Post by Thaddeus Duke on Sept 8, 2024 21:38:22 GMT -5
Paradise Ridge
Great Neck, NY
Long Island
Great Neck, NY
Long Island
In the chilly ocean breeze, I sat on a porch swing on the dock looking out upon Long Island Sound, a body of ocean water that separated Long Island from New England. Oftentimes, when things were quiet and the kids were asleep, I'd come out here just to be alone with my thoughts. I was born just across the water from where I sat, in a small seaside town in Connecticut. It seems like a lifetime ago, but I was born into a world that no longer exists for me.
Being a third generation Duke, I was raised with military power at my trigger finger and surrounded by a protection detail. Not only was I the heir to everything my grandfather built, I was the only heir. My safety and security was paramount.
I'm not yet 26 but it's been a little more than two years since I tore it all down. My whole life, I thought our cause was righteous. It was a belief drilled into my head from the second I could form memories. It took a long time to dispel that belief. Once I did, my mission changed from securing the safety of my people, to simply securing victory from the organization that wanted me dead.
Two years ago, I laid in a hospital bed after being shot in the chest at the end of the Last War. My priorities changed. I then knew the truth that the paramilitarial empire my grandfather had built was built with a foundation of lies. Lying in that bed, I knew one thing was certain: I'd seen enough of people dying that I cared about.
Tonight, in the darkness, I quietly watched a plane flying out above the water, its lights reflecting off the surface. Quiet nights like tonight, with just the slightest breeze and the water calm, reminded me of something from five years ago.
“What are you thinkin about?” asked Lucy as she delivered a piping hot cup of coffee and sat on the swing beside me.
Lucy Wylde. Until recently, I never looked at her as anything more than just a good friend. That changed and I’m grateful that it had. There's a story out there about us that the AAW community is welcome to research. It's well documented. Long story short, lucky for me, Lucy Wylde has become much more to me than simply a friend.
“My past,” I replied quietly. “Happens sometimes when it's all quiet.”
I have three kids. One, Frankie, who I adopted is 13 going on 30 and two 3 year old twins. A boy named Talon, or T.J. and a girl named Caitlyn who we call Livvy after her middle name. It's rarely this quiet.
“What about it?” she pressed.
Typically, I'm kind of an open book. I'm a second generation star with more than a decade of material for folks to peruse through. Things are kept light with Lucy. Maybe some of that is by design. She has been the exact opposite of my past relationships. My fractured marriage to Lauren, my kids’ mother Elizabeth, both toxic as hell. There's nothing toxic about Lucy and I and it has been a refreshing breath of air.
“My past is… complicated,” I replied. “Plus it's a long story.”
Lucy looked around for a moment then snuggled up next to me while pulling a blanket over us.
“I don't see me going anywhere,” Lucy said.
I sat quietly for a moment, then gave myself the greenlight.
XWF.
IIW.
OCW.
Once upon a time, my name meant something in this business. While my name is no doubt still popular, I am under no illusions that it still means what it once did. See, when I became a father, my life perspective changed. The wars ended, the bullets stopped flying, the bombs quit dropping and the only thing that mattered to me was that my kids knew who I was. That my kids had the father that I wished I had.
The money, the cars, the homes, the boats, the main events, the titles, the prestige and fame… All of those took a backseat to my own blood and it never won't.
While I have never lost the love for the business I was born into, other things took priority and I had to stop and re-evaluate.
More than a year ago my intent was to return full time to this business. Instead, I found myself saddled with running a show in XWF that instead, ran me into the ground. When I shelved that show for good, my intent was to take a vacation, then refocus on my in-ring career. When I was ready to get back to it again, once more I was needed to lead a show.
It's no secret that I bleed the black ‘n’ blue of the XWF. I'd never deny that. Thing is, they know it too. They know that if they ask me to do something, then I won't say no, even if it means putting my own desires and aspirations on hold.
There comes a point though, where you have to say enough is enough for your own sanity and I've reached that point. I'm still young and I don't find happiness sitting behind a desk at a wrestling show, or sitting in Gorilla with a headset on. I have out of this world athleticism and talent and I'll be damned if I continue to do all those things that everyone else wants me to do, while simultaneously continuing to deprive myself of the things… I want.
“I told you about my time as The Collector when I returned to wrestling?” I asked, but I knew the answer. That's how I met Frankie and I never hesitate telling anyone how I met that boy.
“What I didn't tell you, is why,” I began.
For a moment, as I sat in the swing and watched the plane's reflection upon the water, I was thrown back to 2019.
Built like Air Force One, I sat in my office aboard. We had just departed from my airfield in Connecticut en route to War Games for the XWF.
Every heartbeat it seemed, was a different glimpse of my own memory.
Beat.
The explosion that rocked the aircraft.
Beat.
The fireballs coming from the engines.
Beat.
Screams, wailing, and utter panic from others on board.
Beat.
Sirens and warnings from the cockpit.
Beat.
My security detail rushing me to the cargo bay.
Beat.
Beat.
Me arguing that I was staying aboard.
Beat.
Beat.
Them forcing me into a parachute.
Beat.
Beat.
The red flashing light indicating the cargo ramp was lowering.
Beat.
Beat.
Beat.
Them shoving me out of the doomed airliner.
Beat.
Beat.
Beat.
Beat.
Watching as the ocean raced to meet me before pulling the cord.
Beat.
Beat.
Beat.
Looking on as the out of control aircraft plunges toward the surface.
Beat.
Beat.
Beat.
BeatBeatBeatBeat.
Boom.
My entire life I have been goal oriented. Whether it be in my personal life, professional life outside of wrestling, or in the business itself. When I began, I was just 17 years old. I entered the XWF and set the world on fire. Everything I reached for, I soon achieved from championships to particular opponents.
I wasn't ready at that young age to be the star I'd eventually blossom into. Things took a turn and the company I was born into, fired me. I won't sit here and tell you that they were wrong and blame the powers that be.
No.
They were right to fire me. Unlike 95% of this business, whatever I am, I own it. Good, bad, or indifferent. It was the best thing that ever professionally happened to me and all of you can thank that for happening because what it did, wasn't sideline me and halt my career so much as force me to look within myself and rise above the things that caused that termination.
Rise above, is exactly what I did.
See, I always had the confidence in myself that I was very good at what I do. During my time away though I did wonder… what if those fans that screamed my name, begged for selfies and put forth different body parts for me to put my name on, only loved me not for who I am, but because of my last name and the company it was famous in?
In 2020, I returned to wrestling, I returned to the XWF with a mask and became known as The Collector. What I learned in short order is that it was the man they loved, not the name. So two months later I discarded the mask and threw the adopted name in the trash and I started being my truest, most authentic self and I have never looked back.
My minds eye made me watch it all over again. I saw the plane hit the surface from my birdseye view. I watched it explode on impact. I watched as the rest of the craft sank beneath the waves. This was no bird strike. This was no pilot error or mechanical failure. There could be no Sully inspired Miracle on the Hudson. Missile took out the engines and with it, the flaps that controlled elevation.
36 souls aboard the plane that day, including me.
Just one survivor.
“There's not a day that goes by that I don't think of the thousands that willingly gave their lives in service to me,” I said while quiet tears streamed down my face as I finished telling her.
The vast majority of time, I'm grateful that those days are behind me. Every now and then though, I still kind of miss it.
“So you hid yourself away in plain sight,” Lucy said. “In public, you wore a mask and called yourself Jaime Henry.”
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “While I was away, I found my mom’s birth father. He’s a mobbed up loan shark so I started workin’ as his collector."
“How come you hid?” she asked. “Survivors' guilt?”
“That was part of it,” I replied. “It was a different time, I was only 20 and I was overwhelmed by all the responsibility. I didn't want the life I was born into.”
“Why cover your face though?” she asked in a way that I could tell she was smiling, even in the dark. “I like your face.”
“Thanks,” I chuckled. That never gets old, honestly. “Many people died because of their association with me over the years. What happened out there… gave me the freedom to go away for a while. I had the opportunity to be someone else while my enemies thought I was dead.
“So I took it.”
“What made you go back then?” She asked.
“I learned to like who I was,” I began. “I was more than the position I held, but I still had a responsibility to bring justice to those that brought down my plane that day.”
“Sweet, sweet, revenge,” she laughed.
“I can't even lie, that's a great motivator,” I laughed. “I don't regret anything. Everything I did was for the safety of my family and the survival of my people.
“Every last thing I did from the righteous to the underhanded, I'd do it all again without a second thought and I wouldn’t lose a moment's sleep.”
Latoya Hixx.
I'm sure you've wondered by now what my point is, or whether or not I'd give you the time and attention that you feel you deserve. See the thing about me is, I don't really sell anyone short. The vast majority of the men and women in this business don't really stand a snowballs chance in hell against me, and you're no different. But… the moment I start mailing it in, or taking any opponent lightly, is the day I hang it up.
Today is not that day, because you don't become a guy like me in a business like this by being that guy. See, I said I was a goal oriented kind of guy and I meant that. When I was initially preparing this comeback many months ago, I didn't want to park my ass just anywhere. I didn’t want my name in lights associated with just any promotion.
It had to be the right fit. The right time. The right roster. And it's easy for me to go and stay in the XWF because that company is built on my last name. Thing about that is, I've been there. I've done that. I'm really not that interested in reigniting my star power for a company that takes it for granted when I can do it for a company that could actually use it.
Enter AAW.
See, I've known Shaun Hart for a minute from our brief time together in IIW. Coincidentally, IIW was the last time I wore championship gold and I gave that up when I went under the knife.
It's not that I haven't been good enough for gold in any promotion that exists. I am. You know it, I know it, the world knows it. It's just that I wasn't interested. Hell, I'd been approached by multiple promotions to come in to challenge their world champion and I turned them all down.
I joined the fray in Triad last year just to see for myself. See, I've always been confident in my own abilities, but I needed to know if I still loved the game or if my priorities had shifted so much that I no longer needed wrestling in my life. After all, every attempt I made until that point was met with outside circumstances dictating that I keep staying away. What I learned doing the Triad stuff is that not only am I still as good as I ever was, but I did it against the absolute best competition in professional wrestling while making the finals as the leader of my division.
The end result did not go my way, but I found out what I needed to know. When opportunity knocked again, I'd open the door.
Fact is, Latoya, it's time.
It is time for the Lionheart to come off the bench. It's time for me to reclaim what I was and will be again. It's time to light the fires and reestablish the legacy of absolute greatness that I left behind. My star has dimmed and I've acknowledged that much. But the only way I change that, has very little to do with you, Ms. Hixx, and everything to do with me.
See, Latoya Hixx is the stepping stone. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news Latoya, but I will step on you, around you, or even through you to get what I want.
What I want… at least right now, is the United States title around my gorgeous waist. I’ll admit it isn’t exactly what I was aiming for when I signed on the dotted line, but I like audibles. I like a good misdirection play.
I am not standard.
I am not typical.
What I am… is fucking unique.
I’m a genuine article in a world filled with shallow hubris and thinly veiled ego fragility disguised by false confidence. See Latoya, I tell the truth in a world that only spins a narrative based only on what they see and not… what they know. The truth is a dangerous weapon, Latoya. People like you, they eat, sleep and breathe this business even when they’re not at work. People like me, lurk in the shadows, watching and waiting. People like me study their potential prey and find every weakness they have and aim to exploit it. But to be honest, I do it very sparingly and I’m still ridiculously successful.
When the final bell rings and the lights go out, it’s time to go home. I have business outside of the ring. I have family outside of the ring. The last thing I think about when I go home, is you or anyone else in this business.
More to my point, to spew honesty in a world full of liars is what makes me unique. I don’t spin false narratives because I’m not in it to win it by using every trick in the played out handbook. I tell the truth. I like standing there and showing you your truest most authentic self. The question is, is what you really are and what you think you are one and the same? If I held up the proverbial mirror would you like what you saw staring back at you?
Here’s the truth.
Here’s that proverbial mirror.
Latoya Hixx… you are in a world of trouble. While I’m forced by my current XWF position to humor you and book you in spots you don’t deserve, I am under no such obligation here in AAW. Fact is, Ms. Hixx, what you are… is a god damn fraud. I have yet to see you win a match in the four or so months that I’ve run that damn show and now I’ll tell you why.
Everything you’ve ever done, everything you’ve ever said has already been done by someone else. Worse yet, they did it better than you ever could. I don’t run Impact, Latoya. People like you will never beat people like me. I don’t make the rules, I just exploit them.
It’s time…
It’s time for me to welcome you, Latoya Hixx, and the rest of AAW…
To the Thaddeus Duke Show.