- Dr. Manhattan, Watchmen
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July 10, 2019
From the outside looking in, you might think JC was a very successful person. He was a multi-time world champion, he ran his own company at one point and in spite of two failed marriages, he had a healthy relationship with his child and was in a very good relationship with his current girlfriend. To the average person, there was nothing that should give away that there was something broken within the recesses of JC's mind.
Perhaps it was the wear and tear on his body. Just this year alone, he was nearly blinded and almost lost an eye. He had a surgically repaired neck. He suffered multiple concussions, two of which were very serious. He once had his jaw wired shut. He had a jagged scar on his shoulder that he had covered with a tattoo. Very few of these injuries could be seen, and they could certainly signify that a man was broken. After all, even after a body heals from an injury, it's never quite the same. You can still come back from a torn never have 100% pain-free use of it like you used to. If you spent one winter morning with JC, you'd know just how bad the wear and tear stacked up.
If you went deeper, trying to really figure out what was wrong with him, you would go into his mind. You would find that for years, he went undiagnosed with moderate bipolar disorder. Of course, a lot of people had bipolar disorder these days. It's just one of those things, and mental illness is certainly nothing to be ashamed of. JC's was worse. JC's was psychotic. JC's illness came out in the form of rage and auditory hallucinations if left unchecked. Hallucinations that told him what to do and that he sometimes listened to.
That voice sometime helped him in the ring, and sometimes hurt others. But he turned a corner, got himself treated and ever since he's been healthier. Or so he thought.
As of a few weeks ago, he'd been hearing something again. And he wasn't sure what to make of it.
This brought him into the office of his psychiatrist for what could only be described as an emergency meeting, as the last patient of the day, just before the office closed. Special arrangements were made just to get him in, in other words.
If there was ever an emergency, a voice telling him to dump his medication because he lost his "killer instinct" was definitely such an occasion. And JC not being able to remember if he listened was another. That whole night was hazy. He remembered Lucy getting out of the shower and snapping him out of his trance, and the pills didn't go down the sink then, but he also remembered that wasn't the only time that night he found himself alone with his own medication, with a chance to ditch them.
And he couldn't remember if he had.
Sure, there should be evidence. An empty bottle, a full bottle, withdrawal symptoms. And getting more was a simple enough task. But he just couldn't remember. Between that voice coming back, whether his own or...the other, and his hazy memories, that called for his meeting. Something was wrong. Maybe he was just concussed. Maybe he needed a higher dosage. But something was wrong.
"I don't see what could be wrong."
"Really? I'm hearing something and forgetting things and that isn't an issue for you?"
His doctor, Dr. Jonathan Fuller, had been with him for the better part of three years. They had been working to keep his illness in check and for the most part had succeded.
For the most part.
The doctor seemed nonplussed by the news, as if this wasn't really worth the emergency meeting. Or maybe he was just tired and had dealt with far worse cases. Either way, Joe was very frustrated with his lackadaisacal attitude to the entire situation.
"How? How is that not a problem?"
"Because you knew enough to come to me and not just tough it out yourself. The old Joe would have ignored everything."
"The old Joe would have done a lot of things."
He thought to what he had done in the past, and what he hadn't been doing, which was winning. He thought about the killer edge he had lost. If there was one thing that nagging thought had been right about, it was that.
He had been getting soft.
"The point is you're not doing those things now. Did you dump the meds?"
"I don't know."
"Was the pill bottle empty?"
"I can't find the pill bottle."
"Then we have to assume you got rid of them."
Everything was so hazy. And he hid this all from Lucy. He never hid anything from Lucy and he hoped that after this visit, with everything settled, he could sit her down and tell her everything. It was soon enough that she'd just be glad it was settled before it got out of hand. Maybe slightly irritated he didn't immediately tell her, but she'd understand.
"The first thing we need to do is get that refilled. Then we need to get you on something else."
What's the point?
"I...what's the point?"
"What?"
Joe got up and ran his hands through his hair. He began to pace. He heard it again. Was it him? Was it a hallucination? He didn't know. He swiped his hand and knocked a vase off an end table. It flew across the room and luckily for it, it hit the nearby back of a couch and all that happened was some water spilled.
Dr. Fuller simply stared at him. He hadn't seen the anger come out. Not really. He'd only heard about it, or watched old tapes and assumed it was a wrestling thing.
Good on you!
"I don't mean it..."
"Joe, sit down. Please."
The command was firm but the voice behind it was shaky. Joe didn't blame him. Dr. Fuller stood a solid 5'5 at best. Joe towered over him and if he wanted, he could cause some serious harm to the man before anyone could come in and stop him. But he didn't want to. It never even crossed his mind.
Today, anyway.
He sat down and put his hands between his knees, like a child would when being scolded. He didn't know what else to do. It was almost comical.
"You have to understand. These things take time. We thought we found the right combination but evidently the dosage wasn't strong enough, or perhaps something else needed to be tweaked. Or maybe it's just your level of stress. That can play a part."
He had been under a lot of stress. What with the losses and the issues he was dealing in Carnage Wrestling and his recently failed marriage.
"Stress...yeah."
"Stress put a lot of strain on the mind, and when your mind is already fragile, like yours is..."
"I get your point."
But where was he going with this?
"I mean, you almost lost your eye. I'm surprised you're as well together as you are. But I think you need to take some time before going back to your job and...just relax."
"Relax. Right."
The thought was absurd. He was already booked for a show coming up. Who had time to relax? He had work to do. Places to see. People to maim.
The doctor handed him a slip of paper. In this day and age when everyone had switched to computers, his doctor was still using a prescription pad.
"Get this filled. Get your other medicine refilled. I'm going to call ahead and then I'm going to check in on you to make sure you did."
"Sure thing, Doc. Thanks for meeting with me."
He got up and shook the doctor's hand. He felt like the visit accomplished nothing except more pills, but he didn't say that. He didn't need another look like the one he got. Like he was crazy. Like he was dangerous. He wasn't dangerous to anyone except those who crossed him in the ring.
Joe turned and left the office, and as he got out in the hallway he glanced down at the paper, before lowering it to his side as he grabbed his cell phone. Time to call Lucy and tell her the good news. "I had a mild psychotic break, but it's okay, I'm about to be doped up even more now."
She'd be thrilled.
As he found her name in his contacts, perhaps not even aware he was doing it, he crumpled the prescription slip for new medication into a ball and tossed it aside.
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I made a lot of promises in my last appearances in CWF. I promised to win this tournament. I promised to win that rumble. Granted, I did eliminate two people with one eye in that Rumble, but that was two out of twenty nine and I didn't win. Oh and Jim, I haven't married Lucy yet but I'll make sure to invite you when it happens so you can at least make accurate calls next time.
So yeah, I talked a big game here and failed. 2019 has not been kind to me. Certain mustachioed wrestlers might say that equals a mediocre career but certain wrestlers need only look at my accomplishments to see that's not true. One dry spell doesn't signal doom for me. And what better way to prove that than this little round robin you call the Alpha and Omega tournament?
You might say it's one of my last real chances to prove myself. If I can get humble for a minte, let's face facts. I'm 43. I'm still damn good in that ring and I'm still better than a lot of you but I'm not as good as I used to be. That's a fact. It's hard to be when I wake up every morning with a thousand aches and pains, each a not-so-gentle reminder of a scar or injury I once had back when I was truly, truly great.
And I know that this tournament, this isn't for someone like me. This is for the younger class. This is for the future. This is a grueling schedule, a series of matches meant to test your limits and resolve. Which is exactly why I signed up. I can go pick fights in Carnage and wage war until I'm blue in the face but that's not competition. It's not competition over there until the filth is removed.
But you don't care about that. You care about JC vs. Autumn Raven. And so do I.
Raven is first. A dubious distinction. She'll either be my first two points or my first loss. My first statement or my first humbling. I have my killer edge back. Anyone who watched We Are Relentless can see that. Whether I can wield that edge appropriately is another matter entirely.
Is this too generic for you Raven? Do you want more pointed comments? Should I have perhaps done more research? Don't get your thinly-veiled facial features tightened in anger over it. It's going to be okay. I know enough about you. I know you have a move, like mine, that you can hit out of nowhere. I know that like me you're very aggressive in the ring. I like your style. Most of it. Until I watched your interview on the last show and found myself sick to my stomach.
"The Beautiful Psychopath is back." I don't like that you call yourself a psychopath so casually. What do you know of psychosis? Do you think because you bust some heads in the ring that you know true insanity? Mental illness? Fuck you. You're a gimmick. You're a kid with a gimmick trying to scream at the sky in the hopes that someone will buy your Pro Wrestling Tees merch when they see it at Hot Topic.
Wake me when you've felt the claws of insantiy scratching at the recesses of your mind, trying to find its way out so you can kick your best friend's head off in front of thousands of people. But they say I'm better now. They said that anyway. Who knows what they think after what I've done lately.
If you thought your last match was hell, wait until you step into the ring with a near-twenty year veteran with everything to lose and nothing to fear. Everything to gain but nothing to hold me back. That's dangerous. That's hell.
As I said, there's no way to be sure how I'll do in this tournament. It's a younger person's game. Someone with far less wear and tear than I have. But do you really think I signed up to be everyone's easy two points? Fuck no. Especially not yours. I'll be damned if I'm going out there to lose a brat like you.
If you're the beautiful psychopath, then I'm about to show you just how ugly psychopaths can be.
July 10, 2019
From the outside looking in, you might think JC was a very successful person. He was a multi-time world champion, he ran his own company at one point and in spite of two failed marriages, he had a healthy relationship with his child and was in a very good relationship with his current girlfriend. To the average person, there was nothing that should give away that there was something broken within the recesses of JC's mind.
Perhaps it was the wear and tear on his body. Just this year alone, he was nearly blinded and almost lost an eye. He had a surgically repaired neck. He suffered multiple concussions, two of which were very serious. He once had his jaw wired shut. He had a jagged scar on his shoulder that he had covered with a tattoo. Very few of these injuries could be seen, and they could certainly signify that a man was broken. After all, even after a body heals from an injury, it's never quite the same. You can still come back from a torn never have 100% pain-free use of it like you used to. If you spent one winter morning with JC, you'd know just how bad the wear and tear stacked up.
If you went deeper, trying to really figure out what was wrong with him, you would go into his mind. You would find that for years, he went undiagnosed with moderate bipolar disorder. Of course, a lot of people had bipolar disorder these days. It's just one of those things, and mental illness is certainly nothing to be ashamed of. JC's was worse. JC's was psychotic. JC's illness came out in the form of rage and auditory hallucinations if left unchecked. Hallucinations that told him what to do and that he sometimes listened to.
That voice sometime helped him in the ring, and sometimes hurt others. But he turned a corner, got himself treated and ever since he's been healthier. Or so he thought.
As of a few weeks ago, he'd been hearing something again. And he wasn't sure what to make of it.
This brought him into the office of his psychiatrist for what could only be described as an emergency meeting, as the last patient of the day, just before the office closed. Special arrangements were made just to get him in, in other words.
If there was ever an emergency, a voice telling him to dump his medication because he lost his "killer instinct" was definitely such an occasion. And JC not being able to remember if he listened was another. That whole night was hazy. He remembered Lucy getting out of the shower and snapping him out of his trance, and the pills didn't go down the sink then, but he also remembered that wasn't the only time that night he found himself alone with his own medication, with a chance to ditch them.
And he couldn't remember if he had.
Sure, there should be evidence. An empty bottle, a full bottle, withdrawal symptoms. And getting more was a simple enough task. But he just couldn't remember. Between that voice coming back, whether his own or...the other, and his hazy memories, that called for his meeting. Something was wrong. Maybe he was just concussed. Maybe he needed a higher dosage. But something was wrong.
"I don't see what could be wrong."
"Really? I'm hearing something and forgetting things and that isn't an issue for you?"
His doctor, Dr. Jonathan Fuller, had been with him for the better part of three years. They had been working to keep his illness in check and for the most part had succeded.
For the most part.
The doctor seemed nonplussed by the news, as if this wasn't really worth the emergency meeting. Or maybe he was just tired and had dealt with far worse cases. Either way, Joe was very frustrated with his lackadaisacal attitude to the entire situation.
"How? How is that not a problem?"
"Because you knew enough to come to me and not just tough it out yourself. The old Joe would have ignored everything."
"The old Joe would have done a lot of things."
He thought to what he had done in the past, and what he hadn't been doing, which was winning. He thought about the killer edge he had lost. If there was one thing that nagging thought had been right about, it was that.
He had been getting soft.
"The point is you're not doing those things now. Did you dump the meds?"
"I don't know."
"Was the pill bottle empty?"
"I can't find the pill bottle."
"Then we have to assume you got rid of them."
Everything was so hazy. And he hid this all from Lucy. He never hid anything from Lucy and he hoped that after this visit, with everything settled, he could sit her down and tell her everything. It was soon enough that she'd just be glad it was settled before it got out of hand. Maybe slightly irritated he didn't immediately tell her, but she'd understand.
"The first thing we need to do is get that refilled. Then we need to get you on something else."
What's the point?
"I...what's the point?"
"What?"
Joe got up and ran his hands through his hair. He began to pace. He heard it again. Was it him? Was it a hallucination? He didn't know. He swiped his hand and knocked a vase off an end table. It flew across the room and luckily for it, it hit the nearby back of a couch and all that happened was some water spilled.
Dr. Fuller simply stared at him. He hadn't seen the anger come out. Not really. He'd only heard about it, or watched old tapes and assumed it was a wrestling thing.
Good on you!
"I don't mean it..."
"Joe, sit down. Please."
The command was firm but the voice behind it was shaky. Joe didn't blame him. Dr. Fuller stood a solid 5'5 at best. Joe towered over him and if he wanted, he could cause some serious harm to the man before anyone could come in and stop him. But he didn't want to. It never even crossed his mind.
Today, anyway.
He sat down and put his hands between his knees, like a child would when being scolded. He didn't know what else to do. It was almost comical.
"You have to understand. These things take time. We thought we found the right combination but evidently the dosage wasn't strong enough, or perhaps something else needed to be tweaked. Or maybe it's just your level of stress. That can play a part."
He had been under a lot of stress. What with the losses and the issues he was dealing in Carnage Wrestling and his recently failed marriage.
"Stress...yeah."
"Stress put a lot of strain on the mind, and when your mind is already fragile, like yours is..."
"I get your point."
But where was he going with this?
"I mean, you almost lost your eye. I'm surprised you're as well together as you are. But I think you need to take some time before going back to your job and...just relax."
"Relax. Right."
The thought was absurd. He was already booked for a show coming up. Who had time to relax? He had work to do. Places to see. People to maim.
The doctor handed him a slip of paper. In this day and age when everyone had switched to computers, his doctor was still using a prescription pad.
"Get this filled. Get your other medicine refilled. I'm going to call ahead and then I'm going to check in on you to make sure you did."
"Sure thing, Doc. Thanks for meeting with me."
He got up and shook the doctor's hand. He felt like the visit accomplished nothing except more pills, but he didn't say that. He didn't need another look like the one he got. Like he was crazy. Like he was dangerous. He wasn't dangerous to anyone except those who crossed him in the ring.
Joe turned and left the office, and as he got out in the hallway he glanced down at the paper, before lowering it to his side as he grabbed his cell phone. Time to call Lucy and tell her the good news. "I had a mild psychotic break, but it's okay, I'm about to be doped up even more now."
She'd be thrilled.
As he found her name in his contacts, perhaps not even aware he was doing it, he crumpled the prescription slip for new medication into a ball and tossed it aside.
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I made a lot of promises in my last appearances in CWF. I promised to win this tournament. I promised to win that rumble. Granted, I did eliminate two people with one eye in that Rumble, but that was two out of twenty nine and I didn't win. Oh and Jim, I haven't married Lucy yet but I'll make sure to invite you when it happens so you can at least make accurate calls next time.
So yeah, I talked a big game here and failed. 2019 has not been kind to me. Certain mustachioed wrestlers might say that equals a mediocre career but certain wrestlers need only look at my accomplishments to see that's not true. One dry spell doesn't signal doom for me. And what better way to prove that than this little round robin you call the Alpha and Omega tournament?
You might say it's one of my last real chances to prove myself. If I can get humble for a minte, let's face facts. I'm 43. I'm still damn good in that ring and I'm still better than a lot of you but I'm not as good as I used to be. That's a fact. It's hard to be when I wake up every morning with a thousand aches and pains, each a not-so-gentle reminder of a scar or injury I once had back when I was truly, truly great.
And I know that this tournament, this isn't for someone like me. This is for the younger class. This is for the future. This is a grueling schedule, a series of matches meant to test your limits and resolve. Which is exactly why I signed up. I can go pick fights in Carnage and wage war until I'm blue in the face but that's not competition. It's not competition over there until the filth is removed.
But you don't care about that. You care about JC vs. Autumn Raven. And so do I.
Raven is first. A dubious distinction. She'll either be my first two points or my first loss. My first statement or my first humbling. I have my killer edge back. Anyone who watched We Are Relentless can see that. Whether I can wield that edge appropriately is another matter entirely.
Is this too generic for you Raven? Do you want more pointed comments? Should I have perhaps done more research? Don't get your thinly-veiled facial features tightened in anger over it. It's going to be okay. I know enough about you. I know you have a move, like mine, that you can hit out of nowhere. I know that like me you're very aggressive in the ring. I like your style. Most of it. Until I watched your interview on the last show and found myself sick to my stomach.
"The Beautiful Psychopath is back." I don't like that you call yourself a psychopath so casually. What do you know of psychosis? Do you think because you bust some heads in the ring that you know true insanity? Mental illness? Fuck you. You're a gimmick. You're a kid with a gimmick trying to scream at the sky in the hopes that someone will buy your Pro Wrestling Tees merch when they see it at Hot Topic.
Wake me when you've felt the claws of insantiy scratching at the recesses of your mind, trying to find its way out so you can kick your best friend's head off in front of thousands of people. But they say I'm better now. They said that anyway. Who knows what they think after what I've done lately.
If you thought your last match was hell, wait until you step into the ring with a near-twenty year veteran with everything to lose and nothing to fear. Everything to gain but nothing to hold me back. That's dangerous. That's hell.
As I said, there's no way to be sure how I'll do in this tournament. It's a younger person's game. Someone with far less wear and tear than I have. But do you really think I signed up to be everyone's easy two points? Fuck no. Especially not yours. I'll be damned if I'm going out there to lose a brat like you.
If you're the beautiful psychopath, then I'm about to show you just how ugly psychopaths can be.
