FADE IN.

A long black car pulls up outside of Knockout Fitness in Baltimore. The back door opens and Dan Ryan steps out, already in workout gear with a bag over his shoulder, dark sunglasses covering his eyes. He slams the door shut and goes inside, nodding to a large-but-not-as-large-as-him man standing just inside.

Ryan steps inside a nearby room and drops the bag in one corner. There's a camera in the corner of the room which Ryan switches on.

A heavy bag is hanging from a metal crossbeam in the center of the room, and Ryan begins hammering away at it pretty much immediately. Hard right hooks are followed up with stiff left hands and knee strikes. After a good half dozen or more of these, he starts talking, but the strikes keep comin'.

DAN RYAN:
I guess... the truth is starting to come out.....

Christian Light..... Cancer Jiles....even Dewey.... I can get along with these people. Tom Sawyer? Maybe not so much.... the jury is still out.

On the other hand, the men across the ring from me this week... well, we all know exactly where we stand don't we?

Stratton and Crank are not my concern. There are people on my team who have them in the crosshairs.

Kai Scott?

We've had something of a... run-in, you might say. I beat Claira about the head and shoulders. I get it. He decided he hated my guts the moment I showed up in a DEFIANCE ring. He's firmly in the camp of people who don't get me, who don't want to get me, who decided before he even saw my face who I was as a wrestler... or as a man.

That's fine.

Everyone wants to pigeon-hole everyone else into a pre-set role. Everyone wants to size up the opposition and slap a label on it within five minutes.

That's also fine. It doesn't matter to me what Kai Scott, Bronson Box or anyone else wants to make of me. I've set about proving myself in this company and I said from the very beginning that despite my track record, I would earn my place around here. I'm not doing that for them, or for anyone other than myself.

Tom Sawyer says I'm just like Box... that I want only to cement a legacy in DEFIANCE.

Ryan turns his head slightly, as if to shrug without shrugging.

I'm starting to realize that certain people have a very hard time conceiving of a man whose story has stretched far back before DEFIANCE, where DEFIANCE, while important in the wrestling world, is not all that defines him. It's a fine line to show respect for everything DEFIANCE is and has been, without acknowledging a lifetime of experience before I knew what DEFIANCE was.

Speak of your past, and you're asking for special favors. Deny your past and you're intellectually dishonest.

But maybe those who don't like dealing with the complexities of a real human being and who he is aren't the people I give a damn about pleasing. Maybe that's something they choose not to understand, something they choose not to pay heed to because it means that they have become the same elitist assholes they profess to hate.

In this way, I have started to suspect that it's Tom who is most like Bronson Box, because it's Tom who stood up out at Sergei's place and started hitting me with Bronson Box's talking points. With a shaved head and a handlebar moustache, he could be a dead ringer.

With Bronson and Ed White, I know where I stand. As for Tom? I think I've said enough to make my point. He can wrap his head around it a little bit and decide if he wants to purposely stay on my bad side.

As for Bronson -- it's only now that you're starting to really understand what you're dealing with. See, I've been you, Bronson. I've been the one manipulating the circumstances to get what I want. It's merely a function of intelligence and ambition, you see. You are a man who, despite great past success, are still driven to -- as Tom has said -- cement your legacy...

I've been there, Bronson, because I know what it's like to be both the outsider and the man who is offended at the outsider. It's an old, sad tale, Box.

So here we are, and now you know -- if I must fight fire with fire, I will do so. If it takes destroying what you love to tear you down and teach you that you aren't necessarily the unstoppable monster that you think you are, I can do that.

I know you're not used to someone standing up to you without fear. I know you like it when people back down or take their beating and move on, limping away bloodied and with their tails between their legs, but I'm not that guy, Bronson. This isn't the DEFIANCE you once knew, and no matter what anyone says and tries, I'm not going anywhere. You bloody me? -- you make me stronger. You give me exactly what I want every time you hit me with a right hand, every time you wrap a chain around your fist and bust me open.

What I'd like from you, if you can manage it, is for you to hit me hard and often. I want you to unleash everything you THINK I don't want, and I want you to do it as much as you possibly can. I want you to hit me like a ton of bricks, and I want you to watch as I take your worst and tell you to give me more.

I want you to realize that I am your mirror, only I cannot be broken, Bronson. I am the one man who will bring you to the realization that there are men out there who don't quake in your presence. I want you to remember when you first made the mistake of underestimating me, the same way Tom will remember the other day up in New York if he doesn't change his tune.

Ryan delivers a particularly wicked right hand, followed by a clubbing left that nearly tears the bag from the chain, but it holds.

I've made a long long habit of proving people wrong, Bronson, so don't feel too badly -- you're not as special as you wish you were....

One by one... everybody learns.

We have a date with destiny in our match for the FIST. This week, you should get a lovely little preview. All good things must come to an end, Bronson...

You won't be present for mine.

Ryan forearms shivers the bag, tearing open a seam, then walks past and off-screen.

FADE OUT.

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