Alex, Alex, Alex...are we having fun yet? As far as I'm concerned, the fun's just beginning! After all, being a member of The Youth, I figured you'd appreciate being treated like the child you desperately claim to be. I mean, you are a couple years older than me, no? It's okay, Alex...I understand. We all want to hide what we really are. I lived in denial for way too long...but the minute I stopped, was the minute I blossomed as a person. Alex, you're no more The Youth of this industry than I am the leader of the free world, but it's nice to pretend, right? I mean, we've all got our dreams, and that's what being a child is for.

Do you remember our little match eight months ago? It was you and me, and fifty percent of the NYSWF was at stake? Do you remember how I flubbed it? So do I, and I've been chomping at the bit to get my revenge, and now here you are. The two of us have changed places. Now I am the big shot in the NYSWF, and you are the upstart. History is doomed to repeat itself, and it's not in the manner of Haven pinning Storm. It's Icon pinning Upstart.

Does it hurt to be compared to your brother in law? To have people show you that you're emulating the man you claim to despise? Alex, I'd start thinking about changing that mindframe of yours. After all, it did lead you to...wait, what's that? Is that what I think it is in your win-loss column? Is that...A LOSS?! TO ME?! *chuckles* Alex, I know it's hard to believe, and disprove it all you'd like to...but it's there, and you can't do much about it. Alexander, you haven't shown me much to prove that you're still the same awe-inspiring presence I remember from just a year ago. Hell, I hardly think you're the same Alexander Haven that held the TV Title for 132 days. I'm sure you consider me the same old Jon that couldn't buy a victory. However, 114 days does change a human being in the right circumstance. It did for me, Alex, and that's just eating you, isn't it?

But it's okay, Alex...it really is.

I remember the last time I faced you, Alex. You surrounded yourself in those mirrors. You said that the mirror was only as good as what you gave it to work with. Mirrors decieve, Alex. You can fracture it, tilt it, or warp it, and it will bend the image any way you want. It will twist and shape the image, and that's the mirror you work with. As we watch the mirrors on the side of the merry go round, we can see how they twist us on occasions. Alex, what you are, is a dramatic alter from the original, and quite real, reflection. No matter what way I look at it, I can't see the real thing. You've turned yourself into another one of a child's favorite things...a magical illusion, one grand facade. Alex, someone has seen beyond all of that, and it's me. I know you for what you really are, a simple shell of your former self. To reclaim that former glory though, you had to go around in circles. Reforming The Youth, reuniting with that anchor, Chris Kage...Alex, you walk around and around, and you try to get to the same destination every time without success...and like a child once more, you play another game...this time, the game is about what you say. Mad Libs, you remember them, no? Add an opponent's name here...the town of the event there...a nasty name here...a comparison to you there, and you get this.

"Jonathan Storm, when I think of this matchup in St. Louis, I begin to salivate. Not because I lust for you, but I do...but because of what I can prove to you, that you're nothing more than someone who wishes to be a little goth like our brother Prudence, or someone like me. After all, you're nothing more than a perennial failure."

Sounds a lot like you, no? It's a simple formula, just like every Mad Lib. Alex, what it's boiling down to is predictibility, and you're becoming almost too predictible.

Jonathan Storm: What's wrong, Alex? Don't like games? Every child loves them, and you are The Youth. There's so many things to go on about, but back to this merry go round. On many of the old merry go rounds, there was a brass ring. People would be on the ride, and they'd try their hardest to reach for it, Alex...and few would succeed. I managed to reach for that ring, and so did you...but you lost grip of it somewhere along the line. Something made you forget what it's like to be a champion, and I promise you that if and when you do find it again, it won't be at my expense. Alex, perhaps you need to change your ride, if you will...try the green grasshopper this time on the ride? Do you expect to find success on Sunday Night Heat against me? Not on this...not on MY carousel...but everyone needs to dream, right?

So what do you plan to do when your horse goes up, but not high enough to be where you want to be? Will you be like your other members of The Youth, spoiled rotten, and cry about it? Or will you press on, and wait for the next rise? I don't fault you for wanting to go through me...I am the "big man on campus" so to say. I do fault you, however, for not being strong enough or innovative enough to defeat me...it'll be crystal clear soon enough...if I can ever see through your smoke.

But like the good showmen we are, the show must go on.

Alex, ultimately people grow up. This is the point where the fun and games end. It seems we've both grown up a bit...well, at least I have. Neither of us are quite as "naive" as we once were. We don't fear those monsters under our bed, but you revel in that, because that's what you want to be. The monster under every NYSWFer's bed, trying to scare us all. That doesn't work anymore Alex...we all grow up. We all change, after all...

...without change, we cannot grow.

Your illusion is up, Alex. As I've grown as a person mentally, physically, and even emotionally, I've come to understand that you should never fear something as meaningless as an illusion. "If you and I get out there and we fight like we know we can fight...if we fight without fear of what it'll mean to lose...that's when you win, Jon." It's something Michael said to me once. There's no fear left in me, Alexander...or can I call you brother? Alex, there's not a single trick of yours that scares me anymore, Alex...I'm too old for that.

I guess it's true. Reality does bite...because we all have to grow up sooner or later.

I don't fear you Alex...you're hardly more than smoke and mirrors.

There's no other choice, because as the ride goes on...

...so must I.