“Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.” ― Cormac McCarthy, The Road
April 5th was to be Erick Steven's second swan song from professional wrestling. The culmination of a resurrected career out of need, not necessity. Steven's needed to know if he still had it in him.
The simple answer is: Fuck Yes. But honestly, the beauty of the story is that it's more than just a simple yes. You see, in some ways, the explosion of indy wrestling is connected to Erick Stevens - well, at least, for me.
It was Beyond Wrestling's "Uncharted Territory," that hooked me in on the beauty of indy wrestling, and episode eight of that ground breaking program brought me my first Erick Steven's match - against Beyond's gatekeeper, Chris Dickinson.
As I'm writing this, i'm re-watching that match. Steven's doesn't look like a guy that's been gone for nine years, and Dickinson is not easing Erick back in by any means.
And that's the beauty of this last run. Steven's carved notches in the pores of his adversaries all throughout the United States, working for promotions in Georgia, Ohio, Illinois, Rhode Island, New Jersey, etc.
The carnage was beautiful, a crimson covered response fueling this run-away pain train to it's final destination. And then ... like everything else in the last 48 hours, it stopped.
It’s over.— Eric (@familyfooddude) March 16, 2020
Many around us are losing something. Jobs, houses, fuck, even lives. So while the ending of Erick Steven's last run has left us wanting, hoping, wishing that maybe he'll change his mind and come back one last time, we're reminded of something very valuable.
Sometimes, life isn't fair. Hell, often times, life isn't fair. But we pick ourselves up and we go on. Stevens isn't crying. His endgame was always an end. If he doesn't have the answer he was looking for, by now, he never will.
But, the simple answer is: Fuck Yes.