[color=cyan][b][u]Destruction of One’s Ego[/u][/b][/color] ---------------- While my real name is Lorenzo Lethianson, you know me as the Ultimate Destroyer; the name was a chosen as a way to pay homage to my hero of wrestling from the human world, the Ultimate Warrior (later known as just Warrior). Wrestling has always been my passion, although I would have been willing to just be a fan of it, due to the fact that I was a human being to start with, just as my fellow American, Patriotic Pounder, the UK’s Takedown Tiger, and Australia’s Beatdown Bobcat were, until CNG got us. (By contrast, Mexico’s Luchador Lion, Australia’s Dog of Doom, and Goldduster, our latest addition from Canada, had been a lion, bloodhound, and wolf, respectively, since they were born. They don’t understand how lucky they are, believe me; CNG taking away one’s humanity is the worst feeling in this world.) It seems only pure coincidence that both my parents and Tanner’s (Takedown Tiger’s) parents had the same job: CPA, or certified public accountant. I mention this because Tanner had said he once lamented to himself, “I should have listened to my parents and just been a certified public accountant.” That’s the job I would have done just to humor everybody, had I stayed as a human. Both Tanner and I found ways to continue to weightlift to keep in shape, though. In my case, growing up in Athens, Georgia, and living in Atlanta now, it was only natural that my alma matter is the University of Georgia, and so naturally, I have met the real-life counterparts to the mascots of that university, Hairy Dawg. (He plays cymbals in that special mascot drumline that was formed, in order to add more excitement to the variety of scenarios you’d find in “Cripto’s army.”) This is why the degree I completed was in business administration, with a minor in mass communications (broadcasting). However, the WWE is always looking for new recruits to keep it going when its old-timers fall by the wayside and retire for good, or switch to other jobs that don’t involve the actual wrestling. This is why they sent scouts to watch me wrestle against another champion from the University of Auburn (and Aubie, its mascot, also plays in that special drumline). Sadly, there were CNG smugglers present because one of them was another dad that was a sore loser at everything. It didn’t help that his son had made it to the finals of the NCAA championships but lost twice in a row, and the second bout was against me. (The first bout was against somebody from the University of Alabama, whose mascot, Big Al, is also in that drumline. I mention this because the entire drumline of mascots was attending my match, and providing pre-game and post-game sounds to add to the ambience of the environment.) While the son admitted that there were things that he did wrong, and that the referees were fair and just, his dad was such a sore loser, and he was tired of his dad being such a sore loser. His dad showed this by proclaiming that the first championship loss was because the referees were rigging the contest. (Yes; we do have heel referees in professional wrestling, but the NCAA’s wrestling is legitimate, not kayfabe.) The CNG they were smuggling, however, decided to wait until after I had won the championship title and the crowds were dismissed before it turned me into a lion. The transformation occurred when the dad tried to make a lunge for me, but my opponent came to my rescue, only to get pummeled himself by his own father. Security guards and the police had trouble restraining him, though; he was quite the strongman himself. (I think he was rejected from Ringling Bros. for unnecessary roughness. Who knows?) By the time they were finally able to get a hold of him so that they could transfer him to prison, the CNG effects began to work its dirty magic, and that’s when I became a lion, and my opponent ended up as a golden retriever. “You’d think it would have me a tiger and you a bulldog,” he said to me. “You’d think,” I said, “but it went the other way around and changed the species. Tell me, though; why was your dad so angry?” “He’s so competitive and will not take ‘loss’ as an answer. This is the second final in a row I’ve made it to, but lost, and the last time, Dad thought the referees were biased. It shows what he knows. There were things I legitimately did wrong in that bout, and there were things I did wrong here.” “There were mistakes I made, too. Nobody’s perfect.” ----------- That night, the dad died in prison; the cause of death was originally thought to be a stroke. Instead, CNG showed that the man had no brain because it literally made the brain in his head disappear. A body cannot function without a brain; everybody knows this. Still, what a way to go. The third time proved to be the charm for the son, whose name I’m keeping anonymous for his safety, because he won the championship that year against a different wrestler, but this wrestler came from Georgia Tech. He and I do still keep in touch whenever we can, because he courageously turned his own dad in to the police. That took a lot of guts to do that, folks. ------------- The golden retriever and I both attended the second of (so far) nine documentation waves, with this one held in Washington, D.C., and that’s where I told my story to Leo the Patriotic Lion and his administration, since they had the office at the time. Yes; I voted for Leo. However, it wasn’t to be; the public chose Donald Trump instead. (IC3, the successors to IC2 and CNG, was making them regret they didn’t select Leo, because of Trump’s tariffs and his crude sense of humor driving all of Leo’s parallels out of their ambassador jobs. The most notable example is Leonhard the Mighty Lion, who quit so that he could instead serve Iceland as ambassador to Japan. When somebody gives up the U.S. for a different country, that says something about how we failed to live up to the world’s expectations of being the GOAT [greatest of all time] of nations on this planet. It’s hard to tell what 2028 is going to bring us, but I wouldn’t be surprised if after Donald Trump, we never have another human President again. However, IC3 deemed all those Philadelphia Eagles fans rioting over the Super Bowl as the major piece of evidence that humanity has blown it for all eternity. What’s their problem? They won the game! There’s no reason to riot!) ------------- Oh, and while I am not familiar with roller derby, my fellow wrestlers and I had many discussions with Danger Dawg on how the sport was essentially trying to be pro wrestling on skates, using the same kayfabe principles we used in wrestling. Apparently, it works better in wrestling than it did with roller derby, because the way the game of roller derby is played now is totally legitimate, which is all Danger Dawg wanted to see. Because one of the many features of Cripto’s incredible basement in his house contains a room that can magically alternate between the figure-8 shaped track of “RollerGames” (or “RG” as Danger Dawg calls it) and the oval track used in “Rollerjam” (although the latter was bigger than a normal roller derby track to account for the fact inline skates were legalized for “Rollerjam,” and you can go faster on those), we got a good look at those. We didn’t bother to skate, but we did walk around the tracks, and got a better idea of the whole thing. In the case of “RollerGames,” we watched both the original 1989 version and Danger Dawg’s version, since the forces of evil that challenged Danger Dawg to a season of RG, and (without knowing it) plagiarized the storylines of the original to a degree. (Watching this also accidentally triggered one of my superpowers, which is this: whenever somebody lies about something on purpose, my fur will briefly turn from the natural tawny color we lions have to white for about four seconds, and then back to tawny. My fur turned white every time one of the heel managers in RG made on their false claims. I later had to explain this to everybody.) -------------- Shortly after that documentation wave was when I joined the WWE for real, since it had a division for the animal kingdom. However, for safety reasons, we never wrestle against the humans. The troubling though to it, though, was that I began as a heel wrestler; even though I made the heel-face turn, I found it easier to keep the same name, just as the Dog of Doom and Goldduster did when they made their heel-face turns. (There’s more heels out there to maintain a balance, but when Super C made us G-52s, that was an indication that it was time for us to make a heel-face turn.) The WWE has two major television programs, “WWE Raw” and “WWE SmackDown.” I began wrestling as a heel on “Raw,” and after my heel-face turn, I began wrestling for “SmackDown.” Note that I didn’t win the championship belt for the first time until after the heel-face turn, but while I was still a heel, the major highlights of my career began with a loss to a specific face, who might have been in the process of turning heel. It was later discovered that the wrestler was cheating, and he somehow got away with it. I would later avenge this with three more wins, and the opponent lamented, “I hate wrestling!” (He retired after this, and he now works as a manager. He might have retired as is because he had three back injuries and a broken wrist prior to this. He’s not my manager, but he is on my side now. He would tell you that I destroyed his ego, and his ego was out of control.) ---------------- Even though professional wrestling is a form of theater, the other styles of wrestling are legitimate styles. Collegiate, the style I did, is its own form of wrestling, which differs from freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling. The type you may have seen in the Olympics is the Greco-Roman variety. -------------- People also ask me if I have ever tried the Mexican form of wrestling, known as “lucha libre,” with its masked participants known as luchadores. The answer to that is yes, by definition, because there was that wrestling match against Luchador Lion, which was an unscripted match, by the way. The purpose of that was to help show the people how luchadores are more quick and agile, whereas we American wrestlers tend to be more strength and power-based in our wrestling. As a result, every move one of us had, the other had an answer for, and it was only by the slimmest of margins that I beat Luchador Lion. However, he got his payback, because my first loss to him was in Mexico. The difference is that I beat him by pinfall, but he got me to submit to him, because to say no to giving up would have been foolish. The match was still a match that could have gone either way, though. When he beat me, the entire nation of Mexico went nuts, and the cheers in the arena had to be nine times louder than it was when I beat him back in Atlanta. Balloons, streamers, and confetti fell from the ceiling as the crowds went berserk, and the commentators went into their usual song-and-dance routine, acting as if Luchador Lion had prevented the biggest disaster in the history of mankind: losing on his own turf. Instead of a belt, however, this match presented Luchador Lion with a trophy proclaiming him as the greatest wrestler that ever lived. “HE’S DONE IT!” they shouted. “HE’S DONE IT! HE’S DESTROYED THE ULTIMATE DESTROYER AND PUT HIM IN HIS PLACE ONCE AND FOR ALL! HE’S TRULY THE GREATEST WRESTLER THAT EVER LIVED! ABSOLUTELY NOBODY WILL EVER TAKE HIM DOWN! HE’S THE ULTIMATE, FOR HE HAS DESTROYED THE ULTIMATE DESTROYER!” On and on they went, acting as if he had forced me into permanent retirement, which he had not done. After the match, I asked him, “Why do they think you losing on your home turf is the worst thing that will ever happen to Mexico?” “I think they’ve forgotten that my real record includes times I’ve lost in my home country,” Luchador Lion replied. “I have told SuperCat about this, but now I’ll tell you something. When those tabloid terrorists tried to smuggle CNG into Mexico, they weren’t necessarily trying to go after my fellow luchadores; they were just there to cause trouble. Yet they happened to cross paths with lucha libre and got a taste of it. CNG would act on its own, however, because after it killed the smugglers, it destroyed all the records, and it was hard for us to research what they really were until the C.I.D.F. stationed here helped us do that. Yet the commentators continue to act as if I’ve never lost a match at home, at least against international opponents such as you, and if I do lose a match, it will be the biggest disaster that ever happened. I would have guessed the 2001 attacks on your World Trade Center.” “The fact that still happened ultimately resulted in less lives lost,” I replied, “because the G-52s were up in space at that moment preventing Bendraqi from destroying the whole world with asteroids. If they had tried to keep the World Trade Center from falling on 9/11, then that would have been the end of the world.” “No kidding.” “Of course, the G-52s were nowhere close to where they are now, size wise.” “True. Anyway, good match.” “Thank you. You and I ought to tag team it one of these days.” -------------- There you go; that’s my story in a nutshell. I hope to see you soon, and remember, while “SmackDown” is what I do, this one thing remains true: if you mess with me, it is going to get RAW! Thank you, and also remember, don’t count your chickens before they hatch. ------------ [color=tan][b]THE END[/b][/color]