Holly Adams vs. Selena Frost

[SnowQueenSCW]

The Royal Letter

The camera fades in to reveal Selena Frost sitting in wide, tuft velvet chair, surrounded by a wall of bookshelves and carpeted floor. She wears black pants and a dark purple blouse, the colors contrasting the platinum-blonde of her hair. The SCW world title is, surprisingly, absent. With one leg crossed over the other, Selena strums her fingers together.

”My stepmother had a saying…” she says a little wistfully, as if in memory. ”If it looks like a duck, walks likes a duck, quacks like a duck – then it’s a duck.”

Slowly, the Snow Queen lifts her head, revealing the clear, bright sapphire eyes that look off in thought of the memory. ”And that duck can do a hundred different things. It can change its colors, it can try and walk more than it flies. It can try and quack in a different language, it will still, forever be a duck”…

With a sad smile, Selena shakes her head before returning her gaze to the camera. I hated that saying. I always strived to never believe that. I always believed that perception determines your reality and if you try hard enough, you can do anything. You could be anything. Hell, my path up to this point – this championship – is proof of that. I came in here eight years ago, and people just wanted to write me off. They were saying I was some kind of ‘ripoff’. And I know I shouldn’t use this term, but let’s face it, me putting my foot in my mouth isn’t something new: They said I was ‘one-dimensional’. They said that I lacked the ‘it’ factor to be anything more than a ‘curtain-jerker’ or, AT BEST, an ‘enhancement talent’. she uses her fingers for the air quotes before resting them in her lap.

And I took that doubt with me. I carried it and, I won’t lie, I didn’t just shrug it off. I didn’t beat it back right away. No. It got to me. It plagued me, and I will get to that in a little bit, I promise.

But the thing is, today, just like then, I believe that anything is possible for the individual. I believe that if you work hard enough, you can be anything. You don’t have to be ‘a duck’! kicking her leg off her knee, Selena sits a bit straighter in the chair, her expression tensing.

Which brings me to Holly Adams… Pausing for a moment, the Face of SCW shakes her head. You know, my wife wanted me to ‘save this promo for later’. She wanted me to wait till I was sitting in the ring in the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Michigan, to say this, simply because I was facing Holly Adams. Because she knew, just as I know, that once this hits the airwaves, Holly and her ‘team’ of writers and ‘consultants’ and ‘editors’ and whoever the hell else she has on her payroll are going to do what they do best and try and rip it to shreds – try and twist it into something ugly. And it won’t matter if what she says has no basis in the realms of truth or reality, she will do and say whatever she wants on her little ‘studio show’ to accomplish that. And my Deanna didn’t want what I had to say – the message that means so much to me – to be tainted in such a way…

A little frustratingly, Selena runs a hand through her medium-length hair. Because Holly Adams, hell the Brand in general, that is what they do. Just as my stepmother did, Holly looks at me and screams “Evil! Villain! Fraud!”. And while I don’t look like a villain… she checks herself over.

While I don’t sound like a villain…

While I don’t act like a villain…

Holly has gone out of her way to try and make me out to be one. From paying some poor actor to look like me and dress up like the Wicked Witch, to stalking my wife’s and my Twitter profile with her ‘less than subtle’ tweets, to bugging the World title belt so she can listen in on a private conversation between wives, she has done all she can to try and make people thinks I ‘act and talk’ like one – tried so hard to make me out to be the ‘duck’ in this war between the House of Frost and The Brand.

Taking a long breath, Selena slowly shakes her head Eight years I’ve been doing this, Holly. Eight years I have dealt with people just like you. People that pointed at me and said I was ‘fake’. In my early years, Autumn Valentine, a rising star at the time – the SCW Women’s Champion – looked at me and said that I was a fraud. She said that I was in it only for me and that there was NO WAY anyone was as ‘good’ or ‘noble’ or ‘caring of SCW’ as I was. There had to be an angle in it for me! There had to be some kind mask I was wearing and that a ‘fake bitch’ like me would never surpass someone like her. Now? While she is an extraordinary talent – while she is a record-holder and a Star of Tomorrow… only one of us has ever held the world title…

The current United States Champion Christy Matthews – for years – has fought me over and over and over again. And, whether she was in it for her legacy and reputation or in it for herself, and trust me, with her, there IS a difference, she has always been the same with me, uttering such words as ‘fraud’ and ‘fake’ and ‘liar’ and ‘manipulator’ – words that have been thrown at me by my opponents for years. For years, Christy Matthews shouted that she would always be better than me, would never let someone like me get past her. And, unlike Autumn, she used everything she could get to try and keep that promise. She bent the rules, she aligned with Katya D., sold out SCW, hell, she was in a match with me where her associate, Alexander Crowe, was the guest referee! Selena chuckles at that. Now? She may be a Hall of Famer, but there is a reason why it took her about ten years to become Supreme Champion and that’s because I was there, beating her over and over again!

If possible, her expression darkens a little… And then there were men like Vixen Cain and Xander Valentine. Men that decided that they could stop at nothing to ‘expose me’. Men that came after me. After my family. Xander attacked by bus with my wife inside with a damn sledgehammer. He stalked my home outside the gates, proving he was ‘so close’ to where my children would sleep. Vixen Cain kidnapped me, my friend, and my son for a joyride – all hoping that they could make me ‘snap’! That they could make me cast off my morals and my beliefs and ‘embrace the hatred’ and the dark…

I knocked one out in record time and I drove the other out of SCW!

Holding up her hand, Selena waits a second before speaking again. Now, you may hear all of that and you may think that Holly is nowhere that diabolical, but that isn’t the point I was getting at. In truth, you’d be wrong. In truth, Holly is worse than all of them – and this is where I give props to you, Holly. See, once they faced me in the ring, after they took me on and realized that they had failed, they tucked their tail between their legs and scampered off. 

But you?

You have worked harder than anyone I have ever had to deal with when it comes to trying to ‘expose’ me. Because I know those sound and recording studios? That ‘recording tech’? That doesn’t come cheap. You have sunk so much into trying to force the square block into the round circle, haven’t you? Tried so hard to paint me as this “scared” and “insecure” and “lying” woman while, in the same breath, proclaiming yourself as this ‘favourite of the people’. This ‘good’ and ‘wholesome’ woman.

A smirk of disbelief crosses Selena’s features. And it doesn’t matter how many times I prove you wrong. How many times you prove yourself wrong with your words and your actions. I’m “this” and you’re “that”, right?

And why? What is your obsession with that? What is your obsession with painting me in a certain light? In a certain color? Why do you point your finger and shout the same declarations and accusations of me? Why am I the proverbial ‘duck’ to you? the platinum-blonde allows a moment of silence to let the questions settle.

The reason, True Believers, is because this is all Holly Adams can do. At End of the Year, I gave Holly Adams a challenge. I told her that she could remove all doubt in her abilities as, not only a wrestler, but as a leader of The Brand. I told her that she could achieve so much to the point where she no longer had to pretend as she has for months with her ‘Supreme Champion’ status and being ‘the favourite wrestler of all the people of SCW’. She could be something inspiring.

All she had to do was fight me on her own. All she had to do is what Cid Turner – CID TURNER, people - tried to do and try and be the better wrestler. Sapphire eyes glare into the camera.

I dared you, Holly, to take that risk. To rise up to that level where I stand with the world championship and prove your words at being ‘better than me’ and ‘beating me with ease’ and, hell, ‘being the REAL Face of SCW’ – not for me and not even for the fans that genuinely voted for you (because according to Giovanni, there are millions) but for yourself and for the name and integrity of The Brand and your clients… 

And before the bell even rang, you refused. You had your ‘spiritual advisor’, though I think the better-term is ‘spiritual enforcer’ waiting under the ring to save you. To ambush me and give you the clear opening you could have used to steal the world championship.

Disappointed, and perhaps a little bitter, Selena shakes her head. And when that didn’t work, Cid Turner and Cookie were the backup to your backup. You want to know why the fans were booing, Holly? It wasn’t because I accidentally knocked you in the head with the title belt. It wasn’t because Cookie inserted herself into the ring, into our match, for the sole purpose of doing what Giovanni did and laying me out for you. It was because you had no intention of proving yourself right. You had no intention of backing up your words and giving these people a worthy SCW World title match. All you cared about was that you became the world champion…

But, much like the duck scenario, when you failed to do that, you screamed loud that you had ‘exposed’ me that night. That, while it was YOUR people interfering in the match while Deanna and I tried our best to return to what it SHOULD have been – a 1-on-1 showcase of SCW’s talent – you “succeeded in exposing me as a coward and a fraud”.

The Snow Queen keeps her eyes on the camera as she shakes her head. No, Holly. What you did was expose yourself. I dared you to face me one-on-one and you couldn’t do it. I dared you to reach my level, my standard, of wrestling for SCW and the World Championship and you failed to reach it – worse, you REFUSED to even try to reach it.

And that’s why you’ve been so after me, haven’t you? Because you are too scared to reach for my level, you have been doing all you can to bring me down to yours. You have hired teams and actors, spend so much money, simply to twist the narrative, extract some audio, anything to make me out to be some kind of evil witch, just so you don’t have to work hard and reach my level.

And while it has been amazing to watch you fail in doing so, Holly, I am done with it. I am done listening to you try and drag my name and the name of my wife and the family through the mud like you have with SCW and the World title with your vapid, illogical, superficial insults – I am done with listening to you twist the narrative, lying when the truth would sound better.

She points to the camera – to the woman she knows is watching. Because you? You think that I’m afraid of change. That I’m afraid of ‘the changing of the guard’. That I’m terrified of being without the world title, scared of being replaced as “The Face of SCW”, blah blah blah blah blah. 

Selena’s head tilts left and right before settling back into its cold stare. Holly, if I was afraid of any of that, then it would be me with the friends hiding under the ring, ready to take you out. It would be me using a chair against a guy in a bear suit and throwing said chair into the face of a masked rookie just to get ahead in a tag match. It would be me paying off audience members to run in and interfere in your matches just to increase your loss record. It would be me sending Deanna to jump you from behind as you made your way down to the ring. It would be me begging SCW to “VOTE FOR ME” by posting the same photoshop button 20, 30, 40 times across Twitter and bullying every single person that is in my way. And it would be me hiding in that film studio, acting tough in front of a look-alike in green makeup rather than marching to the ring to take you out!

You know, I’m surprised Cid or your advisor, GiGi, hasn’t stopped you from mouthing off with that line, Holly. Cause they know me better than you, but I’ll lay it out for you so even you can understand. I went four years without being considered for the SCW World title by management. There hasn’t been a world title I have lost that hasn’t ended with some kind of, at least, attempted interference or controversy from my opponent. I was passed over time and time again while people like Sienna Swann and Syren and Bree Lancaster were handed opportunity after opportunity. 

And for four years, I had to watch as the world title was dragged through the proverbial mud. Where most of the champions relied, as you do, not on their talents, but on their friends to bail them out when they were getting beaten. Over and over again, I have seen it. I have seen what obsession for this title does to people. People have sold their souls to hold it. They have traded in their morals for it. They have screwed over more deserving people, cheated others out of it, and turned their back on SCW to simply say they are the SCW World Champion! Don’t believe me? Remind me how Cid Turner and Asher Hayes became “Co-World Champions”… A knowing smile graces Selena’s lips, a pale hand placing itself over her chest. 

This is where it gets unique. Finally, there is one person with a set of ideals and morals and beliefs that doesn’t sellout or buckle or take the payout. A person that simply does what the catchphrase says… she smiles genuinely, proudly. I believe.

I believe in SCW, Holly. I believe that SCW can be better than what it has been. I believe the world title can be better than what you and Cid and Asher and others turned it into when you had it. I believe that the SCW Universe believe in that too and I believe in them.

Licking her lips, Selena looks down for a moment, as if to think before shaking her head to look back up. It’s not about being afraid of ‘losing the world title’ because one day, I know that will happen. One day, I will, once again, no longer be the world champion. I’m not afraid of that day, Holly.

It's not about fearing the ‘changing of the guard’. What all this is is that I know what losing the world title to you will do…

Because, let’s face it, Holly, we know how this match is going to go. It’s not hard to determine. I will set the standard and when she can’t reach it, Holly Adams is going to bring out Giovanni, Cid, Cookie, maybe she’ll even give Asher Hayes a call and have him jump back in too. But one thing is for sure: Holly Adams will never rise to the challenge to fight Selena Frost by herself. Because Holly Adams is too afraid to take that risk. Holly Adams is too afraid to reach for that bar, regardless of her talents and her potential. Holly Adams is too afraid to be ‘the hero’ that she paints herself as.

And I know that I’m not special to you. This isn’t a ‘single-case’ event. You beat me? You become World Champion? You’ll just go over to the next person in the same way. All I gotta do is say words like “forehead” and “Starbucks” and people will know EXACTLY what I mean when it comes to Holly Adams…

Her tone drops a little. And instead of classic “match of the year candidates” against wrestlers like Syren or Glory Braddock or Jordan Majors or even Kandis, we’ll get you whining and crying on your TV-show, whining and crying on SCW, and matches where you rely on The Brand to keep you the champion, following in the tactics of Infamous, The Beauty Network, and countless others. Matches that don’t define supreme championship wrestling, but mock it!

Selena’s jaw tightens at the thought. And I’m not ready to let that happen again, Holly. I’m not ready to let SCW go through that again. Not when I can do something about it. Not when I can be the world champion and give the SCW Universe those match-of-the-year candidates. Not when I can give SCW the world title matches that you are too afraid to give them.

Her lips suddenly break into a knowing smile. And that… that’s what really sticks in your craw, doesn’t it, Holly? That, no matter what you say, what you do, how you twist things? You can’t bring me down to your level. You throw the Brand at me, you record me secretly, you insult my wife, my appearance, my makeup, my eyes, you discredit everything about me and you cry on Breakdown “WE’VE DONE IT! WE’VE EXPOSED SELENA FRAUD!”- nope.

The people still chant “We Believe!” when they see me. They still chant “We Believe!” when they watch me wrestle. Because they aren’t your simple crew and your paid audience in your promos and studios, Holly. They speak for themselves. They speak their mind. And they know that I’ll rise above what you say and do. I’ll rise above what you throw in my way, Holly. More than that, I will always be the world champion they want to see and, the kicker of it all? I’ll be the world champion they want… and I’ll win. I’ll overcome the numbers, the cheap ploys, the excuses, the lies made by you and so many others in the back that can’t handle me – people that are BEGGING for me to turn that alignment! GO HEEL! PROVE US RIGHT – people that want me to be the “duck”. Nope. Selena grins.

I refuse to let someone else’s definition of me determine who I am… 

You know, you made a REALLY interesting statement in that little parody of yours – when you ‘melted me with water’ and went on that tangent? You said that the 2014 version of me would hate what I have become, in reference to success…

Let me educate you a little bit, Holly. In 2014, I didn’t care about anything but surviving and getting a paycheck. I was drinking myself into oblivion in 2013 because of the hell I was going through at Nome. I left that all behind to come here and take a gamble on my future. And in 2014, I was still that scared little girl. I was scared of failure, I was scared of losing everything and being fired. I was scared of looking weak. And above it all, I didn’t believe in myself about anything. I spent 2014 mostly lying to myself about who I was and what I was. I had to suffer setback and heartache to come to terms with who I was when the old me would have repressed it and hidden it as if it was something that I was ashamed of.

2014 me would never have believed that I could become World Champion – check the tapes if you don’t believe me. 2014 me would never have believed that I would go from a rookie, to an underdog, to a fan-favourite in the span of 3 years. 2014 me would never have believed that not only would I find a place here in SCW, that SCW would come to mean more to me than just a paycheck. It would become a home, a place where I could be myself and be accepted for that…

Taking a slow breath, a full, kind smile graces Selena’s lips. Most of all, 2014 me would never have believed that she would fall in love like I have. That she would find, not just some fling, but the real deal. That she would find a partner in life and in wrestling, that she would have a family of three kids when she thought she would never have any. That she would suffer some of the darkest moments of her life and yet come out of them with her beloved in her arms and a family by her side, stronger than ever. That she would become an inspiration to men and women and children everywhere – that she would be more than “the crazy miner’s daughter” that her world had painted her as…

She slowly looks up at the camera. You say that 2014 would look at me and see a sellout, Holly? That she would be ashamed of me? Then you didn’t know me then and you sure as hell don’t know me know!

Because you sure as hell can’t say the same thing can you? Like I said, you overcoming your addictions is something that I actually respect about you. But to throw it back at you, what would THAT Holly Adams think of you now?

The woman that sold out the people that trained her and made her.
The woman that screwed over countless wrestlers so she could get ahead.
The woman that hides behind her “Brand” rather than stand her ground and fight like she did against her addictions?
The woman that, rather than make herself better to reach a higher standard, does all she can to just lower that standard?
The woman that chose “Payments of $29.99” over integrity and heart?

Body, Heart and Soul, Holly… I will not care how you paint me. I will not care how you scream and declare me to be something I am not. I will not be your ‘duck’. I will not be your ‘wicked witch’. I will not be your ‘villain’ no matter how hard you try and how many lies and twists you need to tell.

Her hands coming together, Selena cracks her knuckles, an excited smile forming on her face. What I will be is the woman that is kicking your ass. And that will be a truth – a fact – a moment in history – that you will NOT be able to change.

“Selena Frost is evil, but she kicked my ass!”
“Selena Frost is a witch, but she kicked my ass!”
“Selena Frost got lucky, but she kicked my ass!”

“Selena Frost is still world champion…” her smile widens. ”And she kicked my ass!”

Believe it, Holly! She shrugs with a smile. Or don’t… I honestly don’t give a duck.

The camera fades on the smiling Snow Queen before fading to black.