Post by djurdjevic on Oct 4, 2019 8:26:00 GMT -5
“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants” -- Sir Isaac Newton
Their names sent a thrill of warning along the length of every wrestler’s spine.
Chandler Scott.
Felicity Banks.
Andreas Lasiewicz.
Kol.
Zero McHannon.
Emilio Vialpando.
And now… Cosmo Cooper joins the long line of legends who have hung up their boots. Katya Djurdjevic enjoys the late afternoon as it lingers on the air, setting down Cooper’s autobiography on top of the other volumes about his fellow giants of the sport.
Ambitions and status shattered by one match, throwing Katya’s world into free-fall, many were sure that Honour Bound would have left her bearing scars and turned her into a coward. But one young girl gripped that small blade held in her heart to resume her compelling battle for the UnYielding championship.
And with the title’s vacation, chaos ignites and opportunity glimmers in the darkness.
Katya picks up the book on Banks and flicks through its pages. “Wrestling – such a nest of rivalries," she says. "Wrestling is as much of a vipers’ den as ever you might imagine. Alliances are made and broken, pacts and oaths sworn and forgotten before the night’s end. And a lot of it comes down to ego.”
She glances at us with a smile that seemed far too knowing for a youth.
“Hello, my friendly friends. We're getting closer and closer to the bottom line of this year. We’re in the final quarter and it’s a good time to reflect. For instance…
Kylie Jenner became the world’s youngest billionaire earlier this year.
Now this was something to me. It’s easy to dismiss this because of who she is, but there’s a lesson there. A question we should ask ourselves.
“Why is Kylie Jenner a billionaire and I’m not?”
Let me preface this. I barely know who Kylie Jenner is.
I’ve seen pictures of her without even knowing who she was. You could have put her and her sister Kendall side by side, and I’d struggle to tell you who’s who.
But I know Kim Kardashian.
EVERYONE knows Kim Kardashian.
She has a super high level of celebrity.
She gets paid 100K to visit a nightclub because of her name power alone.
As far as I know, she’s the Kardashian the media follows the most.
She’s the one who brought the others into the spotlight.
The one who’s married to Kanye West.
But Kylie zoomed right by her.
And that astounds me. It astounds me that Kylie’s got 3x Kim’s wealth at 21. Oh, sure. She has her advantages. But not everyone in her position makes a billion dollars. Just look at her sisters or any other child of millionaire parents.
I wanted to find the underlying reason behind how she did it.
See, around the time Kylie was announced as the World’s Youngest Billionaire, something else was happening. This plucky 19 year old was getting her feet wet in the wrestling world.
And I wanted to know how I too can have such accelerated progress. For Valor was at its height and Katya Dhurdjevic had her share of plaudits yet to earn.
So I looked into Kylie’s example.
And the answer was simple.
She asked the right questions and listened.
She kept asking “Who has the answer? And how can I get their help” -- “Not how do I do this?” She doesn’t know! But she knew how to ask “who” and got in touch with the people who can help her do it. She learned from the best to figure out the answer to her burning questions. Rather than wasting months and months, if not years figuring out how to do it, she’d get the answers in days. Shaving away that learning curve drastically.
And that’s why I read these.”
She gestures to the neat pile of autobiographies.
“To study greatness from the mouths of the greats. Surrounding myself with winners. I learned the importance of shameless theft 10 years ago from my father, who said, ‘Search the world, and steal the best.’
Cynical? Not at all. It's sound advice.
Mozart - an original genius, I’m sure you’ll agree - said “I never tried to be the slightest bit original.”
So I study the greats and build on it.
If you've watched my matches you may notice what I've lifted not just from these guys..."
She nods to the gathered books.
"...but from Laughlin, Valescence, Carlson and Kaiser.
My brain robbery didn't stop there, though:
Izzy Anders, Ana Hayden, Lisa Seldon, Cordy Stevenson, Merlot Ayano, Josh Kennedy and Dante Cutler - I pilfered from them (and others) heavily too - for good reason.
Whether it was through their books, talking with them or training with them. I opened my ear to listen. I’d already been doing that the year before but Kylie Jenner’s success only made me more confident of my decisions.
Because wrestling was already tough enough. My being here at Valor represents the biggest challenge of my career. Running in here was like moving from the claws to the fangs. A baptism of fire. I needed to be fully prepared.
I didn’t have any experience of wrestling and performing before massive crowds. And a wise girl knows what she knows and what she doesn’t.
Ego will make you think you can do it all on your own. . If you know everything, your cup is full. And nothing better will enter the cup. The intelligent person empties their cup and goes to the right person to listen and learn.
Because life is basically like a soap bubble. It rides on the wind, flying here and there... and before you realize it - pop! It's gone. When it's about to disappear, you think that you could've flown a little higher. But by the time, it's already too late.
You can fly a lot higher if you humble yourself. But some people just have too big an ego. Like the former champion who has dismissed the UnYielding prize as something of a side-show.
Anyone could see that boy was two-faced. Now it seems he’s decided to fly his true colours. He liked to harp on that it was the man who makes the title. And yet he’s the one dropping the UnYielding crown for another.
My feelings about Danny Rizzo have long been mixed – respect for the warrior; exasperation at the boasts, the self-appointed exceptionalism. But him vacating the UnYielding title was an insult, a spiteful knife in the guts that smacked of arrogance and a disregard for the abilities of those in the division. And I’ll admit it’s given me renewed impetus.
My eye for opportunity is getting sharper and sharper by the day. The UnYielding division is a special division that sees the invincible defeated, the invulnerable humbled. It teaches a crucial lesson: all things pass. But Danny Rizzo closed his ear to that wisdom. He yielded by choice and thinks he can go around proclaiming himself as UnYielding.”
She shook her head as though disappointed at the former champion’s lack of ambition and vision.
“But enough about him. Now I face a new challenge. The 7 Pillars gauntlet. Waiting for me there are some of the best up-and-coming wrestlers in the nation… and some of the best period. It is time I reminded Valor just what I am capable of. That I am far from out of this fight.”
With measured steps, Katya approaches the camera
“I look forward to crossing paths with you, Moxie. Our blades are drawn to each other as a lodestone sings to steel. I always knew they will cross before long. You and I both rose quickly through the ranks. I’ve even heard some journalists call you “GIW’s answer to Katya Djurdjevic” which is a little odd to be honest, but… we’ll both draw it out of each other. Our true strengths…our fighting spirits. The true test will be in which of us falls and how we handle it.
I stuttered again in my search for the UnYielding but not when it comes to 7 Pillars. I'm not there to fill lanes. I'm not here to make other people look good. The aroma of comeback is in the air. And I’ll be sweating blood to make sure we clash not once but twice. I’ll go through the darlings of last year's competition to make it happen. Even if I’m running on empty. I have been put through my paces for a very long time for this. And you’ll learn that first hand this Sunday.
Because I’m gonna show you something beautiful. How a girl who has been trying to win the UnYielding crown for ten months fights. Because that’s what will give me the strength to outlast 6 of Valor’s best.”
The hero that's no hero had a tigerish gleam in her eyes.
“7 Pillars will be a show woven into the historical fabric of the sport. That show will set the bar. And that radicality will carve out space for a whole new realm of possibility.
When they speak of UnYielding in Valor, my name will come first -- and I will become Katya the UnYielding. Transforming this division into an edifice deserving of awe.
Soon, there will only be the victor… and the vanquished.”