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Post by PANGAEA on May 1, 2015 16:07:46 GMT
 -v-  [Single Match]Armada vs Cesar Salazar |
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Post by Armada on May 3, 2015 19:28:05 GMT
A lilting Scandinavian accent comes over the stream of a rather humdrum 0-0 match of FIFA.
"Some people say that FIFA is all about having fast players, or having good players, or knowing how to use the skill moves, or playing good football. They're wrong. They're all wrong! FIFA is about defending, timing the tackles, making the other guy butthurt and mad. 88th minute. Malmö 0, Barcelona 0. I've got him right where I want him."
A long ball leads to an extremely rare foray forward for Armada's team. The Malmö winger cuts inside and forces the Barcelona fullback to put the ball behind for a corner.
"Set piece! Set piece!"
After deliberating for about five seconds, Armada's player lofts the ball up into the area. The Barcelona keeper crashes into one of his own defenders and falls down. Armada makes an excited high pitched squeal as his sky blue-clad striker bungles the ball off his thigh and into the empty net.
"Get in! So clutch! Pure skill! Angles, trajectory, like...science!"
The goalscorer Markus Rosenberg's name flashes across the screen as he stands over the fallen keeper and makes a heart symbol with his hands.
"For all my subscribers, thank you so much! Markus, Markus Roooosenbeeeerg! You see that goal? I am a god. I am a glimmering golden god. Of video games. And life! You need your Messi, eh, you need your Neymar? I just need my Markus!"
Armada reads a chat comment and chuckles to himself.
"Well of course I'm gonna make him watch the replay, it's a learning experience. Hejaaaaa - Malmö!"
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Fresh off of a triumphant FIFA upset, Armada smirks into his webcam.
"Now as all my faithful Armadafans know - if less than fifty percent of the Armadacast's content is video game-related, Twitch can shut down my channel! But while I'm here with you guys, you know, I've gotta share the good news. I signed a contract with Pangaea Professional Wrestling the other day, it's a great opportunity to really move forward in the business and I'm looking forward to it."
"I like wrestling. It keeps me in the gym, for one thing - I look all swole and shit now!"
He flexes his bicep and gives the camera something of a "come hither" look. He's in shape, but he's very skinny.
"I'm getting better and better. I put my mind to it that I'd reach the top of the top of e-sports, I made it, now I'll do the same thing with professional wrestling. We travel all over the world with the company. Our first show's gonna be next Sunday in Rome; I'll need my Italian bros to cheer me on, I'll need my super rich bros to take their private jets and cheer me on. If you could fly out for that crappy Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, you can fly out to watch me! But, uh, if you can't make it there live, the whole show will be live on the Pangaea website. With the time zones, I don't know, some of you might need to stay up pretty late. I hope you already have a fridge full of Altitud energy drink - Sweden's number one fuel export! We have any Italians in the chat?"
After a couple seconds, one replies with the word "Milan" and an emoji.
"Hey, you're from Milan? Ah...take the train down! I've actually never been to Rome, so I'm excited but I have been to Milan - it's a wonderful city."
"About the company, we've got a lot of characters in Pangaea, a lot of big personalities. Almost everyone has been going at this for their whole lives and I just started up like six months. My first opponent's this huge Hispanic dude Cesar Salazar, he might be the second biggest name in the company after me. Anyone who's watching me talk and thinking, hey, I should get into the wrestling business - it's great, it really is, but it kicks the crap out of some people. This guy Cesar's been at it for years and he's had some brutal injuries, he's pretty worn down. There's a lot of things going for him, though. He's a good wrestler, his whole family has been in the business - both my parents are accountants - I just think he might be underestimating me. Just because it's Barcelona vs. Malmö doesn't mean Malmö can't win."
"You know, right before the All-Scandinavia DOTA Cup last year, it looked real bad for me, the guys on the team didn't know if I could make it. I was in Copenhagen and I sprained my wrist doing Crossfit, I think it was some kind of bullshit with fucked up monkey bars. I'm gonna go ahead and blame the monkey bars. Back then I wasn't working out because I had to or I really liked it, I hated it but I was trying to impress the girl I was with."
"As a pro gamer, you don't think about it but obviously your wrists are super important, you want a full range of motion, you can't be inhibited. I could hardly move side to side. It was my right hand, my mouse hand. I put ice on it all the time, I had a cast but nothing worked. I complained so much, I was just a miserable person but I powered through it - we were ready to call in my alternate. And as we got to the final, I was so much in the zone that I didn't feel any pain at all. And we won, we beat the Norwegian team and I picked up the trophy, raised it in the air with my right hand - I honestly think I was healed."
"I don't know what it is, I don't know if it's toughness or heart or whatever, but some people can fight through anything in life." |
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Post by Cesar Salazar on May 9, 2015 3:48:35 GMT
I've never really been good at promoing. I never made the effort to improve on the mic. I grew up believing the wrestling matters, and everything else is noise. So I trained and ached and bumped and quickened my movement to be better than you, the next guy, and whoever calls themselves champion. That's the process and surely the only noise worth hearing. Fans come to see the suplex and hear the thud of a guy slammed. I didn't understand the importance of promoing until half a decade later, having conquered the Mexico scene, moving on to America and its Sin City where the worst promotion I've ever known held its carnage.
People forget the massacre at Disneyland. The Blacklist Anniversary show. The Rains of Kalistan. These are events practically erased from wrestling history. And very few of you, unsettling as this is, have no clue of the horrors I speak of.
In some ways this is good, but mainly bizarre. Unreal. The pain I suffered and thousands of others in Underground X is unforgettable, unforgivable, and of grave consequence.
I stand before Pangaea's global audience a shell of the man who trained and ached and bumped away to be excellent in my profession. Of course I did reach the top, and I strapped Undisputed gold around my waist in several promotions at the time, but at the cost of feuding with psychopaths and plainly violent men unafraid to kneel before God and order forgiveness. It was a strange time, and one I shouldn't have spent so long enduring.
But that time is gone, and so with it Underground X and Simon Kalis and Deicide and PuppetLisa, and all the creatures wrestling should never again know. And it seems wrestling doesn't know them anymore. But wrestling also doesn't know me anymore.
So I thought. I hear what the others say, and it was a little comforting to know my name means something around the world. I don't know what or why or how, but the locker room recognizes my name.
Does the world know Cesar Salazar? Do they believe I can be the great Champion again?
I don't know, truth be told. That's a scary admission, one so very few wrestlers would dare speak into a hot mic. A man my age, already late in his 30s, with bad knees and not as quick and not as elusive, with a record number of concussions. The wear and tear doesn't feel there, but I don't really know until I'm in the ring with the young and strong. The future of this sport.
Pangaea didn't have to hire me on a pretty sum, but they want me. At least right now I'm a contender for any world title because I last wrestled three years ago for a world title. That's the impression I left. Better to give up the belt and leave on a high note than the next headstrong muscleman break my shin yet again.
Yet I reenter the ring eager to feel alive, to recapture that spirit driving me to please millions and make millions and create millions of moments. The shelf isn't for me, and I don't want to live a quiet life. I thought I could but I can't. It's unbearable.
I would rather wrestle a new generation to feel a glimpse of my generation. This is my statement, and I hope you understand.
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