FADE IN.

Dan Ryan, sitting in his dressing room in the National Center in Amarillo, taping up his wrists and getting ready for the show.

DAN RYAN:

"Boogie, here's the thing with you. Conversations will always go around in circles, because your entire goal is to find just enough ambiguity in every situation, then fill it in with whatever makes you look the best, whatever makes everyone else look responsible for your failings, and whether or not it has any truth to it whatsoever, you just say it. That's you in a nutshell, Smallz."

"You wanna go point by point? Join the debate team."

"I wish I had the power to hold down an entire roster of people and keep them quiet like you say I do. I wish I could treat The First, Impulse, Hornet, Sean Stevens, Marcus Westcott, Christian Light, Cameron Cruise, Troy Windham, Karl Brown, Rich Mahogany, Anarky, Rocko Daymon and every other wrestler that has worked for me at one time or another like pieces of dogshit, the way you say I do, and have them just turn around, bend over and take it up the ass."

"I wish my rise to prominence was as easy as you think it was. I wish I didn't have to fight and claw with Chad Dupree to make a name for myself in GXW. I wish, in the dying days of GXW when I was asked to become part of ownership that I wasn't the one who had to make the difficult decision to pull the plug. I wish, when John Miller and Paul Freeman came to me about bankrolling EPW as it started and asked me to play a role in a brand new startup wrestling company that it wasn't me who had to put his ass on the line and take a chance by stepping out on my own."

"I wish it wasn't me who spent three hundred days a year on the road working for four or five promotions at a time. I wish I didn't have to hear through a phone call that my firstborn and both parents were killed in an accident while I was on the road."

"Yeah, it was so fucking easy."

"You should know better than to talk about glass ceilings with me. When ownership had beef with CSWA, I was the one who once again put his name and ass on the line. I was the one who walked into Greensboro and insulted the very legacy of the company in defense of GXW, MY COMPANY. I'm the one who had to endure the repercussions of that, from Craig Miles and Eddie Mayfield jumping me every chance I got, to GUNS doing the same, to Sean Stevens wanting to call me out before he realized what I truly was about. I had to scratch and claw to get a sniff, and yet somehow, I still managed to fight my way to the top. And because I, as the then-GXW World Champion, put my ass on the line, when I dropped the belt I was rewarded by being made part of ownership. But I'm supposed to feel bad because you couldn't do the same?"

"You say all this bullshit, and you make accusations based on things you have no proof of, nor can they be proved, because you think it'll rile me up."

"But here's the deal, man, and there's really no getting around it. I've been a successful professional wrestler and businessman for years now. You've been spending most of your time sitting in your house feeling sorry for yourself. One match. You had ONE MATCH on your EPW contract. All you had to do was fulfill it to be set free. But because I decide to hold you to it, it's my fault you languished for the past ten years? You talk about kickbacks, a good old boy network, and it's all bullshit. I had no connection to DEFIANCE whatsoever when I was asked to sign here. I had no connection to A1E whatsoever when I signed there. I had no connection to NFW when I first signed there either, other than Craig Miles wailing on me in CSWA over my defense of GXW. I've had to prove myself everywhere I've ever gone, Smallz."

"If you think EPW is a joke, no problem. That's really fine with me. You've been fired, not begged to stay."

"As for you and everything you're all about --- you had all the talent in the world, Boogie. I'm not denying that. When you were GXW World Champion, you had the goods, but everything since then has been whining and complaining, and looking everywhere but in the mirror for your failures."

"If you don't believe the hype? -- just know this, I don't need you to believe, and all you have to do is get in the ring and prove that everything I've been saying isn't true. You deal in what-ifs and what-coulda-beens, backstage politics and bribes, and any mysterious nonsense you can imagine that helps your case, but when you boil down the facts in black and white, you are who you are, and I am who I am. You're fighting for a whole lot more than I am? Well, that kinda makes my point doesn't it?"

"You have ten plus years of reputation to save. All I care to do is beat the fucknoise outta you."

"After tonight, I wash my hands of you. Go lie to someone else. If I have an opening in housekeeping, I'll give you a call."

FADE OUT.

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