Nighthawk vs Daniel Everett

[PWXonline]

Pre Show Match
Showcase Match
Nighthawk vs Daniel Everett w/Elijah Black

Deadline: Tuesday at Midnight CST


Story: Daniel Everett was impressive in his singles debut win a few weeks ago. However, this week, he looks to take on former PWX World Champion, Nighthawk. Daniel sure has his hands full as the World Cup is on break this week as the PWX crew heads to Ontario, Canada to begin their tour. Elijah Black, who's no stranger when it comes to knowing Nighthawk, will sure to have a few pointers for Daniel as he looks to take on, no doubt, his biggest PWX match yet.

[Elijah Black]

[Amidst the gloom and freezing temperatures of Windsor, Ontario stand the two members of the Vox Populi, with the leader Elijah Black braving the weather by leaving his jacket unzipped to show a Cro Mags t-shirt whilst Daniel Everett, with one mind on his upcoming match, wears an insulated hoodie and a beanie]

Black: Greetings, one and all, from the Great White North – a million miles away from the fraction of the 48 available members of the continental United States where PWX were putting on shows at the time I set foot in this company, and now they’re expanding. However, whilst we may have required passports and work visas for this show, top me we aren’t far from our roots. After all, if you look over there…

[Black gestures across the Detroit River]

Black: …you’ll see a place I know very well, that city with no identity and, beyond that, the place that I call home. And you know what makes the two of us different from the people who we can see going about their day on the other side of the river? Unlike two-thirds of them, we actually have passports because we’re not afraid to see the rest of the world, because the idea of culture doesn’t horrify us.

[Black shakes his head]

Black: It doesn’t end there, though. Plenty of people in cities like Detroit, like Buffalo, they make sure they have passports. Not to see the world, oh no, they might speak foreign languages or believe that the Big Mac isn’t the pinnacle of fine dining. No, they have passports so they can make a round trip north of the border to buy the prescription drugs that they need without their wellbeing being held to ransom by their insurance company, because up here they have a functioning healthcare system that doesn’t place the almighty dollar at the heart of your healthcare needs. And you may have noticed that Canadians have never been scandalised by the thought of affordable healthcare for all. They leave that level of idiocy for their southern neighbours.

[Black looks towards Everett]

Black: If being able to look across to the city that pretty much influenced where my family lived for so many years wasn’t enough to remind me of life back in those United States, there’s another reminder on the next show. Nighthawk. The gnat I keep swatting but it just keeps coming back to buzz around just outside my reach, and now it seems that I can’t even avoid having our paths cross by leaving the country. The only difference now, and I do mean the only difference, is that for once I won’t have to be sharing the ring with you at any point – instead that dubious honour goes to my brother, my compatriot, and Nighthawk’s next opponent, Daniel Everett.

[Black steps aside, inviting Everett to take the floor, and before he speaks Everett removes his beanie]

Everett: Nighthawk, believe me when I say that I’ve heard a lot about you. I’ve heard how you operate inside the ring and, most importantly, outside of it – always ready to whisper in the ear of management so you get what you want. Knowing this, I’d bet it’s no coincidence they picked me as your opponent.

[Everett tilts his head to camera]

Everett: I’ve also heard plenty about what you like to do in the ring. You don’t like your opponents to wrestle their match, so you slow them down, you ground them, and you look to break them down so they don’t have a chance of wrestling the match they want, allowing you to dictate the match on your terms.

[Everett hocks a bit wad of spit at the ground]

Everett: The problem you have with me is that you don’t know the guy you’re facing. Pick any other guy on the PWX roster and you can probably watch dozens of their matches and learn a few things to get you through the match. I’m pretty sure anyone with two brain cells to rub together can figure out there’s times when the best strategy is to play defence or get the hell out of the ring so the other guy in the ring gets all their momentum pissed away whilst you catch a breather. You don’t need to be some kind of wrestling genius to figure that out. Thing is, how are you going to prepare? I mean, in PWX you’ve got me mauling Cash Money, and you’ve seen the Vox make short work of CMJA and Team Wade. From that standpoint, you’re as good as blind as right now, PWX hasn’t even scratched the surface with what I can do.

Black: …but they’ve already decided the Knock Out Kings and Bad Company will be the teams competing at the end of the tournament. And we all know how that went, don’t we?

Everett: With little to go on from what I’ve done here, do you think you’re going to learn anything about me watching my matches in DERP? Pfft…if you want to talk about not even scratching the surface, the fact is that I had to lower myself to their level, and I still came out on top. I was battered, bloodied and most of all pissed off with myself for having to sink so low to get paid, but at no point did I phone it in just to get a pay-off. If you’re going to watch those matches to learn something, you’re probably going to feel sick to that elitist stomach of yours when you see what some people refer to as “wrestling” outside that bubble you exist in, and you’ll be so horrified that people are willing to use whatever it takes to get the job done you’ll stop picking up things and start judging me.

[To the side, Black nods]

Black: He does that, it’s one of his more obnoxious habits.

Everett: Well here’s something for you to consider, Nighthawk: it’s time you were judged. Not for the things you’ve done, those things I’ve heard about already and I’ve been hearing about in more detail since this match was announced, but maybe it’s time you were judged for what’s going to happen to you. The way I see it, you’re the established vet and the guy who everyone presumes will walk the match because…what, because you’re Nighthawk? That’s not good enough – reputation doesn’t mean a damn thing to me and, from where I’m stood right now, there’s not a single thing you’ve done to deserve my respect or admiration. Oh yeah, you can claim you won things in the past, but that’s it: it was in the past. What have you done since I got here? Nothing. So why should you have my respect as a given when, in my eyes, you’ve not done a damn thing to earn it? Respect goes both ways, and it has to be earned, not taken due to some kind of privilege you think you have.

[Everett slaps his hands together, partly to keep himself warm but also to emphasise a point]

Everett: While you think of yourself as a thoroughbred, but no matter how much you won there’s always somebody coming up to challenge you and, sooner or later, you start to find more of the challengers beating you. When they do, and they will, there has to be a point where you stop facing dark horses looking to challenge you and realise that you are actually starting to slip back, allowing more and more of the new generation to catch up with you before they pass you. Nothing lasts forever, Nighthawk, and whilst you hope you can cling on to your place in the pecking order you will feel the strength in your fingers fade and they’ll start to lose their grip, one by one, until you fall.

[Everett takes a side step, allowing Black to come to the fore]

Black: That’s something else for you to take into account, if there is an ounce of accountability in you: of the many things I’ve told Everett in the past few days, it’s letting him know that I’ve beaten you time and time again, be it for the PWX Championship, be it in tag team matches, for the highest stakes and when there’s nothing on the line at all. Let’s just say there’s a wealth of knowledge about you that is available to Daniel that the rest of the PWX roster can’t tap into, and he’s been paying a lot of attention.

Everett: You’ve already faced one member of the Vox, and you’ve faced him more times than he can recall but he knows that he can beat you. Now, Nighthawk, you’re going against another member, and you’re at the disadvantage because I know more about you than you do about me, and I’m going out there to make an impression not for myself, but for the Vox. The odds are that before the tournament is done we’ll be locking up with you and Aries, and I intend to draw first blood at your expense to burn the knowledge onto your conscience that no matter how good you are, how good you were, whenever you face a member of the Vox you will find yourself falling that little bit short time and time again.

[Everett steps aside, allowing Black to have the focus to wrap up]

Black: Keep it in mind, Nighthawk, that while you may be right in expecting to be remembered long after you hang your boots up, if you think for a second that you can do it at our expense you’re in for one hell of a wake-up call. And if you, like so many oh-so-smart people online, think that you’re going against “The other Vox Populi Guy” then your preconceptions are going to be shattered even worse than your body, because I didn’t pick Daniel for the sake of having a partner but because I know what he can do and I gave him the opportunity to prove it. So shame on you, PWX, for passing him over time and time again because, if it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t have the chance to prove himself at Nighthawk’s expense. And you know by now that, when I say something, I mean every last syllable of it. You’ll find out soon enough.

[FTB]

[Deleted]

“Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are
presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new
evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is
extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it
is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize,
ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief.”
As Nighthawk sits down in the waiting room of his family doctor to get his usual checkup before facing off against Daniel Everett in a dark match at Hostile Takeover one has to wonder how someone as accomplished and celebrated as he is feels about the knowledge that he is going to have to face someone in a match not on the pay-per-view, something that would have seemed almost an anachronism a few short months ago when he was the proud holder of the PWX World Heavyweight Championship.


But while some who would have found themselves in his position might very well have pouted, or found some other sort of passive-aggressive way to voice their displeasure over their current circumstances, the Chicago native is refusing to do any of that whatsoever and is instead focusing all of the pique that he might feel into ensuring that he shows Daniel Everett just how much more work he has to do in order to get up to his level. But while the enmity between Bad Company and Elijah Black is well-known, and well-understood, one has to wonder if the “Wrestling Machine” feels the same kind of anger and disgust with Elijah Black’s ward, or if he is willing to take things with Daniel Everett as they come.



But as the “Man of 1000 Holds” finishes reading a magazine, waiting patiently for his doctor to greet him, the door yawns open and out walks Nighthawk’s younger sister Hannah who, in a beautiful coincidence, happens to be his physician.



Hannah, a classic strawberry blonde with an easy smile and a thick Irish accent on par with her more stoic older brother: “Hey, big brother. What brings you to my neck of the woods, minus the usual checking in on your baby sister that you not so coincidentally manage to do every month and I not so coincidentally manage to think is just a happy little accident? What’s going on?”



Nighthawk, looking bashful as he realizes his sister is far smarter than he gives her credit for being: “Well, this is partly that check-in which you and I happen to know isn’t just a happy accident. It’s also my usual commission clearing physical, but I wanted to speak to you about something else. Something that, if I am being honest with myself, I don’t think I could talk to Sin about. But I can talk to you about it, not just because you’re my baby sister and wouldn’t dare to blab this to anyone, but because you’re a mother to my stunningly beautiful nieces. Is it hard? More than that, do you think it’s something I can do? Because Sin can be pregnant. We thought she couldn’t, but the fine people of your profession told us that she could. I just need to hear that it’s okay to be scared, that doing this doesn’t mean it has to be something you’re perfecty at right away. That’s the one thing I need to hear right now, Hannah. More than anything else.”



Hannah, looking kindly at her older brother as she is rather quickly seeing just how frightened he is of this whole process: “Don’t worry, Tristan. Everyone’s freaked out. It just happens at different times for different people. Some of the people I went to medical school with were freaked out the first time they had kids too, or the first time they went in for a pre-natal checkup. It doesn’t make you any less of a man, or any less tougher. It just means that beneath the hard shell you’ve spent so many years building up, there’s a real man in there with real fears and real hopes and dreams. And to be scared that you’re going to lose them, that some force you can’t see or control will snatch all of that from you, is exactly how you should feel. I was scared of it when I was pregnant, and my husband held me and got me through it. If you ever need to talk to anyone about it, or just scream about it, I will always be here for that. As far as getting your physical done, let’s go into my office and see what we can do about that.”



The next morning….



As Nighthawk packs up his gear to make the short drive to Windsor, Ontario for Hostile Takeover, we see him closing his eyes in front of his gear bag. Clad in a black Negro Casas t-shirt, blue leather pants with orange and cream piping up and down each leg, and black work boots, the “Wrestling Machine” slowly opens his eyes.



Nighthawk: “If you’ve been around the sport long enough, and traveled to enough places, you will eventually make enemies and create rivalries. It’s as much a fact of life as breathing, and just as vital to the healthy development of a pro wrestler. For some people, those rivalries stay professional and are built around the idea of self-respect and competitiveness. But, and this I think is not a negative, some rivalries move past that first part and get personal. They get heated. And, oftentimes, rivalries of this type escalate to the point where neither man is the same man that they were when it started. The man on the front of this t-shirt had more than a few of those, and this week, I take a detour back to one of mine.
I believed that whatever was between Elijah Black and myself was over. But obviously, I was mistaken. I can say that because this week, I step in the ring with his hand-picked soldier, armed with all of the so-called ’knowledge’ that he happens to have about me. Well, I promise you this Daniel Everett: Nothing you do, and nothing Elijah Black tells you about me, is going to change this one indisputable fact: I will beat you. If I have to tap you out, if I have to put you to sleep, the way matters not. The only thing that is important, that is meaningful, is the journey. And the journey for you, Mr. Everett, will end the same way that the journey has ended for so many people before you, and the way it will end if your partner’s prophecy of Bad Company vs Vox Populi comes to pass: You will fail.
Now make no mistake, Mr. Everett, I'm not a fool. I know that you need to prove something to your kohai, and the best way for you to do that is to hit me as hard as you can and try to prove that what he’s taught you, what he’s told you about me, will bear fruit. And, for my sake, I hope you’ve listened to everything he’s told you. I hope you believe him passionately and fervently every time he tells you about how he beat me, and about how he knows he can always beat me. Here is the other half of that statement: I have beaten him too. This whole tag team feud between him and I started because he was unprincipled enough, savage enough, to try and blind a man for the crime of beating him in a wrestling ring. So this week, while I'm not facing the man who committed that crime, I am facing the man he armed with all of the ‘knowledge’ he has of me. And this week, Mr. Everett, you will see why I deserve your respect. I can’t make you respect me, or tell you to. It never works when you demand respect through words. Deeds, on the other hand? That works. And this week, when I beat you, you will respect me. If I was willing to destroy the dreams of my students, the two people I am proudest of in the entire world, what in the world makes you think you can intimidate me, Mr. Everett? Because you wrestled a few garbage matches in a promotion you thought you were too good for? Spare me, Mr. Everett. This week, when you step in the ring, I'll find out how good you are. And when it’s over, when you hear my music play as Elijah Black drags you to the back, you’ll KNOW just how good I am.
Goodnight Mr. Everett. May sleep give you the courage to go on.”