Pardon Me

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“The time has finally come. It is time that I avenge my fallen brother and sister after how they were mocked crudely after their departures from our rosters.”

Camera starts rolling. Adrien is sitting in an empty hotel room lobby, shortly after arriving in Cleveland, Ohio so he can attend Homecoming’s first night to cheer on his friends. With the lower temperatures, he’s wearing a black trenchcoat, a scarf, and gloves. There is no smiling from Adrien today, who has one of his better poker faces on for this particular video.

“And who stands before me but one of the biggest loudmouths I think I’ve ever encountered in my entire career. And I’ve faced a LOT of those in my long career. Julianna DiMaria has become possibly the biggest narcissistic, arrogant, and worst of all...heartless person on either roster. And when I say heartless, I’m not just talking about her overall apathy about her fellow man or woman, though that’s true as well. Julianna will laugh in the face of the downtrodden, kick anyone who is down, and prepared to make fun at the expense of anyone who is either not doing well or in a bad situation. Prime example: look at how she opened up her video. What does she do immediately? She kicks the city of Cleveland in the gut fresh off what was a miserable football season. Because the tens of thousands of Browns fans haven’t suffered enough. Because they don’t have enough misery going on without you reminding them. Because it makes you feel good to make sure that anyone who you can torment with any grief and dejection, you do it to feed into your own superiority complex.

“And that’s what I said I will not tolerate. Not in NGW, not in any company I wrestle for. It’s why I’m fighting the Destroyers in the first place. I will do whatever I can to end it to the best of my ability. Every single person deserves to be treated with basic and common human decency. It’s why I never went after your personal life the way others did. Congratulations on finding someone who seems to see you in such a light, by the way. But what was the first thing you mentioned my name? Was it involving the match? No, it was about my year long relationship ending. Has nothing to do with you and me, it has nothing to do with my ability to step into that ring and take care of business. To you, it was just something you thought was funny for you to mention like the winless season the Cleveland Browns.

“This is the whole reason I wanted this match. You did this very thing to Honey. You did this very thing to Alechs. You can try to ask yourself if I care that they are gone. FUCKING YEAH, I CARE!”

At this point Adrien’s voice is raised to an almost yelling volume. The calm demeanor of Adrien was not present for a brief moment, but a rare fiery and vexed comportment from the Dropkick King. He returns to a normal speaking voice after taking a few moments.

“Honey was someone that too many people underappreciated and underrated on this roster. She has beaten opponents much greater than you without the opponent ever landing a single move. I fought alongside Honey in a tag team gauntlet match long before the Guardians existed and she was a wonderful tag team partner. And she was a wonderful human being that was going through an anguishing and life-changing time in her life and didn’t deserve to have you shoving that in her face as she was leaving. I’m glad she landed on her feet. I’m glad she’s going to be okay moving forward. But she held an NGW Championship and deserves to be recognized for her accomplishment, not called the least important Guardian. Hell, the only one in the Guardians who isn’t either a past champion in this company’s lineage or currently a World Champion elsewhere is me. Call me the least important Guardian for all I care. You think I sit around with the others, trying to gauge where the hell we rank amongst one another? No, it’s just another method you and the Destroyers try to use to try to make the others doubt themselves. So if you want a least important Guardian, it’s me. Adrien Cochrane. The other three exceed me in terms of importance. And you know what, I really don’t care because it’s unimportant.

“And I find it absolutely hilarious that you think I sit around and do nothing as so many opponents come in and pretend the other Guardians don’t exist. Let’s see here...have I addressed this issue or said something about the Guardians being all great individual members?”

Clips from past Adrien videos are edited in the video.







“Pardon me, but was that enough examples or do you need more?

“So there’s only a couple of excuses why someone such as yourself would make a comment when I’ve clearly said everything I could to address the problem. Either you were completely aware and you’re just a sociopathic liar who is perhaps a worse person than all the Destroyers combined without having their added advantage of being multiple World Champions and other successes. Yeah, you’re in the middle of a great run as the West Coast Champion, but that’s like talking about how you won an NCAA National Championship and thinking you are immediately a Super Bowl Champion in the NFL. Doesn’t work like that. And this match will be your proof of that. Because when you step into the ring with someone who has taken all of your social media comments, your shots at my friends, my family, and added my now ex-girlfriend to the list in your latest video, you have to understand that giving me so much fuel to want to harm you into the point of you screaming the words ‘I QUIT’ is disadvantageous for you. Because I WILL remember every tweet, every word, every single thing you said about me or anyone I care about the moment that bell sounds and I will use that anger and thirst for vengeance in every single productive way possible.

“Then again, perhaps it was the other excuse. Maybe you’re just ignorant of anything I’ve ever said about anything and just wanted to open your mouth anyway. Perhaps you were mistaken because you didn’t know any better, which begs the question: what exactly are you doing? Two of those were from literally my last two videos so you’re clearly not paying any attention to anything that doesn’t involve you. Are you so excited about your new relationship that you’re spending all your time worrying about that and not your career? Are you so excited about your next West Coast Genesis match that you forgot you have a multi-time World Heavyweight Champion because you just assumed your quote-unquote greatness would be enough to overcome everything? And do you know what that tells me about you, Julianna? You’re not ready. You’re far from ready to step foot into a ring with someone on the main event level of the NGW roster. You’re going to be overmatched and unprepared, and that’s how careers are ruined. That’s how people lose matches that they would have a chance to win otherwise. The biggest thing holding you back, Julianna, is your attitude. And until you get that attitude in check and realize that you aren’t the coolest thing since sliced bread and need to keep being better than you are today, you will never reach the potential of your talent level. Never.

“I said you didn’t have heart earlier, and I said it wasn’t your lack of compassion. It’s your lack of purpose. It’s your lack of that grit and determination to keep improving yourself once you reach a point where you think you’ve hit the finish line. You waiver the moment someone says something to you on Twitter and use the little hashtag that you’re #OFFLINE. You run from the slightest bit of trouble and hide from anyone who is prepared to stand up to you. You can try to portray me as this bully when I stood up for my fellow Guardians, but all that tells me is that you’re intimidated when I do and just want to try to deflect all the attention off of what you are doing. It’s cowardly and repulsive.

“It’s why I chose an I Quit match. It would be letting you off too easy to hit you with an Adrien Cutter or Crescent City Connection and just pin you. No. I want you to say those two words because it will have so much more meaning than just winning a match. It would be you admitting inferiority. It would be you saying that you don’t have what it takes to compete with The Dropkick King. It would be you saying that the Guardians have a member that is too much for you to handle and at least, SILENCE you. Because the moment that you tried to start anything with Jazmyn, Jessica, or Joshua, all they would have to do is remind you of the time you uttered the words ‘I QUIT’ into a microphone. It would mean the end of you feeling like you have the power or the nerve to dare mock my friends anymore. It would mean all these picking fights with my groups...it would mean YOU QUIT.”

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