Heart

There was nothing special about the blood that pumped through his veins. It was ordinary, just like every man, woman or child. Even those with the rarest of blood types couldn’t say that they stood alone. And though every man, woman and child had blood of similar makeup, there were things that differentiated them. From a figurative stand point some people’s blood ran hotter than others. If harnessed, that hot blooded, short tempered nature could fuel someone to do what otherwise might be called unthinkable or impossible. If left to run wild, well, that sort of raw anger and fury had been the undoing of many great men.


Staring at his own hands, Danny Rizzo sat alone. Leela had left to spend Halloween with her parents and he knew that that was partially his fault. His own anger and rage at the way things had unfolded over the past month or so had made him less than pleasant to be around. Especially after the way the events of the final Blitz had gone down, with him suffering the pinfall at the hands of Aoki Zombie. It was an unusual feeling, one that he hadn’t felt in quite some time. As he stared blankly into his hands he felt that unharnessed rage burning in his blood. How he had gotten to the point where he was so angry all of the time he wasn’t sure. Though he felt certain that it originated with Chris Callum.


In a very physical way it is the heart that harnesses and utilizes the blood that the body creates, delivering it in short, relentless bursts with every single beat. When one’s heart starts to lose its ability to function, and it fails, the human body cannot continue on. In much the same way, the figurative heart, the core of man, operates. It harnesses that blood, those emotions that can drive and fuel a man to greatness. But when the heart can’t keep up. When it begins to falter and fail then, just like with the physical body, man begins to falter and fail.


Nothing had ever been more important to him than the moment that waited for him. For so long he had been looked over. Cast aside. Downtrodden. No one had believed that he would beat NovaCaine. Deep down he knew that, at the time, he hadn’t even been certain. It hadn’t mattered. He’d gone in and thrown himself wholeheartedly into that war and, against the odds, had emerged with his first victory on a grander stage. The fans had adored him then and he had fought for them. Until he hadn’t. Until he had given himself over to anger and bitterness. Somehow he had convinced himself that he didn’t need anyone other than himself, not when the world had let him be a victim and no one had ever stepped in. Those days were gone. Even if it meant he couldn’t be the Apex champion. Even if it meant he would fall short of the summit, he would never go back to being the sheep that he had been. But…


Thankfully, the way the human body is made up, when the heart starts to develop problems and no longer functions in the way that it once did, there are warning signs and symptoms that help the individual recognize that there is a problem and something needs to happen to address the issues at hand. Pride. Ego. Arrogance. Those things are the undoing of the figurative heart and each of those characteristics has symptoms and warning signs. A feeling of invincibility. A disregard for anyone and everyone around oneself. An ever growing reliance on self. All of them present themselves as warning signs for the individual who finds themselves in danger of losing their heart. And the onus finds itself placed squarely on the individuals shoulders to acknowledge them and address them, or to ignore them and suffer the consequences that follow.


Something had to change. Somewhere along the way Danny Rizzo recognized that he had lost sight of who he was. Even when he had distanced himself from the fans he had still maintained some semblance of the character and integrity that he had possessed all along. He had been the one to reel Kaven Drell in. But then Kaven had made an example out of Rex Rumble, lighting the man on fire, and he had done nothing to stop it. The first warning sign he had missed. Combine those things with the immense amount of self worth and pride he felt in himself when he had finally relinquished the UnYielding Championship. The warning signs had been there, mixed in with the anger and bitterness he had felt for so long.

It had been the loss at the last Blitz that had been the true shock to his system. One that he was still reeling and recovering from. It was true that he was still angry. Angry that Callum had gotten the best of him indirectly. Angry that he hadn’t been able to do his part in the random partnership between he and Tommy Crimson. It was anger that he had sworn was going to fuel him to his victory over Callum at 7 Pillars. And while he still felt it bubbling and boiling within him, he knew now that that was a path that was only going to lead to his destruction, and the destruction of everything that was important to him personally.

He had gotten exactly what he needed. A jolt to his heart muscle in the form of a gut wrenching loss, much like a doctor would send a jolt of electricity shooting through a heart that was suffering from tachycardia.

All that was left to do was to harness the anger that he felt once more, and get the core of who he was thumping in the relentless, unyielding rhythm that had driven him to greatness in the first place.




“I can’t lie, Chris.”

Finally, Danny looks up from his hands after having stared at them for a span of time he had long since lost track of.

“You got under my skin. That’s what you wanted, right? To find those little vulnerabilities and exploit them. It’s why you have constantly tried to pull Leela into the middle of this all, feigning concern. You got me. You got what you wanted and you drove me to lose sight of what truly matters. I took my eye off of the ball, so to speak, and lost sight of who I was. No greater evidence of that exists than the most recent episode of Blitz. And I paid for it. Dearly.”

For a moment the former UnYielding champion grits his teeth, clear that the taste of losing is not something that sits well with him.

“That’s what men like you do, though, right? You attach yourself to one host or another and like a parasite you gradually suck the life out of them. Weakening them until there’s nothing left to give and then you move onto the next thing. It’s what you did with Galveston. Hell, it’s what you’ve done with Cosmo. No doubt about it it’s what you’ve been doing to me and if you’re allowed to continue, eventually you will bleed the life right out of this company. It’s not your fault. That is who you are. It’s what your natural instinct is. It’s how you survive.”

Closing his eyes, Danny takes a deep breath to steady himself. It was never going to be an easy thing, harnessing something that had been allowed to run wild for so long. It would test the mettle of the man, of that there could be no doubt. But after a few moments pause, Danny managed to reign in the wildfire within him and continue on.

“That’s the problem, Chris, isn’t it? Who you are and what you are is an empty and vain man that has to cling to others to feel alive. You can’t thrive on your own. You need someone else. You can’t find joy and peace and contentment for yourself, so you throw yourself into trying to take it from other people. Do you know what the problem with living that life is?”

Rubbing his hands on the thighs of his jeans, Danny finally looks directly into the eyes of his viewing audience and, more specifically, his opponent at 7 Pillars.

“Try as you might. As determined as you are to stand on your own and be your own man. Desperately you want to be mentioned in the same breath as Cosmo Cooper, as Leela Watts, as Bryan Laughlin or Ana Hayden and other countless men and women who have reached the pinnacle of this profession on the back of their own blood, sweat and tears. Overcoming the odds at every turn. You, Callum, will never be mentioned in the same breath as those men and women. That’s the truth, and that will eat at you every waking moment for the rest of your life. Because at the end of the day you don’t have the one thing that is necessary to survive on your own. You don’t have the one thing that those men and women have.”

He pauses again, and a beat of the heart passes by. Danny takes note of it mentally and smirks at the irony of it all as his right hand folds upward, his index finger extending outward.

“You don’t have what I have.”

Turning that index finger inwardly toward himself, he tapped gently on the left side of his chest.

“You don’t have the heart. I’ve never needed you, Chris. You simply happen to be the man holding onto the Apex Championship when my moment arrived. Make no mistake about it, I’m not a man of destiny. I never have been. I’ve never been the one that the bosses looked at and believed in as their next big star. Hell, you yourself said I’m likely not even half the man you believed Cosmo to be. What was it you called me again, a runt? And you know what? Maybe I am. But there’s one thing I know about the runt of the litter, Chris.”

Danny lowers his hand to rest at his side once more.

“From day one they have to fight for everything they have. They have to get used to being over looked and if they’re going to survive they have to get beyond that and do anything and everything that is necessary to make it to another day. And then another. And then another after that. Within them, though, that fighting spirit grows. And as each day passes and they get stronger. And they get bigger. They have something that the rest of the litter never had to consider or think about.”

Nodding his head as though he expects the audience and his opponent to keep up with where he’s going, he uses that moments pause to build the suspense slightly.

“They’ve got what matters most deep down inside.”

Again, he taps himself on the chest gently before letting his hand fall once more.

“And from day one I’ve had to fight tooth and nail for everything I’ve had. Never a man of destiny, but a man who has risen to this moment by being the word that the wrestling world associates with me now. Unyielding. And try as you might, Chris. In spite of all the games. In spite of that fact that you have relentlessly tried to suck the soul from every limb of my body.”

A pause.

“My heart beats on.”

Another beat.

“One beat at a time. One second at a time. One moment at a time closer to claiming the Apex Championship as my own at 7 Pillars.”

Gently, Danny reaches out with his hand and raps his knuckles off the table mouthing one word once, and then twice.