10 Minute Documentaries: Castor Strife
(FADEIN: First-person view from behind a black steering wheel branded with the silver arrow of Mercedes-Benz. Outside it’s night, and the lights of the car stereo are lit up, currently playing
“My Only Fan” by Malfunkshun as the vehicle turns onto Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood, CA. White text appears at the bottom of the screen)
“ESEN Presents...”
(McDonald’s, Aztec Motors, and LA Expert Auto are passed by. The sidewalk palm trees are profiled with the dim glow of streetlights)
“The 10 Minute Documentary Series”
(Car pulls in to a small parking lot off the highway. There is a yellow sign hanging from a shingled roof that says ‘Motel’ in red letters)
“Belly of the Beast: Castor Strife”
“Directed by Devin Millwood”
(Car parks, ignition is turned off, the music stops, and the camera follows CASTOR STRIFE as he walks to and enters the front door of the Silver Saddle Motel)
CASTOR: (V/O) “The past is dead. Nobody cares to remember it. History, though, is different. History is a living document – it is written, re-written, interpreted, learned from, repeated...and sometimes repealed. History is relevant.
My history...is relevant.”
(The clerk at the front desk slides Castor a room key)
CASTOR: (V/O) “All that I have is history.”
(CUTTO: Castor Strife, sitting on a motel room bed, hunched forward, facing slightly away from the camera. There is still a bandage over his head from the recent Cutting Room Floor match)
CASTOR: “This is the room where Quentin Sullivan called to tell me I was being released from the NFW roster. I was actually living here for two months after being evicted from my apartment for failure to pay rent, and now Quentin says I can’t come back to work because I’m a liability, worth more to the company dead than I am alive. At that time, I was the worst among many pill and coke addicts in the locker room."
"Some of them played it up on TV, like they were high all the time and it was helping them get somewhere. I was probably...probably the worst of anybody, and made a point of not showing it on television. (shrugs) If it’s real, you’re not proud of it.”
“This was...(pauses, scratches mouth and thinks)...April 2005, right before the start of NFW Ultratitle Season 2. I watched all of my friends and peers ascend to the highest levels in this business.”
(CUTTO: Gray-still of Michael Manson holding the Ultratitle Trophy)
(CUTTO: Gray-still of Felix Red with the NFW strap)
(CUTTO: Gray-still of Shane Southern with the CSWA Unified Title)
CASTOR: “And now I was being fired by the same man who took me under his wing when I broke in; Sully used to call me ‘Blue Chip’, said I was his top prospect. I cost him thousands of dollars in missed appearances, no-show matches, everything.
(CUTTO: Panoramic view of the Staples Center parking lot in Los Angeles)
CASTOR: “One time, I disappeared a half hour before match-time so I could meet my dealer in the parking lot of the Staples Center. They found me running laps around the building around midnight, high on crystal meth. That was the last show I worked before the call came.”
(BACKTO: Castor sitting on the motel room bed)
CASTOR: “I’m in this room, sitting...probably right here on this bed. And I am about to embark on a bender of epic proportions. Eight days of non-stop drug use and debauchery. Coke, meth, oxies, ecstasy, hash. I’m living it for real. I’m every bit the addict Felix Red says he is on TV, and I’m as bad as what the fans think Joe The Plumber is. But for me its no game – it’s the end of my fucking career, maybe even my life. Worth more dead than alive? We’ll see. One way or the other, we’ll see.”
(CUTTO: The inside of a jail cell)
CASTOR: “The best thing that ever happened to me was getting arrested for breaking into the methadone clinic in North Hollywood. I assaulted a police officer and was put away for three months. It was misery; I was dopesick, contemplating hanging myself in the cell with banded drawstring I removed from standard issue inmate pants.”
“Once the withdrawals ended, I began to read the books my brother sent me.
Fountainhead,
In Cold Blood,
Frankenstein. One of the guards lent me a copy of
Pro Wrestling Monthly, and flipping through those pages really woke me up.”
(CUTTO: Michael Manson reeling in Doc Silver for a DDT; Shane Southern superkicking Joey Melton; Eli Flair in a wild exchange with Troy Windham; Sean Stevens suplexing Lindsay Troy; ends with a slo-mo of Dan Ryan standing on the second turnbuckle, throwing the CSWA Unified Title over his shoulder)
CASTOR: “I saw an industry that moved on without me. Old stars, rising stars, new prospects...Castor Strife had been forgotten. Maybe he wasn’t known to begin with. I wasn’t a has-been, but a never-was.”
“This isn’t something I speak about freely. I’ve only alluded to it, but I thought you should know something about what made me, Dan.”
“When I asked you a while back to name all of your titles and accomplishments, I was being facetious. The truth is, I know your resume quit well. When you were out conquering the planet, climbing buildings and swatting down airplanes, I was a lowly anonymous reading your CV in the back of a magazine from the discomfort of a halfway house.”
“And Dan...I don’t remember reading a sentence with your name in it that didn’t include some merit or accomplishment.”
(FLASHCUTTO: Scenes of Dan Ryan’s greatest victories)
“Dan Ryan – CSWA Unified Champion.”
“Dan Ryan – GXW World Champion.”
“Dan Ryan – NFW Champion.”
“Dan Ryan – Rebel Pro World Champion.”
CASTOR: “Like every other man who thought he was owed something, you went out there and targeted the measuring stick of every relevant – and a few irrelevant – wrestling organization.”
“Just like I did, when I was the name that time forgot. As soon as I got clean, I chartered a course that included every World Championship that counts, and even the Ultratitle should it resurface again.”
“I made a five year plan of sorts, even before NFW re-signed me. You know how the story goes, but I’ll say it again for those who don’t: I re-emerged, and won everything under the sun. NFW World Champion, PRIME Universal Champion, A1E World Champion, 2012 Ultratitle Champion.”
“Some of the names I beat to get there include Impulse, Dorchester Stratton, Eric Dane, Eli Flair, Lindsay Troy, Joey Melton, Anarky, and Troy Windham himself.”
(Sits back, turns his palms up)
CASTOR: “That’s right, I’m committing the sin of LISTING, the one we said we wouldn’t break. But I don’t think any of this makes me your better; just your equal.”
“That cell; that magazine without my name in it; those substances I scored in parking lots while you won gold and all my friends and enemies prospered, those substances that made me an avatar for a greedy little demon with a one-track mind; that phone call from Sully...”
“...that’s what makes me your better. That’s what you
lack, champion. All determination, and no perspective. Like a car without a driver, you’re only destined for brick walls.”
(CUTTO: Castor walking down the streets of Van Nuys, looking straight ahead, oblivious of the people around him)
CASTOR: (V/O) “Everything about your legacy to this point has hinged on one gold trinket after another. Throwing it all into your son’s sandbox doesn’t change that. You are who you are.”
“To proclaim your desire to be remembered by history while simultaneously...ripping it off the wall and putting it in the hands of children, that’s careless arrogance. Not even I would stoop that low. This match is above merits, but let’s not pretend that those merits didn’t make this all possible. And let’s not dream that don’t matter going forward. They do; they should.”
“Your attempt to disregard old history only dooms you to be a relic of it.”
(CUTTO: Castor staring up at a lit movie theatre marquee)
CASTOR: (V/O) “Perhaps you don’t want to be reminded of the past, because it’s an unfavorable comparison to where you’re at now. But the fact is, you’re the same man who won all those championship titles, lacking in the very humility you seek to impose on others because you won’t face the reality of your diminished stature.”
“Me? I’m two months removed from waking up in a pit of broken glass. A contraption of my own making, sent there by my greatest rival. Everything I worked for lain around me in pieces and shards.”
“Does that make me weaker, in your mind? I say you were better off facing me when I was unbeaten. The last time I walked out of hell, I took over the industry.”
“You, Dan...you’re one-dimensional. It’s a great dimension to have, but it’s ALL you have.”
“You are dangerous when carrying a hammer, but what else can you do? Hammer that nail, hammer that nail...”
“Can you saw an appendage off, and weld on a crown?”
(CUTTO: Castor sitting on the motel bed, looking at the camera while rubbing the bandage taped to the side of his head)
CASTOR: “I am not your nail. I am a temple of pain. Your hammer will break a few boards, and you might even knock down a wall or two, but eventually...your arm will grow tired, your knees will give out, and you will succumb to my horror.”
“And while falling from grace has only proven to strengthen me, it will kill you off, because all you have is the ego, Herr Ego Buster.”
“I have no problem with overcompensation, as you so rightly point out, but don’t lob that charge at me when you’re out attacking every relevant champion of the last five years every time your name isn’t mentioned in the same breath.”
“You publicly deem yourself to be the best in the world, while owning and operating an organization of Top 10 competitors who you don’t compete with. How you muster the nerve to put a World Championship belt on somebody in one arena while labeling yourself NUMBER ONE in the world somewhere else is jarringly arrogant.”
“Monument to ego? EPW is the Sphinx, the Great Pyramid, and the entire Giza fucking Plateau compared to anything I could ever dream up. The only other man with that kind of chutzpah is Eddie Mayfield, your sworn mortal enemy.”
(Throws up hands)
CASTOR: “C’est la vie. Just another puppet master with a hard-on to command another’s fate.”
“I don’t want to run the world though, Dan. I want to decontrol the system, and watch free-men build statues to me out of love. Is that so wrong?”
“Fuck NFW. Fuck EPW, and CSWA, and every other loose wagon. One thing that four years in the belly of the beast will teach you, is to never let your fate wind up at the bottom of a bottle, at the edge of a needle, or in the hands of a slave-master. I’ll burn the farm, free the serfs, and the master will PAY ME every red cent and his daughter too.”
“You asked me for this match, and I made it possible. You want history? You’ll have that too. But I don’t guarantee satisfaction, Dan. That you’ll have to live without the rest of your life, trying to figure out what exactly I did to get it back from within a literal and figurative prison.”
(FLASH CUTTO: Spilled bottle of pills; woman dancing on stage; empty bottle smashing slo-mo at a motel wall)
CASTOR: “We’ve gone through our similarities, but this is where we differ, Dan.”
“You’re headed to Dallas by way of your front porch in Houston.”
“Castor Strife goes to Dallas up from a bed of broken glass.”
“Unlike so many in this business, I choose not to free myself of history. I’m walking into your home state ARMED with it.”
(FADEOUT)