Title: Choices
Featuring: Lance Marshall
Date: 5/16/11
Location: Japan (Rev 246 vs. Alexandra Pierce)

Choices.

That’s what it’s all about, in the end. Those one hundred and one little decisions that you make throughout the day. Where do I want to have lunch? Do I want to be rude back to that utter bitch of a sales clerk? What do I want to do with the rest of my life?

Every single little choice that you make leading to consequences that lead to more choices that lead to more consequences…and pretty soon, either you’re exactly where you planned to be or somewhere you never imagined.
Consider the place I’m in right now; I do it all the time. Married to a woman I love more than life itself. Blessed with the most amazing son I could have ever asked for. Working in a business I love, doing well enough that we’re keeping afloat even in this wacked out economy. And all of that comes down to the choices I’ve made: who I chose to fall in love with, our decision to have baby, the business I chose to go into.

There are some people who will tell you that they don’t have the ability to make those choices, that other individuals or circumstances or fate or bad luck or what have you took it away from them…that they are the way they are because they simply have no other choice. Me? I think that’s a complete load of horseshit. All that line of thinking does is make you a perpetual victim, an eternal slave to external influences. You sit there and give your power away, give away the ability that fundamentally defines your life…and for what? Money? Fame? “Respect”? Ultimately, none of that shit means a damn thing. You can’t take it with you when you die, it doesn’t make you happier when you’re alive. It’s just things, meaningless garbage that you sell your soul away for.

Believe me, I’ve heard all the reasons why I should just give that power away. I’ve heard the voices whispering in my ear about how things would be so much better if I just went with the flow, if I took the easy route, if I sold part of my soul away. I’d get the assholes of the world off my back, make so much more money, finally get the prestige and acclaim I so rightly deserve…and all if I would just let my morals relax a little, put my ethics aside just this once, not be so insistent on always doing the “right” thing.

See, people get given that choice every day. The choice between what’s easy and what’s right. The stockbroker who’s clued in to a little bit of insider trading. The data entry clerk who finds out his company is flouting environmental regulations in order to increase profits. The man backed into a corner by a boss preying on his ego and insecurities.

“But I can’t say anything, I’ll go to jail!” Why? They’re the ones doing something wrong, not you. “But I can’t say anything, I’ll lose my job!” Do you really wanna work for these assholes? “But I want that belt so bad!” So you’ll let Devin Shakur cripple a guy in the middle of the ring, scream at you to pin him or you’re fired and instead of looking him dead in the eye and flipping him off…you spread your legs, bend over and agree to become his whore for the rest of eternity?

But maybe I’m going ahead of myself. The point is, and I will always believe this, is that you always have the choice. Even when you think you don’t.

Even when you’re sure you don’t.

---

The man greeting the PRIME delegation when we arrive at Narita International Airport tells us his name is Kenjiro Miyazawa. He looks to be in his thirties, short dark hair that looks he’s blown a day’s wages at the salon, Italian designer suit, shoes polished so bright you can see your reflection in them, the smell of “trying too hard” coming off him along with his cologne. He seemed nice enough…they always do.

“Welcome to Japan,” he greeted us, his English having only the slightest trace of an accent. His smile seemed warm and genuine. He was either the real thing or knew how to fake it damn well. “We are honored to have a company esteemed as Prime come to Yokohama.”

I decide to have a little fun. “Arigato, Miyazawa-san,” I respond.
“Hajimemashite. Dozo Yoroshiku.”

Everyone’s always so surprised when I can bust out the nihongo. To his credit, Kenji isn’t surprised for long, answering back smoothly, “I was unaware that anyone in your party knew Japanese.”

“Before I got into wrestling, I was in the military. Spent five years based out of Camp Zama. Most of the guys on base just stuck to the places where people spoke English. Me? If I was coming all this way, it didn’t make sense to me to not get a sense of the local language and culture, you know? Really get to know the place I was gonna be making my home.”

Kenji keeps smiling. “That’s a very enlightened attitude,” he replies, “far too many westerners just expect that everyone will know how to speak English.” The rest of our party is just looking at the two of us as we head down the terminal towards the luggage claim area, wondering how the hell we became best friends so quickly. I can hear a few people whispering behind me, sure that we’re talking smack about everyone behind their backs.

“Back then, yeah. It’s depressing that it’s still that way, though.”

It doesn’t take nearly as long for us to get our luggage as in most of the airports I’ve been to (gotta love that Japanese efficiency). Kenji passes out train tickets to everyone. “The next train will be leaving in twenty minutes. Our particular stop is just a short walk from the Intercontinental Grand Yokohama where you will all be staying.”

“Someone splashed out,” I mutter under my breath. “That hotel is pretty swish.” I can see Dawkins heard me.

“You know your way around here, bruh?” he asks.

“More Tokyo but, yeah, I’m okay.”

“Then I’m gonna be sticking to you.”

---

There was a period when things weren’t going my way in this business. People seemed to be getting tired of me. Folks would attack me and people would applaud them for it. I’d get criticized for things that the fans had supported me for…and all of a sudden, they just start nodding their heads in agreement, chiming in with how they hated all those things about me too.

I didn’t take it well. I got angry, started going against those things that I’d held as core principles. I alienated people, nearly drove my wife away, got to the point where I was drowning myself every day in a bottle of Jack. I told myself that it was justified, that I wasn’t doing anything wrong, that everyone who was giving me shit could go and fuck themselves.

And then one morning, I woke up, looked myself in the mirror…and realized I had no fucking idea who was looking back at me. The person I was, this bleary eyed drunk with a raging hangover and dark circles under his eyes, now seemed like some stranger whose eyes I was looking through. I was absolutely disgusted with myself. Once I got through puking my guts out again, I vowed that I was gonna clean my shit up and get sober. That it didn’t matter anymore what people said about me, what criticisms they made…I wasn’t going to go down this route ever again. I wanted what I used to have again.

It took a while but I got it all back. I made that choice. I made the choice to clean myself up. I made the choice to go back to the life I once had. I made the choice to stop drinking. And since that day, I have not had a drop of alcohol. Even in the face of everything.

And I do mean everything.

---

Imagine my goofy ass at 23. I’m thousands of miles away from home where they eat different food and have different customs and speak a different language…and what’s really tripping me out?

“They have a Gold’s here?”

I know this is gonna sound really horrible but…well, I’d never really pictured Asian dudes as big when I was growing up, you know? Now, you’ve got guys like Hidetada Yamagishi competing on the international stage but back then…well, I knew about Bolo Yeung from the Jean-Claude Van Damme movies and that was about it. So it blew my mind to find out that Japan had its very own brand of bodybuilding culture. Nihonjin wanting to be like Arnie…who knew, right? And once we got past the language barrier and the sight of my goofy blonde gaijin ass…after a while, nobody gave a shit I wasn’t Japanese. It just felt like…home.

That feeling hits me again when I’m smack dab in the middle of Ginza, scarfing down a plate full of sushi from one of the stalls. Yeah, I know I probably shouldn’t given what happened in Shanghai but it smelled amazing and I am hungry as hell right now. It’s that mix of smells, that unique odor of smoke and food and car exhaust and that slight hint of salt air that I could always smell no matter where in Japan I was.

It’s good to be here again. There were still a few of the folks that I remembered at Camp Zama and it was nice to see them again. I signed a few autographs, shook a few hands and encouraged those who could to come to Yokohama for the show. It all just felt very natural.

You could tell people were still having a hard time of things. There were areas of the country that we were expressly told were off-limits, that under no circumstances were we to travel there and, if we were stupid enough to do so, we put our own lives at risk. Stores were still short on certain items and there was this sense that the country, as a whole, was holding its breath.

But there was hustle and bustle and people going about their daily business and life…lots of life, this dogged insistence from everyone I met that they were not going to let what had happened bring them down into misery or despair. They’d made the choice to continue living, to try and move forward as best they could.

Because, really, what other option was there?

---

My wife contracted ovarian cancer, was told that she would no longer be able to bear children.

And still, I stayed away from alcohol.

My son was kidnapped, had…things…done to him that still make me vomit just to think of them. The man who did this killed himself in front of me just to make me feel impotent and powerless.

Still, not a drop passed my lips.

Was I tempted? Damn right. But I would not, could not allow myself to give in, to succumb to this evil…to tell myself that I now had permission to give up and throw everything I had worked for away because something bad had happened to the people I loved.

In circumstances where I will bet nobody would have blamed me if I had snapped, lost it, backslid, gotten blind stark raving drunk…I stood firm. I held my ground. I didn’t give in.

Because my family needed me. Because I needed them. Because I loved them too much to hurt them that way.

Because I made that choice.
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