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So….did I fail?
Yeah, I sure did.
Did I improve?
Sure. I did better than I did last year. However, if I’m aiming for a bullseye and my second dart was closer than the first, but still outside of that little circle, did I get a bullseye?
Uh, no.
Maybe it’s a generational thing…I’m really not happy with the fact I lost, but I’m not going to pretend that I came in here and won some sort of moral victory, nor am I expecting a present or trophy for showing up. I lost. I failed. I didn’t win…Jake Smith did, and deservedly so.
For all the reasons that I talked about over the last two weeks (and some I didn’t necessarily want to share with my fans…trust me, there were reasons), this was a hell of an opportunity for me. It was coming at an opportune time and in an opportune place, and through a combination of my failing to execute my best match, and my opposition doing very well (kudos to everyone in the match..outstanding work from most all of you), I got tossed over the top rope and got eliminated.
Battle lost, opportunity lost. I’m going to have to do something that Marines hate to do…retrench and review a failed battleplan.
That was a costly loss, but the battle isn’t over.
Some people last week took my explanation about why I needed to win and where I was in my career as a sign that I thought further improvement wasn't a possibility for me…that is not the case, though I never had the opportunity to explain it. I know I can learn more and improve in the ring: I learn things every day, be those things from film study, training, or facing off with someone in the ring at Voltage or a special event, like Grand Rampage. I just know that this business takes a physical toll on the people within it and, unlike the other Elitists, I have a parallel career that is more important than this one. There is a limit as to what my 43-year old body is going to be able to withstand over the time I require to get my experience to a point that allows me to stand in the upper tier of the EAW and be considered for championships and marquee matches.
That is a ‘reality’. I don’t bask in a flowery, rose-colored world where everything will be all right if I just try and believe in myself. I know what I am capable of, and what I am able to accomplish. I can get up to those levels and compete with those rare top-of-the-line Elitists…I’m not there yet.
But I will be. I’m on a 10-step staircase, standing on step # 4 and looking at the top of that staircase. It doesn’t matter who is on the staircase with me: My goal is to get up to the top, and I know that anyone within reach of me wants the same thing and will use me to get to the top spot as well. I have to make it in spite of that. I have to fight my way up there.
I’m not the most awesome person in this industry. I’m not flashy, I’m not prone to telling everyone within earshot about how great I am and whatnot: It’s not who I am. I would rather train, work hard, learn about my opponent, and execute a solid, successful match. I’m actually kind of boring.
I’m not a Mia Santoro.
Mia is a hell of a worker and she has produced a body of work that is impressive in EAW. I’ve seen her promos, and they are a sight more exciting than mine. She might not look at her record and see a ton of bright spots, but I see more than a few times that she had matches in the bag and some externality caused her to lose…a run-in here or there, you know the drill, because its EAW and there are a lot of things (like La Familia) that can happen and influence a match. It would be unwise to hold any of that against her, as she has demonstrated that she can hold her own against any Elitist she’s put into the ring against.
Another thing that can’t be overlooked is that she has a personal and professional friend and mentor in Donovan Duke, which allows her a resource that she can tap into if she wants it: His understanding of what it takes to win in this industry is invaluable and I know that she’s smart enough to ask his advice and learn from what he does…and you all know I hold him in high regard. I know that knowledge of this sport can be passed in ways that are both formal and informal, and in all those things that makes Duke such a good Elitist from training, to his mindset and determination, to how he works matches against different types of competitors….those things can and will be passed on to Mia as she gains time and exposure what he demonstrates. Along with her own talents, as I explained before, this makes her formidable.
I say these things because I’m in a professional/personal relationship of my own, where I learn something new every day from someone who has great strengths that are different than mine. It’s a good place to be.
So I have nothing bad to say about Mia…she’s a stout challenge to be this week and someone who is going to be hard to best in the ring. Mia is someone who can beat anyone on a good night: She’s someone a Dr. Bethany Blue doesn’t want to have to get by, or even a Minerva. Mia is a unique challenge for anyone in the fed, so looking past her is a mistake that any good Elitist is very wary of.
There are no moral victories in EAW, however. I am coming to Voltage to win the match. I’m going to have to overcome this challenge in order to right the ship, fix the damage to whatever momentum I had going into the Grand Rampage event, and get moving forward again. Like I described to everyone last week, this ‘slow creeping advance’ that this Marine has been making in the EAW is slow and costly, and I have to have a breakout, like what the US 3rd Army had in France in 1944. I have to punch through and quicken the pace of my advance towards the upper tier. I have to get better in order to make an impression against the Donovan Dukes, the TLA’s, and the Minerva’s of this brand. Mia wants this too, so I have to be able to win the match 1-2-3 in the center of the ring.
Let’s talk straight: I know for sure that Minerva, as an example, looks at me and takes in the entire picture: Sure, there’s the respect one Elitist has for the other, and she’s talked about this before, in her match against me and in the week before her match with Holly Arrow. That’s good, and it’s reciprocated, but do you think that Minerva looks at me the same way she looks at a Holly Arrow, or a TLA, or a Ms. Extreme? Not a chance.
We tend to associate the word ‘threat’ with a fearful emotion….in regular life, that seems to be an understood thing, right? Let’s get dispassionate for a moment: A ‘threat’, in essence, is a thing, condition, or action that is recognized as a chance of failure or impediment to success. For example, a threat to a covert operation could be the placement of enemy forces in our area of operation. When you plan, you have to account for threats.
In the scheme of things, Minerva doesn’t see Lt. Colonel Michael Connor as a threat. An Elitist, sure. Someone that she needs to be prepared for? Of course. But a threat, as I described above?
Nope. I’m not at that level….yet. The plan is, however, for me to become that threat. The goal, by my improvement in the ring, is to become that threat…that person who, because of their performances in the ring and the victories that they have rung up, is a threat to their position and their championship (if they were to have one. Minerva does not take me into account when she looks at the line of champions in the EAW, and for that matter nor does a Drake Armstrong, or a Ms. Extreme, or a Jake Smith, Charlie Marr…just insert the name of a current EAW titleholder.
I need to become that person that they consider to be a threat….not a personal threat to themselves (because that’s not how I operate) but someone they see as a legitimate challenge.
How do I do that? By considering good workers like Mia to be threats and overcoming those threats. By winning matches like this and progressing as an Elitist and making wins against Elitists like Mia a regular thing, not a marked exception like my win against Holly Arrow. By learning in these competitions against people of demonstrated ability, like Mia, and using these lessons to raise myself to the upper tier.
Just as Mia is doing and planning to do. That’s what makes this sport unlike any other.
I’m pretty sure I’ll be talking to you all later this week as well, so I can leave it there for now.
Semper Fi.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
--The Day After Grand Rampage—
Jane Murphy looked at her company as he stirred his black coffee.
He wasn’t sullen….he didn’t seem to have that kind of mood. Mike Connor didn’t ‘pout’, per se…he was a mature person and had dealt with failures of various import in his life….some of which had cost lives. It was a fact borne from his decades-long career as a Marine, and a commander of combat-involved forces, large and small. Losses in the EAW fell into that as well, though understandably not as acute of a loss as death.
But the man across the table from her was stirring black coffee. He was preoccupied with the results of the Grand Rampage match. Why stir black coffee? What were you stirring into it?
Jane has studied psychology in college in order to get her doctorate: She was very intelligent, and she knew the Marine sitting with her at the small, private diner was as well. He was playing the match over in his head, she knew, looking for the points where he had failed, reviewing his actions, dissecting his decisions. This had been very important to him: Every point he’d made during his promos he’d talked to her about when they’d had time together before their deployment to Jordan…and after, on their 28-hour trip to Arizona. And…now, he was dealing with the outcome. Plying details and second-guessing.
“You ever going to drink that coffee?”
He looked at her and grinned. “I plan on it.”
“I mean, today?”
He smiled more broadly. “I think so.”
“You know, it’s not your fault…”
He sighed and shook his head. “No-one else was in that ring but me,” he said. “No-one was inhabiting my body when it was tossed over the top rope at the event. Not any other Marine, not any other disembodied spirit….just me. I was there, I managed to get beat. It’s not a ‘fault’ thing, Jane. I was bettered.”
“Well,” she said, “what’s your plan now?”
“What I did last year,” he said. “Take a look at what I did wrong, try to fix the gaps in how I performed, improve for the next part of the season. I proved that I was in the mid-card for a reason last night…I have to get better, Murph….I need to.”
“All things being equal,” she responded after taking a sip of her own coffee, “you need to be on a level playing field with these other guys and gals. They don’t have someone pulling them off of a tight training and rehab schedule in order to serve in a useless capacity 8,000 miles away. I mean, it was good you where there, but all that other crap aside, why? It was done to hurt you and set you up for failure.”
“I can’t control that,” Connor answered. “And I don’t have a way towards controlling it. I think General McCoy will keep this from happening from here on out, but Young can still fuck with us without ordering us on wild goose chases. And we don’t know what else is in the pipeline.”
“I hope McCoy comes through,” Jane told him. “This isn’t just about losing matches and opportunities…he’s trying to hurt your Marine career as well. As well as your reputation, and even your ability to serve. You need to train and have therapy in order to continue to push forward in this endeavor….an endeavor Young is supposed to be supporting!” She looked at Connor with an exasperated expression.
“Why does he want you to fail?”
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
“Sir! Commander, MARSOC, on hold.”
General Young looked at the phone, and couldn’t help feel a small measure of pleasure on getting over on the high and mighty David M. McCoy.
Young hated McCoy. Young never served in combat per se: Sure, he’d run a JAG office and worked in support and staff functions, but had only gotten his Southwest Asian Expeditionary Medal and Liberation of Kuwait decoration after sitting in Diego Garcia making sure supplies of fuel and bombs were ready for B-52’s and S-3’s He’d been given his War on Terrorism medal because he served in a FOB as a Chief of Staff. HE was a supporting officer, who had been enabled politically, and now he was a Major General who was not respected by his peers due to the fact that he had friend in high places on the Joint Chiefs. McCoy was one of those guys who started out as an enlisted man, made Warrant Officer, found a way to get to Officer’s Candidate School, got a college degree, AND was a damnedable hero, winning a Navy Cross as a SEAL.
Young was insanely jealous. And he took it out on anything and everything he could, and that something now was McCoy’s little brother, Mike Connor.
Young took a deep breath, and answered. “Major General Young.”
“General, I thought we had a discussion about your habit of blindly deploying Lieutenant Colonel Connor and Lieutenant Murphy. I thought I was clear about what need to take place should you believe they needed to be activated. As a matter of fact, I believe I said something about a ‘direct order.”
“I’m sorry, General McCoy. I had forgotten about the orders I had sent over a couple months ago at the behest of General Patrick….you know, from the Joint Chiefs?”
“Your relative? Yes, I am aware of who General Patrick is, and his relation to you,” McCoy answered. “I’m also aware that you’re working hard to find a way to see Colonel Connor fail. You know that if he was deployed with no prior notice to a place like a FOB on the damned Syrian border that he’d not have any time to train or review film. You forced an irregular transfer of command in a hot zone just so you could get a pound of flesh.”
Young shrugged. “I had no idea that the Iranians would launch their attack on Israel at that specific time.”
“Of course not,” came the reply. “General, I have cleared orders for the two officers. If there are any other surprises, I am not afraid of any political ramifications that might occur if I jump squarely on your head. If they are activated, it will be by my order. Will I find any other surprises as we move on from this bullshit?”
“No, Sir.”
“That had best be the case, General.”
Yeah, I sure did.
Did I improve?
Sure. I did better than I did last year. However, if I’m aiming for a bullseye and my second dart was closer than the first, but still outside of that little circle, did I get a bullseye?
Uh, no.
Maybe it’s a generational thing…I’m really not happy with the fact I lost, but I’m not going to pretend that I came in here and won some sort of moral victory, nor am I expecting a present or trophy for showing up. I lost. I failed. I didn’t win…Jake Smith did, and deservedly so.
For all the reasons that I talked about over the last two weeks (and some I didn’t necessarily want to share with my fans…trust me, there were reasons), this was a hell of an opportunity for me. It was coming at an opportune time and in an opportune place, and through a combination of my failing to execute my best match, and my opposition doing very well (kudos to everyone in the match..outstanding work from most all of you), I got tossed over the top rope and got eliminated.
Battle lost, opportunity lost. I’m going to have to do something that Marines hate to do…retrench and review a failed battleplan.
That was a costly loss, but the battle isn’t over.
Some people last week took my explanation about why I needed to win and where I was in my career as a sign that I thought further improvement wasn't a possibility for me…that is not the case, though I never had the opportunity to explain it. I know I can learn more and improve in the ring: I learn things every day, be those things from film study, training, or facing off with someone in the ring at Voltage or a special event, like Grand Rampage. I just know that this business takes a physical toll on the people within it and, unlike the other Elitists, I have a parallel career that is more important than this one. There is a limit as to what my 43-year old body is going to be able to withstand over the time I require to get my experience to a point that allows me to stand in the upper tier of the EAW and be considered for championships and marquee matches.
That is a ‘reality’. I don’t bask in a flowery, rose-colored world where everything will be all right if I just try and believe in myself. I know what I am capable of, and what I am able to accomplish. I can get up to those levels and compete with those rare top-of-the-line Elitists…I’m not there yet.
But I will be. I’m on a 10-step staircase, standing on step # 4 and looking at the top of that staircase. It doesn’t matter who is on the staircase with me: My goal is to get up to the top, and I know that anyone within reach of me wants the same thing and will use me to get to the top spot as well. I have to make it in spite of that. I have to fight my way up there.
I’m not the most awesome person in this industry. I’m not flashy, I’m not prone to telling everyone within earshot about how great I am and whatnot: It’s not who I am. I would rather train, work hard, learn about my opponent, and execute a solid, successful match. I’m actually kind of boring.
I’m not a Mia Santoro.
Mia is a hell of a worker and she has produced a body of work that is impressive in EAW. I’ve seen her promos, and they are a sight more exciting than mine. She might not look at her record and see a ton of bright spots, but I see more than a few times that she had matches in the bag and some externality caused her to lose…a run-in here or there, you know the drill, because its EAW and there are a lot of things (like La Familia) that can happen and influence a match. It would be unwise to hold any of that against her, as she has demonstrated that she can hold her own against any Elitist she’s put into the ring against.
Another thing that can’t be overlooked is that she has a personal and professional friend and mentor in Donovan Duke, which allows her a resource that she can tap into if she wants it: His understanding of what it takes to win in this industry is invaluable and I know that she’s smart enough to ask his advice and learn from what he does…and you all know I hold him in high regard. I know that knowledge of this sport can be passed in ways that are both formal and informal, and in all those things that makes Duke such a good Elitist from training, to his mindset and determination, to how he works matches against different types of competitors….those things can and will be passed on to Mia as she gains time and exposure what he demonstrates. Along with her own talents, as I explained before, this makes her formidable.
I say these things because I’m in a professional/personal relationship of my own, where I learn something new every day from someone who has great strengths that are different than mine. It’s a good place to be.
So I have nothing bad to say about Mia…she’s a stout challenge to be this week and someone who is going to be hard to best in the ring. Mia is someone who can beat anyone on a good night: She’s someone a Dr. Bethany Blue doesn’t want to have to get by, or even a Minerva. Mia is a unique challenge for anyone in the fed, so looking past her is a mistake that any good Elitist is very wary of.
There are no moral victories in EAW, however. I am coming to Voltage to win the match. I’m going to have to overcome this challenge in order to right the ship, fix the damage to whatever momentum I had going into the Grand Rampage event, and get moving forward again. Like I described to everyone last week, this ‘slow creeping advance’ that this Marine has been making in the EAW is slow and costly, and I have to have a breakout, like what the US 3rd Army had in France in 1944. I have to punch through and quicken the pace of my advance towards the upper tier. I have to get better in order to make an impression against the Donovan Dukes, the TLA’s, and the Minerva’s of this brand. Mia wants this too, so I have to be able to win the match 1-2-3 in the center of the ring.
Let’s talk straight: I know for sure that Minerva, as an example, looks at me and takes in the entire picture: Sure, there’s the respect one Elitist has for the other, and she’s talked about this before, in her match against me and in the week before her match with Holly Arrow. That’s good, and it’s reciprocated, but do you think that Minerva looks at me the same way she looks at a Holly Arrow, or a TLA, or a Ms. Extreme? Not a chance.
We tend to associate the word ‘threat’ with a fearful emotion….in regular life, that seems to be an understood thing, right? Let’s get dispassionate for a moment: A ‘threat’, in essence, is a thing, condition, or action that is recognized as a chance of failure or impediment to success. For example, a threat to a covert operation could be the placement of enemy forces in our area of operation. When you plan, you have to account for threats.
In the scheme of things, Minerva doesn’t see Lt. Colonel Michael Connor as a threat. An Elitist, sure. Someone that she needs to be prepared for? Of course. But a threat, as I described above?
Nope. I’m not at that level….yet. The plan is, however, for me to become that threat. The goal, by my improvement in the ring, is to become that threat…that person who, because of their performances in the ring and the victories that they have rung up, is a threat to their position and their championship (if they were to have one. Minerva does not take me into account when she looks at the line of champions in the EAW, and for that matter nor does a Drake Armstrong, or a Ms. Extreme, or a Jake Smith, Charlie Marr…just insert the name of a current EAW titleholder.
I need to become that person that they consider to be a threat….not a personal threat to themselves (because that’s not how I operate) but someone they see as a legitimate challenge.
How do I do that? By considering good workers like Mia to be threats and overcoming those threats. By winning matches like this and progressing as an Elitist and making wins against Elitists like Mia a regular thing, not a marked exception like my win against Holly Arrow. By learning in these competitions against people of demonstrated ability, like Mia, and using these lessons to raise myself to the upper tier.
Just as Mia is doing and planning to do. That’s what makes this sport unlike any other.
I’m pretty sure I’ll be talking to you all later this week as well, so I can leave it there for now.
Semper Fi.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
--The Day After Grand Rampage—
Jane Murphy looked at her company as he stirred his black coffee.
He wasn’t sullen….he didn’t seem to have that kind of mood. Mike Connor didn’t ‘pout’, per se…he was a mature person and had dealt with failures of various import in his life….some of which had cost lives. It was a fact borne from his decades-long career as a Marine, and a commander of combat-involved forces, large and small. Losses in the EAW fell into that as well, though understandably not as acute of a loss as death.
But the man across the table from her was stirring black coffee. He was preoccupied with the results of the Grand Rampage match. Why stir black coffee? What were you stirring into it?
Jane has studied psychology in college in order to get her doctorate: She was very intelligent, and she knew the Marine sitting with her at the small, private diner was as well. He was playing the match over in his head, she knew, looking for the points where he had failed, reviewing his actions, dissecting his decisions. This had been very important to him: Every point he’d made during his promos he’d talked to her about when they’d had time together before their deployment to Jordan…and after, on their 28-hour trip to Arizona. And…now, he was dealing with the outcome. Plying details and second-guessing.
“You ever going to drink that coffee?”
He looked at her and grinned. “I plan on it.”
“I mean, today?”
He smiled more broadly. “I think so.”
“You know, it’s not your fault…”
He sighed and shook his head. “No-one else was in that ring but me,” he said. “No-one was inhabiting my body when it was tossed over the top rope at the event. Not any other Marine, not any other disembodied spirit….just me. I was there, I managed to get beat. It’s not a ‘fault’ thing, Jane. I was bettered.”
“Well,” she said, “what’s your plan now?”
“What I did last year,” he said. “Take a look at what I did wrong, try to fix the gaps in how I performed, improve for the next part of the season. I proved that I was in the mid-card for a reason last night…I have to get better, Murph….I need to.”
“All things being equal,” she responded after taking a sip of her own coffee, “you need to be on a level playing field with these other guys and gals. They don’t have someone pulling them off of a tight training and rehab schedule in order to serve in a useless capacity 8,000 miles away. I mean, it was good you where there, but all that other crap aside, why? It was done to hurt you and set you up for failure.”
“I can’t control that,” Connor answered. “And I don’t have a way towards controlling it. I think General McCoy will keep this from happening from here on out, but Young can still fuck with us without ordering us on wild goose chases. And we don’t know what else is in the pipeline.”
“I hope McCoy comes through,” Jane told him. “This isn’t just about losing matches and opportunities…he’s trying to hurt your Marine career as well. As well as your reputation, and even your ability to serve. You need to train and have therapy in order to continue to push forward in this endeavor….an endeavor Young is supposed to be supporting!” She looked at Connor with an exasperated expression.
“Why does he want you to fail?”
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
“Sir! Commander, MARSOC, on hold.”
General Young looked at the phone, and couldn’t help feel a small measure of pleasure on getting over on the high and mighty David M. McCoy.
Young hated McCoy. Young never served in combat per se: Sure, he’d run a JAG office and worked in support and staff functions, but had only gotten his Southwest Asian Expeditionary Medal and Liberation of Kuwait decoration after sitting in Diego Garcia making sure supplies of fuel and bombs were ready for B-52’s and S-3’s He’d been given his War on Terrorism medal because he served in a FOB as a Chief of Staff. HE was a supporting officer, who had been enabled politically, and now he was a Major General who was not respected by his peers due to the fact that he had friend in high places on the Joint Chiefs. McCoy was one of those guys who started out as an enlisted man, made Warrant Officer, found a way to get to Officer’s Candidate School, got a college degree, AND was a damnedable hero, winning a Navy Cross as a SEAL.
Young was insanely jealous. And he took it out on anything and everything he could, and that something now was McCoy’s little brother, Mike Connor.
Young took a deep breath, and answered. “Major General Young.”
“General, I thought we had a discussion about your habit of blindly deploying Lieutenant Colonel Connor and Lieutenant Murphy. I thought I was clear about what need to take place should you believe they needed to be activated. As a matter of fact, I believe I said something about a ‘direct order.”
“I’m sorry, General McCoy. I had forgotten about the orders I had sent over a couple months ago at the behest of General Patrick….you know, from the Joint Chiefs?”
“Your relative? Yes, I am aware of who General Patrick is, and his relation to you,” McCoy answered. “I’m also aware that you’re working hard to find a way to see Colonel Connor fail. You know that if he was deployed with no prior notice to a place like a FOB on the damned Syrian border that he’d not have any time to train or review film. You forced an irregular transfer of command in a hot zone just so you could get a pound of flesh.”
Young shrugged. “I had no idea that the Iranians would launch their attack on Israel at that specific time.”
“Of course not,” came the reply. “General, I have cleared orders for the two officers. If there are any other surprises, I am not afraid of any political ramifications that might occur if I jump squarely on your head. If they are activated, it will be by my order. Will I find any other surprises as we move on from this bullshit?”
“No, Sir.”
“That had best be the case, General.”
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