch sits a few feet before an old small television which rests on a milk crate. Atop the TV is a DVD player and lying on that are a few rental titles: Sons Of Anarchy - Season One, Jarhead, Veronica Mars, yeah that's right, VERONICA MARS.
JAMIE: To my right, that's my eating area.
Jamie gestures to the right this time and the camera turns to take a gawk. There's a stool idling by a small kitchen counter. Behind that in a very cramped space is a fridge, an oven and a sink. Above the sink, a couple of small cupboards. There's no dishwasher, no juicer, no glamor to it.
JAMIE: Through the doors over on the left there, my bathroom and my bedroom. Come and see.
Jamie walks to his left and goes to the first door. He opens it to reveal a tiny bathroom. Only enough space for a shower and a sink. It's grimy and ugly; the kinda shower you'd figure would make you dirtier for using it. Jamie just turns to the camera with an expression of "See?" and shrugs. He closes the door and moves along to the next one. Opening that, he enters a room and switches on a light. As the camera tracks Krenshaw into the room, we see that it's his bedroom. As in, there's a bed in it. Nothing else of note would really identify the space as somebody's personal sanctuary. The bed, which is a single looks reasonably comfortable. Beside it is a chest of drawers. On that chest: an alarm clock, a lamp and two framed pictures. Beyond the bed is a wardrobe of sorts, obviously second-hand and cheap second-hand at that. As we take in this sight, Jamie goes over and sits at the top of his bed, by the chest of drawers. He rests pensively for a moment before addressing the camera again.
JAMIE: This is where I sleep. This, what I've just shown you, it's all I have in this country. This and my work. Do you know why I live in a place like this, Saber?
Jamie allows the question to hang in the air. Once silent moments have passed, Jamie softly picks up the two framed pictures on his chest of drawers. He gazes fondly at the pictures before lovingly, proudly turning them to face the camera. One photo is of his wife, Jenna. The other: his daughter, Emily.
JAMIE: I live here for them. See, you can say what you want about me, Saber. I'll take offense, sure, and I'll retaliate, but at least that's between us. When you bring up my family, when you say I don't love them, that I use and abuse them, you're taking shots at a woman and a child. I've been crystal clear about my motivations for returning to wrestling. I've said time and again that it's about money for my family. For their future. My living arrangements here, they're proof that I mean everything I say.
Jamie is deathly serious now.
JAMIE: I don't like living this way, Saber, but I do it for them because I made them a promise that I would come back to Australia as soon as I could. To do that, I have to raise the money I need with haste. I have to forego the normal luxuries, even many things which people take for granted. I have to forego my very essence. I can't even visit my family, Saber. Not often. Every plane ticket there and back sets my goal back another week or two. So I stay here. I deal with shitty TV reception, faulty elevators, cramped kitchens and cold showers. I deal with cheap scum living around me and I do it so's I can retun to my family as their breadwinner and as their provider. If you want to believe that I'm using them as some kind of shield to deny an inability to escape the wrestling industry or as a get-out clause for behaviour that you deem "bad" well, fine, mate. It's your prerogative. Just know that, like with most other things, you're wrong.
Jamie affords himself a slight chuckle.
JAMIE: I'll give you your due, Saber, I do enjoy your little diatribes. They're so... quaint. I mean, it's almost endearing seeing someone so convinced with his own line of bullshit. Personally, despite the amusement I glean from your rants, I do feel compelled to set you straight. It's fruitless I know but I kinda like seeing the look of confusion in your eyes as your bizarre brand of logic is met head-on by the truth. Take your comments about my current record in TWD for instance. You attack the sanctity of my winning streak. You say I'm inflating the numbers of my superlative 36/0 run by declaring victory over every single person involved in every match regardless of whether I physically pinned them. Jesus, Saber, I'll try to keep this simple for you. In competition, everybody competes to win. When somebody does win it means the other competitors have failed. It means they've lost. And thus, in the case of all my matches, it means they've lost to me. You've lost to me. Five times by my count. Whether you were personally pinned to the mat or forced to tap out doesn't diminish the magnitude of your failure. Does that clarify things for you Saber or do I need to put a sockpuppet on my hand and explain it to you as if you were a retarded child?
Jamie shakes ahead, incredulous as to Saber's refusal to admit his shortcomings.
JAMIE: But my family and my winning streak weren't the only facets of my life and career you thought you'd pick apart, no, you had to try and justify your choice to neglect my advice. You tried to cover for the fact that you ignored this legendary veteran whilst maintaining the facade that you do still respect the other legendary veterans. Guys like, I dunno, Brian Clark. How he qualifies as either legendary or a veteran is news to me. I've always seen him more as a mediocre fossil but, hey, I'm not here to judge Brian Clark. That's for God or, more likely, Satan to do. But I'm veering wildly off topic here. The fact is, you discussed just why you cast my advice aside as something not worthy of your time and dilligence. You said you "knew what following the path of Krenshaw would lead to" and that you refused "to be a self righteous man who only cares about [your]self."
Jamie pauses to allow Saber some time to reflect upon his own words. Done?
JAMIE: Riddle me this, Saber. I'm just going to lay out a couple of scenarios for you. You tell me what kinda man you'd usually attribute such scenarios, such occurences to, okay? How about this: A man who travels in a pack, who takes refuge in the safety of numbers and revels in exploiting those numbers to gain advantage. A man who relishes using those numbers to intimidate others. What kind of man does that sound like, Saber?
Well?
JAMIE: Or how about this: A man who walks into a new job and starts verbally attacking his co-workers on the very first day, trying to score points by belittling others. What kind of man does that sound like? How about a man who allows a team-mate to be cheated out of a World Title opportunity, who then goes on to enlist that very team-mate's services to secure a title shot for himself?
Krenshaw stares straight down the lens.
JAMIE: What kind of man, Saber? To me, those scenarios, those actions don't bely a man with any honour or integrity. In fact, to me, they undoubtedly portray a self righteous man who cares only about himself. And those little hypotheticals, Saber, they're all real and they're all you. You formed an Alliance with Eno Redrum and Blacksmith and sought safety in numbers. You used those numbers time and again to attack me and to attack Filipe Barroqueiro.
Tell me it's not true, buddy.
JAMIE: You walked into TWD and, by your own admission, ran down a selection of men whom you'd never even met, let alone had sufficient time to make any reasonable judgments about. You did this, as you so proudly described to me, to get attention. You know what I did to get attention here, Saber? I won matches. But I digress because the most important of these scenarios is next:
Can you guess?
JAMIE: It was you who sat idly by and watched as I ran into the ring and blasted Eno Redrum with my World Title, destroying any chance he had of becoming Number One Contender. And it was you again who later had Eno do your bidding and interfere in your match with Filipe Barroqueiro. You crawled over your ally just so you could get what you wanted. What you "deserve". And yet you show no sign of guilt, not even a hint of awareness as to what you've done. If anything, you're proud of what you've achieved. Now if that isn't self-righteous, if that isn't selfish then those words have become utterly meaningless.
Am I holding the mirror too close?
JAMIE: But that's enough rebuttals. That's enough of dissecting your words. It's fruitless anyway. Anytime I make a salient point that might dent your ego or challenge your precious values you just deflect. You ignore, you complain, you insult. You do everything in your power to hide from the truth. Well Saber, you might want to hide now because I'm going to tell you the truth. The unvarnished, raw, brutal truth. If I may borrow a line: Are you ready?
Spoiler Alert: It doesn't matter if you're ready or not.
JAMIE: The truth is that this Sunday, I am going to beat you. I don't doubt that you'll put in your best effort and yes, you may even push me further than I'd like to go, but in the end the result is etched in stone. I don't lose, Saber. Not to you, not to anyone. You asked me last Showdown how I could possibly be confident of victory against you given the fact that you pushed me "to my limits" when you were so green all those months ago. You asked me how I thought I had a hope against you now that you had the added motivation of the World Heavyweight Title. Well Saber, did you ever stop and think that that reasoning works both ways? See, when I've defeated you in the past, it's been for titles, sure, but it's never been one on one for the World Title. Do you honestly think you're the only one going into this match with added motivation?
Do you?
JAMIE: You said it yourself, when it comes to us, things get personal. I don't like you Saber and I very much like defeating you. I enjoy quashing your hopes and dreams and hearing all the excuses that come out in the aftermath. Allow me to tell you with the utmost sincerity that I'm looking forward to our match at Supercard more than I've looked forward to a match in a long, long time. It's you and I Main Eventing a Pay-Per-View with TWD's Grand Prize on the line. It's a stadium full of people wanting for me to fail and for you to succeed. It's you standing on the precipice of realizing your dreams. Do you have any idea how pumped I am that I get to disappoint you and that crowd on such a massive scale? I get goosebumps just thinking about it, Saber. Mate, just because I hate the wrestling industry doesn't mean I've lost the spirit of competition. My disdain for the business and all those associated with it doesn't stop me from feeling that special glorious feeling you get as you stand over a fallen adversary.
Krenshaw grins to himself.
JAMIE: I will have that feeling on Sunday and I will have it at your expense. You're so desperate to smash the glass ceiling? Don't be surprised when the shards rain down on you and cut you to shreds. I'm going to beat you, Saber and I'm going to do it for them. See? More added motivation.
Jamie again holds up the pictures of his loved ones. He smirks.
JAMIE: What was it you said about being responsible for your own downfall?
Wink.
Cut.
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 The Epitome of Victory. |