On Being Underestimated

ON BEING UNDERESTIMATED A first-person address by Dorian Graves Filed in advance of his match with "Toxic Waste" Rancid at Behind Closed Doors ———————————————— I have been wrestling professionally for fifteen years. I want to begin there because I think there is value in being precise about it. Not "for over a decade." Not "for most of my adult life." Fifteen years. I started in October of 2010. I worked my first match at the Buckeye Wrestling Federation's monthly card in Akron, Ohio, against a man named Joe Volpe who, to the best of my knowledge, no longer wrestles. I beat him. I have not stopped wrestling since. In those fifteen years I have wrestled in eleven states, three Canadian provinces, and one prefecture of Japan. I have held two regional titles, neither of which existed long enough to acquire historical reputation. I have main-evented sixteen shows. I have been booked to lose, booked to win, booked to no-contest, and on one occasion booked to be carried out on a stretcher for a man who was, at the time, considered a star and is now considered a cautionary tale. In every one of those scenarios I executed the booking I was given, professionally and without complaint. I want to be clear about this because the reputation I have, in the federations I've passed through, is not that I am a complainer. The reputation I have is that I am dependable. You hand Dorian Graves a match, he produces the match. You ask Dorian Graves for a loss, he produces a loss. He does not protect his win-loss record at the expense of the program. He does not phone matches in. He does not, as the phrase goes, take nights off. That is who I have been for fifteen years. ———————————————— Tonight I am wrestling a man named Rancid. I want to talk about him for a moment, because I think the federation deserves to know what I think of him before I wrestle him, rather than after, when my opinion will be perceived as colored by the result. Rancid is what this business produces when it is permitted to produce whatever it wants, without the discipline of structure. He is talented. I will not pretend otherwise. He has a gift for the kind of wrestling that does not require a ring. The cage works for him. The lack of count-outs works for him. The federation has, by accident or by design, created a structure that rewards exactly the kind of wrestler he is. I observe this without judgment. The federation is entitled to its design choices. What I will say — and I am going to say it carefully, because the federation has shown a willingness to deplatform competitors who are too direct about each other — is that Rancid represents a category of wrestler the federation will, eventually, need to decide whether it can carry indefinitely. A man whose value proposition is the threat of damage is a man whose value diminishes the moment the threat is shown to be empty. Tonight, in the main event of Behind Closed Doors, the threat is going to be tested. I am the one testing it. I have been preparing for this test, in some form, for the entirety of my time in this federation, even if the federation had not yet booked me into the position to administer it. I expect to win. I do not expect to win because I am the better wrestler — though I am — and I do not expect to win because Rancid is mortal — though he is. I expect to win because the kind of wrestler Rancid is depends on his opponent's willingness to be disturbed by him. I am not going to be disturbed by him. I have spent fifteen years in dressing rooms where men like Rancid were the loudest voices and the smallest minds. I have learned to wrestle in his style without needing to perform it. I have learned the cadence. I know when the chaos is real and when the chaos is staged. Tonight, in front of this federation's audience, I am going to demonstrate that the chaos is staged, and that the man producing it is, in the final analysis, a man who can be controlled. ———————————————— A note for the federation, while I have your attention. I am aware that I have not been featured prominently in this company's first months of operation. I want to be clear that I am not bitter about it. I am, however, paying attention. I have noted the matches I have not been in. I have noted the segments I have not been booked into. I have noted the storylines that have, deliberately or otherwise, omitted me as a participant. I am keeping a list. I have always kept lists. I find them useful. This is not a threat. It would be inappropriate for me to threaten anyone in management, and I am, as established, a professional. This is simply an observation, filed for the record, of a kind I have been filing my entire career. The list will continue to grow. The federation will, in time, need to decide what to do about it. I am not in a hurry. For tonight, I am wrestling Rancid. I am going to win. The win will be, by the federation's own internal scoring system, a top-tier result against a top-tier opponent in the main event of a major broadcast. That result will go on the federation's record. It will also go on mine. I am, as ever, simply paying attention. — Dorian Graves