One Piece of Paper, Every Name on It

I have sat with these words that have been directed at me, read them the way a careful man reads a contract before he signs it, and I will tell you what I found: nothing that costs me a moment of genuine concern, and everything that tells me precisely what kind of men I am dealing with.

The Ghost of Death By Me speaks of a pool made from my tears, of a final day, of guarantees -- the vocabulary of a man who has mistaken volume for substance. You invoke your championship the way a man with nothing else to offer invokes his father's name. I hear you, Ghost. I heard every word. And what I heard was a man who needs the theater of my destruction more than he needs the reality of earned work. You want me frightened. I am not frightened. I am attentive, which is considerably worse for you.

Now. The Rumble. Yes. I was removed. I was also removed from a main event the week prior, inside a tag arrangement that was never a fair accounting of what I bring to a worksite. I do not hide from those results. I carry them. They are debt, and I collect on debt.

What I will not do -- what I have never done -- is allow a man who wraps himself in mystical language and borrowed dread to stand in this territory and speak my name as though it is a trophy he has already mounted. You have not mounted anything yet, Ghost. You have only spoken.

Tonight is a worksite. I arrive on time. I stay until the job is finished. I do not drown in tears. I do not haunt anything. I work.

Come collect your guarantee.