[Heidi has a Youtube channel that she has never before used.]

[For reasons known only to her, however, rather than go through standard Defiance promotional channels, she uploaded this footage to youtube.]

[Click to view.]

“Hi, Defiance fans.”

[Heidi Christenson usually keeps her promotional appearance ‘minimalist’, sometimes limiting them to audio only.  But today, she’s relaxed across a beige and tan sofa in the living room of the house she and Jeff maintain.  In fact, Jeff’s famous brown leather armchair is just visible off to the left.]

[Keeping with the aura of informality, Heidi’s wearing a white cropped T-shirt and pale gray sweatpants.  Her hair is completely unstyled, only combed backwards out of her eyes.]

“To be honest, I’m not really sure how all this is going to come out, because… well, I’ve never really liked talking.  I can say a few things when I have to, but pre-Defiance I liked to just let my wrestling speak for itself.  And although I didn’t realize it at the time, that made it a lot easier to stay out of the ground game and the moral ambiguities that I’m being confronted with lately.  Back when I did that I didn’t have to argue with Jimmy Kort about whether he could side with Elijah Goldman and call himself a hero, or with Tom Sawyer over how many ‘bad things’ I have to do to be considered a bad person.”

“But, I feel like I owe my fans and supporters an explanation for why I’m doing what I’m doing that’s a little more explicit than ‘it’s ok to do bad things to bad people’.  For the first time in a long, long time, I’ve got a match against someone I look up to.  Of course, I mean Christian Light.  I respect and admire Claira St. Sure, but… it’s a completely different thing.”

“And then there’s Kort, and why I went after him the way I did, and more importantly why now even after the fact, with Kort nowhere to be seen, I still don’t feel any remorse for what I did.”

“And, to go back further, and the reason I started out in Defiance the way I did.  Why I allied myself with The Hydra.”

“And why I decided to try and properly win the Masters of Wrestling tournament based on enigmatic words from a former foe.”

“The only thing I don’t intend to clear up is the full reason I dragged my heels during the first few months of the tournament and gave Elijah Goldman an excuse to fire me.”

[Heidi sighs with her eyes closed.]

“For people who might’ve only started following Defiance as of the Masters of Wrestling Tournament and the associated promotional drive, I wasn’t really a Defiance original.  I’m either a ship-jumper from the WfWA, or that rarest of rareities – a retired ‘legend’ who came back and managed to stay back.  Either way.  The first night I wrestled in Defiance, I, to quote Angus Skaaland, ‘les-molested’ Wendy Briese.”

“I brushed her cheek with my finger.  It was mostly subtext, sorry to disappoint.  But more than that, before I did it, and after I did it, I wondered if I’d done irreparable harm to my reputation.  Or, if I can be egotistical for a moment, my legacy.”

“If Wendy Briese came back and demanded vengeance for that, I don’t know what I’d do.  But she’s not coming back - last I heard she and that coward she called a husband were wearing out their welcome all over the circuit.  So I never got called out… never got asked why I did that.”

“It was because… because Defiance was right, and because Jeff had backed me up for so many years and I wanted to put him ahead for once, even if it meant doing something I personally felt was wrong.  Then Eric told me the goody two-shoes routine I did in the CAL (his name for it) wasn’t going to fly.  So, that lead to Wendy, and then to the Hydra, and it lasted right up until Bronson Box pushed me too far.”

[Shaking her head then brushing her hair back, Heidi leans back into the couch.]

“Sometimes, when your back ends up against the wall, you… have to make painful, damaging choices.”

“That’s how it’s felt for me ever since I ended up on Evolution League working for Elijah Goldman.”

“There are actually quite a few wrestlers besides me who’ve been put in the position of trying to prove something to a boss who isn’t willing to accept it, so I can’t claim no one knows what it feels like. But the thing is, Elijah absolutely was not the first person in wrestling who pulled that with me.”

“He told me that I was never any good.”

“That I didn’t deserve any of the accolades I’d earned before.”

“And that I was just Jeff’s spoiled princess.”

“Well, the first person to say that shit to me was Daeriq Damien back in 2001.  He was my first big upset win, after I made him tap out to Beautiful Dreamer.  Then Gemma Lockhart said it, that fucking bitch.”

[Just saying her old arch-enemy’s name is enough to make Heidi bare her teeth, apparently.]

“Alexander Zanatos said my MDK finisher Beautiful Dreamer was an illegal choke to try and hold me back.  Psycho Steve spent 20 minutes accusing me of having crabs. Damien Greyy said that having me on a CAL PPV devalued the interfed.  Even Kai Scott tried this routine of accusing me of ‘having no idea what I do to people’, though he was trying to manipulate me by making me hate him when he was. But still, the point.”

“I haven’t just heard that stuff for years, I’ve heard it constantly for years.  I’ve heard every kind of nonsense that I could possibly hear.”

“By the time I get to Elijah Goldman, I’m just sick of it.”

“You could maybe say that I could have just done my job and wrestled clean and won matches and made him accept it that way, but… the last time I went along with the flow like that, my stablemate staged a kidnapping.  I wasn’t about to work for Elijah Goldman.  And I’m still not.”

[A deep breath, and Heidi readjusts her position on the couch.]

“But.”

“After all the accusations and ridicule, I hate to deliberately lose to begin with.  I felt that if it kept Defiance out of Elijah’s hands, it would be worth it, a noble sacrifice.  Let me tell you all something, though.  I listen to my enemies.  Sometimes they’re right.”

“So when Yoshikazu YAZ told me to listen to the words he wasn’t saying, I did.  And I can barely ignore Tom Sawyer when he’s unwilling to go 5 minutes without criticizing me, even though he’s just a kid who hasn’t realized he isn’t living in a comic book and would cry out in agony if he ever tried to put my boots on, let alone walk in them.”

“Something is happening.  Or going to happen.  And considering Elijah’s last attempt at running the ship ended in a riot… yes, I do think it’s safe for me to go ahead and try to win the tournament.”

[Click HERE for Part 2.]

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