12/29/2010:
Hey CHIKARA fans,
Your old pal "Sweet 'n' Sour" here, with a special holiday disbatch from the bayou!
Whenever the holidays roll around, I like to take an account of what's going on in my life; the people,
places, so on and so forth. And seeing as one of the highlights of my year was my return to CHIKARA,
I thought I'd send a little shout out to, as the great Iron Sheik would put it, "all my intelligent wrestling fans."
This past year has been a good one. After getting my fair share of maxing and relaxing under my belt at the bungalow in
Redondo Beach, I thought I might go about arranging a little change of scenery. Shake things up, hit the road a bit.
It's a good thing for the blood, a good thing for my Sweet 'n' Sour spirit. So far, I've wrestled in 31 states and five
countries, and won the glorious ICW/ICWA Texarkana Television Title a record 27 times. As I've gone about working on my
wrestling resume, I've lived in a number of different locales, and they were all good spots. I also put in a fair
bit of time in India, where I first decided to become a professional wrestler, and a destination to which I do
long, someday, to return.
So, in considering what I wanted my immediate geographical surroundings to be, I had a number of places on my mind.
But in, the end, there was no contest: it was time to go back to where it all began. The two-lane highways, cold cup of
coffee in my hand, doing the calisthenics when I got too tired to drive on. It was time to go back to The Loop.
The Loop!!!! What a great place. My home away from home. A place where I've put in plenty of time, but never a place
that I've actually called home. A few phone calls and an express train ride later, and I was in that great mecca of
Shreveport, Louisiana. And you know what? Just as I suspected, I love it down here.
Between the cajun cooking, the pace of life, and those vivacious Southern debutantes, the living is easy and the
living is good. Coinciding with my move down South was a return to professional wrestling after an extended time off.
I'd been gone for a while, but once I returned to a region where I have so many memories and the roads that so many
of the true greats of the business have ridden, my return was inevitable and it felt GREAT. And with my return to wrestling,
I became aware of what the lay of the land looked like up in CHIKARA.
I'd kept up with my old buddy and longtime spiritual mentor, the devious UltraMantis Black, but he hadn't told me
how out-of-control things had gotten with the BDK running roughshod over everybody in their path. When I heard what
the lay of the land was like, I uppped my training just in case what I suspected might be true. He told me of his trials and
tribulations in assembling a CHIKARA team for the all-important Cibernetico that transcended previous boundaries and disagreements
between CHIKARA's originals - the Allentown boys. The formative days of the Wrestle Factory unite a unique group of us
in a way that might be hard to comprehend.
Claudio and I still have a lot of bad blood, and when the devious one finally asked me to join forces with him, I was more than
ready. But to give us a psychological edge in this war, we decided to borrow a tact from the BDK themselves. Watching the events of the
previous year unfold, it was obvious how Ares and his goons sought to undermine the confidence of CHIKARA's major players. Betrayals.
Sleeper Agents. Intimidation. I guess we figured it was time to unnerve the BDK a little bit.
So we targeted the least stable, and least intelligent of their group - Pinkie Sanchez. (And that's saying something when Delirious
is on the team.) And we made him live out a nightmare in the weeks leading up to the Cibernetico? And you know what? It worked like a charm -
because the same guy who won last year's Cibernetico was the
first one eliminated this time around. By me - Sweet n' Sour daddy!
My return to CHIKARA, while brief, is a memory that I will always cherish. Louisiana might be a good fit as my current home-away-from-home,
but when it comes to the fans and the good friends that I have in this business, nothing beats returning to CHIKARA. It was one of the
loudest reactions that I've ever been a part of, definitely the most emotional, and everything just felt right that night in Easton.
And then it was over. I gave all I could that night, and then it was back to laying out in the Louisiana sun,
perfecting my Texas two-step at the local honky tonks, and getting down with boudin and cracklins
(if you don't know what these are, do yourself a favor and get down here.) But with that one night back, I solidified
all of my connections with my friends in the CHIKARA locker room as well as the fans, and believe me,
I've got the inside scoop on what's going on. Don't count me down, and don't count me out...not by a longshot.
I've got unfinished business in CHIKARA, and when the time is right, I'll be around to settle the score.
Meanwhile, I'll be hitting the loop and honing my game down here, and when the time is right...?
Watch out.
12 Large, brother!
SnsLS
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