does it feel like something's off?

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well hasn’t hell just froze over? now i was enjoying my retirement away from this industry for three glorious years, some of the best of my life. i have a beautiful wife at home now, i don’t get dicked over by incompetent, nonsensical businessmen who think they got their fingers on the pulse of what's good in professional wrestling. hell, i’m not so difficult to work with these days. but i decided that three years of silence was enough, and in front of my Portland faithful, i still got a lot of things that i got to get off my chest.

in the tailend of my career, i got handed shit idea after shit decision and i was very open and public about how i was screwed by corporate thugs who thought they knew what was best for business. they thought they were immune from criticism because they were the ones g the checks and booking the cards, but when you left talent disgruntled they weren’t afraid to bite the hand that fed them. and in the years i “took my ball and went home”, i thought about all the funerals and weddings i wasn’t able to attend for the years i gave to this business, all of the holidays i gave up to put over talentless hacks who didn't know how to use the imaginary brass ring. before people said, “oh if you put in the work, you’ll be able to reap the benefits” but apparently that never meant shit because the only time i truly got any benefits was when i escaped. all i asked, ALL I ASKED was to use their heads once to make a good decision. to think about what the people wanted, cause they didn’t want any pissant celebrities or complete buffoons to hold the gold and close out the shows, they wanted the best wrestlers in the world AND I KEPT PROVING DAY IN, DAY OUT THAT ON THIS MICROPHONE, IN THAT RING THAT I WAS THE BEST IN THE WORLD. no matter if i was a leader of a movement, or the messiah of wrestling, they couldn’t lace my boots even in the battle of the best.

sometimes in this business, to get the right outcome you got to do something wrong, and yes, airing my grievances, whilst under contract, on podcasts and in indies shows wasn’t deemed professional. and yes, not letting cooler heads with the boss about how my team should have been booked got me labelled as “difficult to work with”. i was blackballed, shadow banned by the industry because they couldn’t handle i didn’t respect this business in the ways they wanted me to. they wanted me to be a good soldier, they wanted to piss money down the sink for their way, when their way was killing everything people like me, people like Anthony Ares and Azrael Hendrix worked so hard to build. NOT LIKE THEY EVER CARED ABOUT PEOPLE LIKE ME! the one of a select few who did was TWG, he was the only genius to have a good enough mind for this business, he knew how to make the fans care, he knew how to keep his employees happy so they didn’t need to act out. thats right, im a wrestling guy, and i hope his book sells brilliantly when he releases it.

speaking of azrael hendrix, my best friend, my ride or die, that man sat at his home - pouring his damn heart out - being the most honest with himself and all of you than i have ever seen in our whole friendship. he spoke about his jealousy for ungrateful talent and how Ares and I split from this shit to greener pastures. that was the first mention of me in years, and to everyone that slipped under the radar. but not me. because MY FRIEND was still in these trenches trying to do some good in this business. one of the last “good soldiers”. and boy, Azzy, i hope you win that particular briefcase so we can have the matching set. i still got mine buried under shit in a storage locker because some people were too scared to let me use it and become the face of their company.

do you want to know the best advice i got? it was from Seann Cena, right in this very city of Portland, Oregon. he was the honor universal champ, i was ready to steal that belt and let my contract run out, but at the start of the night he goes up to me and a few of the boys and says to me, “Y’know Ace, you remind me a bit of myself when I was younger.” i called bullshit cause Seann Cena was close to being fired when he was that age, but i let him continue and he said to me, “Something I learnt, if you’re a good soldier then good things come to you.” so then that's what i became for years, i took every hit on the chin, i made career mistake after career mistake AFTER CAREER MISTAKE to be a good soldier. cause then i could get the respect i am owed. but instead i was used to put over this week’s great sensation. i was promised championship gold, pay rises, good tv time, literally anything to get me but i was SCREWED! y’know what happened? i wouldn’t get booked, i was screwed out of title chances, i would lose each week to guys like Samoa Jopop, win one qualifying match for a ladder match, then get buried cause “i don’t think it's your time to be at that place, Ace, but soon!” A MULTIPLE TIME WORLD CHAMPION, ACROSS THE WORLD, AND IT WASN’T MY TIME YET!

i was deemed good for people clamoring to sign me, even now i still get emails from weirdos trying to lowball me and sign me, but not great enough to be the star i proved i could be. so yes, i left. i was done being a good soldier for each and every ass hat sport entertainment company who kept hiring professional wrestlers to do drama-filled soap operas. it wasn’t sour grapes then, just like how this isn’t sour grapes, this isn’t a shitty work-shoot to get people hyped for an opening match with some of the worse production quality and no heat. THIS IS ME, ON THIS MICROPHONE, WITH NO-ONE ABLE TO TOUCH ME CAUSE I AM THE GOD DAMN BLUEPRINT! I’M THE BEST, I’M THE BEST IN THE WORLD!

I AM BACK TO TELL YOU IF YOU WANT ME, YOU’LL NEED TO GIVE ME THE BIG BUCKS LIKE “DAYDREAMER” DID TO GET ME BACK IN HW!

I AM BACK TO TELL YOU ALL AZRAEL HENDRIX AND OUTLAW ACE ARE IN THAT BARRY KENNEDY TAG TEAM CLASSIC AND WE'LL SHOW YOU WHAT YOU MISSED OUT ON FOR ALL THOSE YEARS!

I AM BACK TO TELL YOU ALL TO GO F*CK YOURSELVES!

I AM GOD BUT BETTER, THE UNDISPUTED GREATEST PROFESSIONAL WRESTLER IN THE WORLD!

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