Wrestling: a tale of cowboys, cults and failure
Season two's seventh newsletter draws you in with a story of lights, sounds and spandex but keeps you there with a tale previously untold of tragic endings and hope
Greetings dear dreamers
Welcome to the second season of The Abandoned Dreams Collective.
I’m going to keep this one short because this week’s essay is probably the longest I’ve featured so far and I think you should absolutely get to that at the earliest.
While I was planning this season, if you may remember, I decided to switch up my personal essay contribution at the nth moment. The piece I was going to feature originally was one about a friendship that took an unexpected route. I think the stories of our closest friends breaking our hearts are the hardest to tell and most gut wrenching to be in the middle of, worse because we didn’t know that could happen to us. I love the piece I did share but I still think that one is some of the most interesting writing I’ve ever done. Maybe someday it’ll see the light of day but for now, I’m glad I did get a perspective on friendship for this season in this week’s highly potent, highly engrossing, highly devastating essay by Karan Mirchandani who’d also written for us in Season One.
I’ll let you get to it now
Wrestling: A tale of cowboys, cults and failure
Before I jump into an essay about wrestling, I’m going to explain how it works. Wrestling is a scripted live show that airs every week. Yes you read that right. Its scripted, i.e fake. It is a choreographed form of combat that tells simple stories of good vs evil - in sweaty spandex. It usually revolves around a big gold belt called the world championship, the symbol of you being the best wrestler in the world. So this story is about a cowboy “Hangman” Adam Page and his quest for the belt. He isn’t really a cowboy - he just wears a hat and used to come out with a lasso. His loner attitude and affinity for country music got him attached with the tag of a cowboy. He came out on a horse once or twice. It made little to no sense - like a lot of wrestling. So this is his story.
Okay no.
I’ll come clean
This one’s actually about things that make me sad. It's about my no good very bad year. Allegorically
Part I: The Cowboys promise
All Elite Wrestling, the wrestling company I’m going to talk about is the indie alternative to WWE’s mainstream pop. It had a DIY aura about it - built on the backs of four talented wrestlers with a passion to provide an alternative style of wrestling that the fans had been craving for years. These four were “Hangman” Adam Page and his friends Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks (Matt and Nick Jackson) - who together are called the Elite. The other three were well established at their craft, names that people would rattle off in conversations about the best wrestlers - not Hangman. Hangman was the promise of the future - a talent earmarked to helm the company once it had found its feet. And so at the launch event our cowboy Hangman announces to everyone watching that he will be the company's first world champion. His potential now has a deadline. That’s the danger with potential- it comes with another word if too much time passes.
Failure.
Under the bright lights when the pressure is on - Hangman loses his big world title match. He fails.
I failed. Have you ever felt championed by your friends? Your work celebrated, your personality complimented, the pedestal they’ve put you on feels comfortable. Their vehement words of encouragement wrap around refusing to be brushed off. The loud promises of greatness in your future, the words that are said about you as you sit there, fighting the heat rising in your face. Words that eventually went away. They were replaced by dismissive tones, by awkward silences, by a pit in your stomach at the prospect of spending time with them. You think it’s in your head, just like the praise was. That your brain is exaggerating it. You convince yourself that you should make an effort to fix things, so you go to see them. They said you were the life of every party and now it feels like you’re gatecrashing theirs. Have you ever felt championed by your friends? Have you seen it fade away?
Hangman’s failure starts to seep into the group. The weight of his silences, of his anxiety, colours the Elites endeavours with the same brush as they start to lose matches - always initiated by a mistake made by Hangman. He’s only extra baggage on their journey to success. They built this company with the sole purpose of being the centre of attention and now with each loss they’re being pushed into the shadows. The success they once foresaw for him is now a dark cloud of potential that was never realised. And then finally he deliberately prevents them from winning - holding on to one of them as the other team takes advantage. Self-sabotage.
Like a phone call you should’ve made but didn’t. Because fuck them.
So they kick him out. It’s what he wanted at that point - because deep down he felt he wasn’t good enough and that was more important than asking for help.
There was no official declaration of being ousted from the group for me. There are no friend breakups. There’s just a silence that grows louder every week that I don’t address. Until one day there’s no group chat and I’m consoled over the phone that these things happen. That people drift away.
Except- they take a trip without you.
These things happen, people drift apart.
But they didn’t drift away- they just chose to carry on without me. I spend hours obsessing on how to fix this. But also you don’t want the confirmation of all your insecurities. So you let the gap widen until you see nothing but emptiness.
I was no longer Elite.
Part II: Cowboys and Cults
And it is at this point that Hangman befriends a cult, The Dark Order. Everyone in All Elite Wrestling thinks of them as a group of eerie villains that wear scary masks and tell you they’re gonna make your life better. Like a pyramid scheme with a weird penchant for leather and masks. They are not people the Elite would’ve associated with - they are people the Elite would tear down regularly, people not reaching for success in the way they were. The Dark Order were rungs that were to be stepped on the constant climb of ambition The Elite ridicules them, saying that “joining a cult isn’t on their agenda” They are bullies, masquerading as the answers to the question of change. The Dark Order finds a friend in another downtrodden traveller, a man whose identity had been stripped away from him. They look past his roots, they understand his pain.. So in a way, they latch on to Hangman. And their relentless enthusiasm wears him down.
I meet an old school friend and he asks about a boy in our class. We reflect on a time of bullying within the walls of an institution. But the walls came down years ago and the patterns continued.
It just looked different.
The tying of shoelaces together, the eating of your lunch before you could, the name calling and the pushing down books had morphed into group chats of vitriol. Singling out people, tearing down everything about them. It was packaged as light hearted fun but it felt concentrated - the same stories presented to support the ridicule. I’d taken part in it too- sometimes conducted it. There’s a comfort in the laughter that follows - the laughter of consensus. Consensus over empathy. The hallmark of a cult.
But you never think it’ll be about you.
You never think the tables will turn once you’re outside it.
One day the glances you exchanged among your friends will be directed at you. You’re now made fun of - your outfit ridiculed, your behaviour dissected as you fight to get out of bed. The things you were championed for are now the foundation of their spite..
The Dark Order are packaged as a pyramid scheme-like cult. The Elite are packaged as the cream of the crop. Yet the Elite demand nothing but success. They have an overarching mission that overrides any individual problems. They bring up Hangman's potential, they bring up how he failed, how he was nothing without their support. They use his drinking as a weapon against him- constantly bringing it up, not to help him but to tear him down. They cast him aside because he came in the way of their overall goals and mission. The operation of an actual cult.
Support comes from unexpected places, creeping past my cynicism. A phone call that goes on till 3 am despite the voice on the other end battling sleep. The constant unwavering reassurance that this will be okay, someone had to believe it because I didn’t. The words of praise, the unyielding encouragement is replaced by the quiet comfort of faith. Faith that the worst is over - they have to believe it because I can’t anymore. I’m just a person that needs help- that’s it. A friend tells me she never quite understood who I am - that I never spoke about my deepest fears late at night after one too many beers. Because the truth is I felt that people would leave if I did. I had proof to support this thesis. At my lowest, people left. But I’m proven wrong this time, my jaded air isn’t allowed to survive in the optimistic atmosphere.
The Dark Order supports him, they shower him with love and adoration. And so Hangman starts to win. With the pressure of the expectations gone, his abilities shine though. But the wins mean he is now in contention for the world title again - the one he lost, the one that reminds him of the failure. So he hides from the opportunity - tries to throw a match because he can’t be in the spotlight again.
I had stopped writing, I had stopped posting content that I enjoyed. Every time I did I could hear their voices in my head, conjuring up the worst things that could've been said, in the rooms I once sat in comfortably, cross-legged. The people I meet tell me they miss my work, they miss seeing it. It feels hollow at first, it feels like an echo of what had been said by the people whose names I cannot bring myself to say out loud anymore. So I reject it. I brush it off with a smile and a joke - hoping to move on.
But the Dark Order speaks up for him. Kenny Omega, his old friend, is now the world champion and has ruled with an iron fist for a year. The Dark Order tells Kenny that there’s one man that he has yet to face with the gold belt on the line. Kenny scoffs and reminds them that Hangman himself is terrified of challenging him, of failing again. It all has come dangerously full circle, just as Hangman was leaning back into the bed of complacency. He had to once again face the very thing that started the spiral. The promise of gold. And this time the hurdle isn’t a comically evil villain and his cronies. It’s his former friends. The fear returns, the kind of fear that stops in your throat and makes it hard to breathe. It is in the throes of a familiar spiral that the Dark Order tell him something that he would have never expected to hear. That it’s okay to be afraid, that it’s okay to fail. They’re here for him no matter what. This is in glaring contrast to his previous alliance - one that hinged on him to be a mirrorball - shining no matter what.
I start writing again.
I’m still writing.
I don't know if it’s going to lead to anything.
I still struggle to post things, the fear is too loud. But I’m hopeful that I can drown out the dissuading voices in my head and get the words out. It’s okay if it’s terrible, it almost has to be before I get better.
So Hangman challenges Kenny Omega for the title again. Everything he feared is back - all the pressure is on again. But Hangman tells the crowd it doesn’t matter if he loses anymore because crucially, he finally believes in himself. A crucial glaring difference - the belief is now emanating from himself and not from the words of reassurance.
Then he does something unexpected - the day before his big match. He apologises to his former friends, Matt and Nick Jackson, tells them he’s sorry for not talking to them before, for letting his anxiety ruin their friendship, for sabotaging a match deliberately because he was in his head. But he reminds them that they had hurt him too and now they need to stay out of his way on the biggest night of his career.
I don’t absolve myself of the blame of my friendships that fell by the wayside. My need to be validated, to be propped up on a pedestal, my anxiety that filled silences that didn’t need to be filled. It was all exhausting to be around. And they were there for me when I needed it.
I wish I could solely paint them with a sweeping brush of villainy but I can’t forget the late nights spent talking about nothing, empty bottles piling up on a table, the music always a little too loud. I can’t forget the months where it really felt like this would go on forever. I try not to let the bitterness cover all those memories and make them look the same. And I acknowledge that I had a part to play in how things unraveled.
And so does Hangman.
Part III: Triumph and the next day
In the match, Hangman is on the cusp of victory when Matt Jackson is in a position to stop him. He can be the last hurdle, the one he isn’t able to cross. Instead he looks at his former friend, the one he had cast away, and nods as if to say go on - it’s your time.
I met a friend I had stopped talking to. I expected to find anger. I expected to be suffocated with guilt. I get a hug and a promise of better days. I find hope.
Hangman wins because of course he does. It’s the classic hero who rises from the ashes for the storybook ending.
Life isn’t like wrestling because the good guy wins in the end. It’s like wrestling because there’s always the next day. It’s like wrestling because if I had written this a week ago like I said I would, there would be a fake hopefulness to the ending. I would've tried to leave the readers on a happy note, all the while really thinking that friendships don’t last while really thinking that people always leave, especially when you’re at your lowest. I had too much grey in my hair, too much weight to carry, that this was a point of no return. That I’ve failed - I’m a failure. But my friend tells me that it’s up to me - that I can choose to carry my baggage up someone else’s street, or I can let it all go.
Wrestling moves on from the scars you thought would stick to your skin forever. The rag tag misfits hoist the emotional cowboy on their shoulders as he holds up the big gold belt. There’s tomorrow where he will have to defend this from challengers. There are doubters that will come out of the woodworks at some point. But for now he soaks up this moment. He wasn’t the first champion of the company like he had promised but those labels don’t matter anymore. They never did, really. It only took him until now to see it.
-Karan Mirchandani
Abandoned on the interwebs
Abandoned on the interwebs is a new section on this newsletter where I recommend some riveting, spine tingling, evocative articles, books, essays that I’ve stumbled across when I’m left to my own devices on the internet.
It is your friends who break your heart - I couldn’t read this essay in one go. I don’t know anyone who can. Even so, I still urge you to read the whole essay, in however many hours it requires, with however many pauses in between. It will likely cut you open, most definitively remind you of times you’ve been let down as well as (uncomfortably) those when you know you let them down and probably leave you gasping for air throughout the experience. That’s why you must.
my tears ricochet - I saw a video of Taylor Swift talking about the making of this song wherein she says that in many superhero movies, the hero’s greatest nemesis isn’t a nameless faceless stranger but the villain who used to be his best friend. Its the people who know you best who know where to hit you and how to really make it hurt. Not a comforting thought, except perhaps when you consider that you’re not the only one this has happened to.
Before I leave you to dream
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That’s all for this week
I look forward to seeing you again next week with a new story.
Much love and many dreams
Nirmitee
The Abandoned Dreams Collective