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I'm Back; vs Faith (IKT RP)
Topic Started: Dec 30 2016, 09:03 PM (104 Views)
Zack Jones
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NOTE: Italicized spring green words are Zack's thoughts.
WORD COUNT: 2467


October 2014

Zack Jones: Ow, fuck! FUCK!

I remembering writhing in pain as this moment occurred. A slide tackle in a charity soccer game gone wrong. It wasn’t supposed to happen. It was an accident. But there I was, lying on the ground, the pain shooting through my left knee.

Blake Jones: I’m so sorry....

My brother kept repeating those three words over and over again, feeling guilty for something that was an accident. But my mind was someplace else at the time, my focus on those words being very minimal.

Instead, I thought about how this could affect me. Some athletes had suffered this injury before and were never the same. Others came back like nothing had happened. And yet, even when I knew that, my mind focused on the negative.

“Your wrestling career is done.”

“Hope you enjoy training people to succeed more than you ever could.”

“Might walk with a limp from now on.”

“Failure.”

“Broken.”

“Finished.”

“You’re done, Zack Jones.”





November 2014

“Do you need help?”

“Let me get that for you.”

“Don’t stress yourself there, I’ll get it.”

“Just stay home and I’ll take care of it.”

“You poor thing.”

“I’m so sorry.”


I had heard all of this and then some throughout the first month of my recovery, and it was all very annoying. I knew people meant well. I knew that they all meant what they were saying and they were all trying to help by trying to do things that I could still do, even with one leg, but it was pissing me off.

Those people didn’t know it but they were the reason I felt so hopeless. They were the reason I felt like some child when all I wanted was to be treated as if there was nothing wrong. I wanted them to pretend like this whole thing wasn’t going to last for six fucking months...AT LEAST. I wanted them to pretend like I wasn’t useless to do things like walk my dogs, or walk around the neighborhood, or do anything wrestling related, especially since my speed was what really stood out about me in that ring.

But here I was, becoming a goddamn couch potato because I couldn’t do the things I would normally do. Loathing myself for becoming this waste of skin.

“Do you enjoy watching others help you out?”

“No.”

“Do you enjoy watching others baby you?”

“No.”

“Do you enjoy watching others feel bad for you?”

“Hell no.”

“Liar.”

“Never lied.”

“Then prove it. Do something. Stop having everyone coddle you. Stop having everyone treat you like a child. Do something for yourself. Do something for US.”

“....And how the hell am I supposed to do that? You want me to limp my way through a marathon? Play one legged soccer? Find a wheelchair and hit up the wheelchair basketball league? I’M BROKEN AND I MAY NEVER BE FIXED AGAIN!”

“You don’t believe that.”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“Then if you’re going to give up, why don’t you go ahead and do it all the way? Give up your sobriety, why don’t you?”

“...”

“That’s what I thought. You’ve come too damn far to give up. You’ve gone through too much shit to give up. This is another bump on the road, but one you can get over.”

“....You’re right.”

“I know I am. Now, are you going to do something or not?”

“...Yes, because I refuse to be stopped by a bump on the road.”

“Attaboy.”





CAMERA: ON

A blond haired 26 year old sits in the center of a ring in an empty gym. His breathing is heavy, as if he’s just spent the last hour or so running a marathon. The sweat he wipes away from his face adds more to that prediction, with the gym clothes he’s wearing really helping lock that prediction in.

A long inhale and exhale later, Zack Jones finally breaks the silence.

“It was almost three years ago, the last time I stepped in a Phoenix Wrestling ring.”

Zack smirks, remembering exactly the first ever match he had in a Phoenix Wrestling ring.

“And when I did arrive back then for the Iron King tournament, they really rolled out the red carpet for me. By that I mean that in the first round, they didn’t give me someone who many would consider one of the weakest competitors in the whole thing. No, no, no. What they instead did was give me one of the best in Phoenix Wrestling history. They gave me Ja Gi Kyung-Moon in the first round.

Many people saw that matchup and expected Ja Gi to wipe the floor with me. They expected him to finish me off easy and continue on to trying to reclaim the crown he once had. And yeah, in the end, he beat me. He put me down and moved on to the next round, just like many people had predicted he would. But what I showed in that match was that this 24 year old kid who had just really stepped into the big leagues about a year before could go in the ring with Phoenix Wrestling’s best and they would get a fight out of them.

What I proved in that ring was that while I didn’t have the big time experience, while I didn’t have the accolades, while I didn’t have the skillset of Ja Gi Kyung-Moon, I wasn’t going down without a fight and that’s exactly what I gave him. But like I said, he was the winner that night and went on to nearly win the whole thing again.”


Jones runs his right hand through his sandy blond hair, that smirk still on his face.

“And I can’t say how thankful I am to have had that match. How thankful I am to have gone toe-to-toe with that man because after that? I had a lot of things happen to me.

I got a second chance at making it to the next round by trying to defeat practically everyone else that had failed in the first round. And in the end, I was the one that was able to outlast everyone else and make my way back into the 2014 version of this tournament, losing to Donovan Davenport via judges’ decision after that.

A bit after that, I tore my ACL playing a charity soccer game. Spent six months on the sidelines watching others do some stuff that made me proud and some stuff that had me ready to come back to the ring and beat their asses for it. Spent six months letting my desire to be wrestling in front of all of those people drive me as I did rehab and hoped that my knee would get back to at least close to its normal state.

Once it did, I was all systems go. I got in a ring as soon as I could. I signed a contract as soon as I could. And from there, I did what I do best and I gave everyone that stepped into a ring with me a fight. From AIR, to HKW, to SSWA, to HELL. I won the Young Guns Cup tournament earlier this year, a tournament that had 63 of some of the best young talents in the world and myself. After that, I took home the AIR Velocity championship, which then went to HELL after AIR closed, and then managed to snag the SSWA World championship as well, holding that one for longer than anyone else and defending it more than anyone else too.

And I held both of those titles until about two weeks ago, which now has me sitting in this ring with no titles and an Iron King match going down in the first week of 2017 that reminds me a lot of my first ever Iron King match.”


The longest reigning SSWA World champion gets up from his seating position and stands in the center of the ring before continuing with what he is saying.

“You see, just like the last time I signed up to compete in a Phoenix Wrestling, to compete in the Iron King, I’ve got my work cut out for me.

This time though, my opponent isn’t a former winner of this tournament. My opponent is, however, one of the top stars of this company, whether she believes that or not. She’s a main event talent for this company and arguably one of the favorites to win this whole thing. And the best part about this matchup? She’s not even 21 and yet, she’s already got a lot of experience under her belt.”


The Philadelphian chuckles.

“I’m sure you’ve heard this from a few people that were older than you that have gotten in a ring with you before, but you remind me a bit of me.

When I started wrestling, I was in my teens as well, but I knew once I hit that ring and ran those ropes, nothing else was fit for me. Sure, I’ve ventured into stuff like acting for a little, but that’s always happened while I continued to wrestle. Wrestling is something that took over my life almost eight years ago and the desire to be in a ring hasn’t left me since. Not while I was injured. Not while I was in a slump. And certainly not after I achieved things that my grandfather never came close to achieving.

You also remind me of me because when you step into a wrestling ring, it’s all about business with you, unless someone makes it personal. I look at wrestling the same way for the most part, unless, of course, someone has opted to really rile me up before the match.

When I look at you, it’s almost like I’m looking at someone who has followed a similar path as myself, but obviously with different twists to their life compared to mine. And that’s probably why I’m looking forward to this match more than I did my first Iron King match ever.”


Zack walks over to one of the corners in the ring and slowly places himself in a seated position on the top turnbuckle.

“I’m looking forward to this because you’re hungry to prove that even though you fell to Aurora Jansen a few weeks back, you’re still one of the top talents in this place. You’re still a future top champion and possibly a future Rebirth champion. You’re hungry to prove that while this loss did sting, it will not crush you. It will not break you. It won’t end you. And it sure as hell won’t stop you from climbing back up to the position you were just in a few weeks ago and tossing whoever is at the top of the mountain off before taking that seat.”

The smirk has faded from Jones’ face as he keeps going.

“I’m also looking forward to this because recently, we’ve both experienced failure. On your side, you lost a Rebirth title match to Aurora Jansen, something that I saw bothered you heavy. On my side? My eight month long reign as World champion in the Shooting Star Wrestling Alliance came to an end at their last show of the year. Then, only two days after the classic I had against a young woman by the name of Selena King, the new SSWA World champion, I defended my AIR Velocidad championship against someone who needed the help of multiple other people to take it away from me.

So, that makes this probably the only matchup between two very frustrated people. Two people who are so angry that they’re likely going to take out that anger, that frustration, on each other in this first round.

And I can’t help but think to myself how much I actually want this, because the best you’ll ever get out of someone is when they either have everything or nothing to lose. And right now, you and I both have nothing to lose, Faith. We’ve already lost everything that we had. You’ve lost your shot at being the big dog around this place. I’ve lost the two titles that I held for two thirds of this damn year.

We both have nothing to lose, which makes us two of the most dangerous people in this tournament, in my opinion. Not because of the damage we can cause or the viciousness we can bring to the ring, which I’ve never actually really shown because I’m not one of those who enjoys injuring someone, but because of the fact that neither of us is going to stay down right off the bat. It is literally going to take everything that both of us have to keep the other down, and then maybe some more. This match will just drive that frustration more and more until finally one of us is able to keep the other one down.

Trust me, I want to stay in this tournament as much as you do. I want to kick off 2017 the same way I kicked off 2016; with a win. I want to do better than the last time I was in an Iron King tournament. Hell, I want to win the whole thing, just like you do.”


Zack hops off the top turnbuckle and lands on his feet on the mat before jumping up and down a bit before finally stopping and going back to talking.

“So, I say let’s do this. Neither of us are exactly big on words, but we’re very big on actions. So how about I just end this right here by telling you that we do what we do best and we leave it all out in the ring? How about we just go out there and instead of saying that one of us wants it more than the other, we prove it? We prove it by having the best match in this first round. We prove it by going at each other’s throats like we’ve been longtime enemies. We prove it by not holding anything back.

The chance to write our name down in Phoenix Wrestling history in on the line in every single round and both of us wants to step closer to that. So let’s go ahead and prove who wants to be the next Iron King more.

In the end?

The better competitor, the better wrestler, the better fighter will win, Faith.

And if it’s you? I’ll gladly shake your hand, just like I would hope you would do the same if it’s my arm that’s getting raised at the end of the match.

Good luck, Faith. Bring your A game because you know that I will.”


With that last statement, Jones walks out of the the ring and heads off before the video ends.
Edited by Zack Jones, Dec 30 2016, 09:05 PM.
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