Fade 2 Black
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~ PROLOGUE ~
Most tales of pain and hardship don't begin on a bright, sunny morning. Less begin with insurance fraud. Fewer still with an old autographed 8x10 of some broken-down wrestler you've likely never heard of. No - most stories start with a brutal shit-kicking and get worse from there. Happily, this one has all of the above.
And so it was that Josh Garner stepped out of the pristine offices of Lockwood and Howard into Auckland's glorious sunshine with a smile, a dream, a faded 8x10 glossy and a cheque for $10,000.
At 19 and 5'6”, pale and scrawny, Garner cut a determined figure. Flaking bedroom walls adorned with posters of American wrestlers and metal bands from the 90s were a life time ago. Everything had been building to this point - for today was the day that Gabe 'The Pitbull' Mitchell came home.
* * *
A hard-working journeyman the world over but as close to a national hero to the wrestling fans of New Zealand as it gets. Eisen in the early 90s. Furusawa. PGHW. And, as DAVE closed it's doors and switched off the lights, one of the last to leave. You'll find Gabe Mitchell's name scrawled on the wall with the rest of them. A living legend but with little to show for it, Gabe ached. Ached in his back, ached in his knees but most of all ached in his heart. At 46 The Pitbull was not yet ready to retire to the dog house.
The flight from Brisbane was uneventful. Cramped, stale and mercifully short. Uneventful until a small, thick-glassed kid met him at the baggage carousel. He stood holding his bags and an old, worn photo. Displaying it like a sign. He saw on it a face he barely recognised any more and the scrawl below it said 'Pitbull.'
* * *
This is a story of brutality. A tale of triumph and redemption. One man's opening gambit and the final chapter of another who has seen the world. This is the story of Fade 2 Black.