Azurine Vebbins vs. Boots Martin

BOOTS TO HEARTS
EPISODE THREE: SINGULARITY

...and, we're live.

Alright people, let's get started. The last thing I ever want to do is sound like the redheaded bitch, and that's exactly what would happen if I started spouting off about the fact that people only tend to be good at one thing in their lives. Scion believed it, Cross believed it, both talked about it all the time. Me? Not quite. Truth be told, I think that people can be good a lot of things. Hell, I'll even go so far as to submit that people can even be great at a few things. But to be World Class? To be World Class requires a singular determination towards honing a singular talent or skillset, to the exclusion of all else. It's a plateau reserved for those with the passion and the drive to be better than everyone at one thing, and it requires a narrow-minded focus possessed by only the most elite.

So, when I see my upcoming opponent, who's suddenly become very active on social media, tweet all day about what foods she's cooking and handing out to the neighbors that day, or what movies she's watching, or what #NationalBlankDay it is, or... god forbid, her 90-minute spin class workout... then I have to wonder if she knows what she's getting herself into or who she's facing.

The Fear Factory. It's a forge of champions, and it's where I come from. Maybe, in its prime, the most intensive two-year developmental program anywhere in the sport of professional wrestling. Do you know what a day at The Fear Factory that consisted of a 90-minute cardio workout followed by some yoga was called? No? Me neither, because it didn't exist. If it did, I'd imagine the only name for it would have been an 'Off Day'. It would never have been part of the actual camp leading up to a fight.

Yeah, I know that me preaching the virtues of having trained at The Fear Factory in Toronto for two years is more than a little ironic, given that it was me responsible for that whole empire crumbling, and I also know the all-to-common critiques leveled at Fear Factory graduates: too serious, too single-minded, too driven. Maybe that's all right. But, the other thing you can say about us is that we both know what it takes to win and we're willing to do it.

We're willing to do the work that we understand needs to be done. Pain is the path. Sacrifice is the path. Being fueled by a fire so hot it's consuming you is the path.

Baking cookies is not the path.

Maybe Azurine wants to be World Class at something, I don't know. THing is, it's usually not hard to look at someone striving to be world class and know exactly what it is that they're striving for. That singular determination I mentioned earlier is usually difficult to mistake for anything but what it is. Maybe she wants to be a world-class chef, or a world-class philanthropist, or a world-class home cleaner. I see no evidence, given her daily routine or her social media habits that she wants to be a world-class professional fighter.

That doesn't make you a lesser person than me, Az. Doesn't even make you a lesser fighter... in fact, I can respect the courage it must take to get into the ring with a stone-cold killer combat sports athlete without having the sort of determination and drive that they possess. All that having been said, it does hurt your chances. I'm not the biggest fighter on the Elysium roster, not the strongest... but no one on that roster is going to outwork me. No one has as much to prove. And that fact hurts your chances.

You have a full, vibrant life, Az. You have friends and relationships and hobbies to fill your time. I have a black mark on me and my career that has nothing to do with my capabilities inside that ring and erasing that black mark requires every bit of my energy, every bit of my attention. And that's bad news for you, girl. I have no friends, I have no relationships, I have no hobbies. I have me, the gym, and that heavy bag. I have nothing on my mind except smashing your face and adding your pile to the gutters of Eight Mile. I have only one goal at a time, and that's the next opponent.

And it's not even personal, Az. In fact, it has almost nothing to do with you at all, other than your name being the next one on the contract. These fans are never going to love me, cheer me, root for me... because I took their heroes away because I soiled that Cross Legacy and brought The Sentinel down... and his redheaded bitch wife too. I took their favorite away from them, and they hate me for it, somehow never understanding that I loved him too. I hate them all for that.

But I will make them respect me. Even as they spit on me, even as they attach their hate to my name, I will put on matches that will never let them avert their gaze, never let them turn their eyes away. They can call me home-wrecker, they can label me the empire killer, they can call me the whore. But they will respect what I do in that ring, as will every single one of my peers with the misfortune to find themselves in there with me.

Including you, Betty Crocker.

Maybe, on some level, I envy your nice, full life. Maybe, on some level, I wish there was more in mine... maybe for a time there was. But not anymore. I'm 'Born To Kill' Boots Martin, and I am a singularity. I have one mission. I have one goal. I have one destination and the road to it is long.

I will not sleep until I arrive.

BOOTS TO HEARTS
EPISODE FOUR: EXTREME WINNER

So, I guess that the most important thing that I learned about multi-taskers from Az's recent promo is that they don't seem to listen very well. Must be that lack of focus I was talking about. I mean, there really is no other excuse for her scatter-brained response to the proposition that I'd proposed to her. My first instinct was to think that she'd recorded her promo without actually watching mine... but there were just enough direct references there to show that she had. Which means either she didn't understand the point I was making, or she was going out of her way to be the perfect example of it.

I'm not even going to attempt to count the number of pointless subjects she crammed into that promo. Go watch it yourself, you'll see. She's all over the place. But the one thing she said that stood out as almost having anything to do with anything I had said or with our upcoming fight was this: "...variety supersedes mundanity any day..."

No Az. That's where you're wrong. Variety doesn't supersede mundanity at all. It creates mediocrity.

Joe Rogan often talks about 'Extreme Winners'. Those figures throughout history who have made a significant impact in their chosen field, not simply through a talent or a skill or anything that they may have been genetically gifted with, but through a single-minded determination to be the very best in said field. Those individuals who create the legend that they eventually become through sheer force of will, undiluted by other pursuits. Now, these individuals are rare, and because they are rare, people like Az are acceptable most of the time, in any field or any number of fields. Like I said earlier this week... people can be great at a number of things, and even appear to be exceptionally great at many things... right up until they find themselves in the presence of an extreme winner in any one of those things.

Az may very well be a great wrestler, in addition to being a great cook and a great dancer and a great maid and a great yogi and whatever other in her litany of hobbies and timekillers that she wants to be great in. And in a world without extreme winners, she may even appear to be exceptionally great at all of these things. In a world where everyone is trying to be all things, it's enough to be great. But insert into any one of those worlds an extreme winner, someone with the passion, the fire, and the unrelenting drive to be the absolute very best at one thing and one thing alone... and at that moment it becomes clear just how watered down the field really is.

Now, the question we have to ask ourselves is this: is Boots Martin an extreme winner?

Too early to say. But here's what I can promise you, Az. That one quality that all extreme winners share? That passion, that drive, that fire to be the absolute all-time best in one specific field, to the exclusion of all else? That I have. I knew it when I was fourteen, when I started saving money from every job I had so I could, after high school, get into the best wrestling school on this continent. I knew it when I was eighteen, and I first walked through the doors of that very school. I knew it when, after the one thing that ever distracted me from my goal nearly took my dream from me completely, I was forced to go to an underground promotion in Los Angeles for three years just to have anyplace to ply my trade at all. And I know it now, here, in Elysium.

Passion is a funny thing, Az. It's like a laser. When the aperture is open and the focus is broad, the beam itself is weak. Harmless. It may light a greater area, but it penetrates nothing. But close the aperture to just a point, tighten the focus, and the beam is devastation.

I can't dance, Az. If I get hungry, I order sushi from UberEats. My apartment in Detroit is usually a mess. I don't know or care what #NationalBlankDay it is.

But I can fight. I know how to hurt people, bad. These fans, who will never cheer for me because I'm the reason two of their heroes fell from grace, even they know that I'm no joke inside that ring once that bell rings. With all the pressure I put on myself to do this one thing better than everyone, it'd be a really good time for you to figure it out too. Because like both the Wu-Tang Clan and Alexis Sykes, Boots Martin ain't nuthin' to fuck wit.