Falling on Hard Times

[TJ Black]

Date: Tuesday 30th November 2011
Time: 2:46pm
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

TJ Black approached his house, the same house where not 1 month prior he was cutting promos to embarrass Tyler Hiroko on the mic. The maroon brickwork, the gleaming windows, the black door with the number 7 scrawled onto it. This was a family man’s house however TJ Black had no family living in the house, the hours that came with working as a professional wrestling were hectic. Entering TJ Black sighed, the living room was replaced with a wrestling ring, the dining room contained gym equipment instead of kids, the bedroom was furnished with a single bed and nothing else: After being fired from his last job and being left by his wife this man HAD to return to the ring, he needed to keep his skills sharp in order to stay relevant and under contract. He needed wrestling; but wrestling didn’t need, he needed money and as such was consumed by professional wrestling. His house had transformed from the ideal Average Joe’s house into a wrestling prison. The man who was so desperate to maintain a consistent pay-check that he resorted to 24/7 training and fighting, the only place he felt human was at that bar, his only reminder of who he once was; a likeable, fun, average man who never needed anything… All that changed as rent caught up to him. The man he once was, Tyson Jacobs, was dead. TJ Black has been Tyler in ring name and as of late has been his identity outside the ring. His need to wrestle turned this once average man into a desperate, lifeless and pathetic shell of what he once was. Tonight he was gonna follow the same ritual he has done for the past 13 months; He would arrive home from a local wrestling promotion that was otherwise unknown to the rest of the world, he would then watch tapes of his opponent(s) for Saturday Night Showdown. Afterwards he would train in the gym, grab a shower and a quick bite to eat before he went to the pub and drank himself under the table… TJ entered the living room and watched and re-watched promos from his opponents from last Saturday’s main event. TJ scanned each video with hopes that one of them would comment on his improvement of in ring abilities. But hope turned to disappointment. Not one single compliment. Tyler Hiroko passed him of as a rat that crawled out of the gutter. The Television Champion thought that he was a better wrestler than TJ. An understandable comment, everyone wishes that they could be the greatest wrestler in the world. That is the only thing TJ can aim for. His former aspirations, his dreams had been shattered by an uptight bitch of a boss and an uptight bitch of a wife. He was left a jobless, broken man by the two people he trusted most. What made things worse was that his boss was his sister… She showed no remorse as she degraded her own brother in front of 200 other employees. His dream to have one day become a successful head of a law firm only to be fired and degraded. His confidence had been shot in the back of head that day and left to day. Now he was desperate to become the great living wrestler in the world, however the years’ worth of training, of preparation, of honing his skills has only earned him the ability to pay for his small 2 bedroom, semi-detached house. TJ Black had nothing going for him and as he got up from his steel steps and looked into the 10x10 ring he couldn’t bring himself to spend one more minute training to be the best, He knew he would never be the best, so he decided to attempt to return to his old life. As long as he got a pay-check he no longer cared where it was from. He enjoyed watching wrestling and had been a big fan but now that he needed wrestling his heart wasn’t in it. As he thought back to the wise word spoken by Chavo Guerrero:

"When you need wrestling, that's when wrestling doesn't need you, when you don't need wrestling, that's when wrestling needs you"

TJ Black knew he was dispensable and he knew that if he was not on top of his game then he was replaceable. He knew that he would never be on top and needed a back-up plan. This lead to tonight… His first night out at a club, his final attempt at reclaiming who he once was…