EXTREME CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING: If you don't live for something...

Papa Roach
"CUT MY LIFE INTO PIECES... THIS IS MY LAST RESORT!"

The iconic, very of-it's-time, hit of the early 2000s begins playing abruptly. After the opening line finishes, footage of 'Sick' Nick Mondo begins playing in synchronization with the start of the guitar riffs. Blood, guts, gore galore as highlights of his short, but legendary CZW run act as the visual interpretation of Last Resort.

As the music begins to fade, the sound of Mondo's voice fades in.

Nick Mondo
"20 years old, an age where you're supposed to be navigating the world with the newly-found power of independence, an age where the majority of your mental struggles comes from having 500 more words to write to meet the minimum of your science paper that's due in 30 minutes, a time where you still get the thrill of drinking while it's illegal for you to. It seems so stressful in the moment, but looking back, you yearn for it, you pine for it, you would do anything to get that precious time back, and trust me, I understand. I would do anything to be back at the CZW Arena, in front of a thousand young fans that would've died for me. I would do anything to be the representative of a generation again."

We get an abrupt cut from highlights to a shot of Nick Mondo, gear on, hair gelled, laying up against the brick wall of a hallway in a beaten-down building.

Nick Mondo
"I understand all too well that time waits for no one, and that it also waits for no one's body either."

Mondo lifts up his shirt to reveal scarring that he gained as a result of taking a weedwhacker to the abdomen.

Nick Mondo
"That was my 20s. I wasn't in school, I had no "REAL" job, I had no hometown friends, I had no love, all I had was this. I had my scars, I had my blood, my bruises, my shattered and broken bones, and if I was given an opportunity to replace those for what the societal norms are that everyone expects you to align with in order to be happy, I'd jump right off the top of the CZW Arena through bundles of fluorescent light tubes every day of the week and twice on Sundays. It's for reasons like that that every teenage boy that walked through the doors of the Arena took to me as their hero, I was the icon of a generation that felt mentally drained, that hated waking up every morning, I was the one they could relate to. I bled for them because I knew that it was their escape, I bled for them because I knew that if, for whatever reason they had to, they would bleed for me."

Mondo bends down, picking up a black eyeliner pencil.

Nick Mondo
"20 years have passed since those days, the same kids that once looked up to me as some kind of legend, they're grown ass men now. Mid 30s, late 30s, they are men of their own now, working grown ass men jobs. They face the pressures of working that 9-5 job everyday now, they face the pressures of not knowing if they can pay the rent this month or if they can have a good Christmas for their baby girl, they face struggles that were not present to them when they were, what, 16? 17? They don't feel like kids anymore, and once the reality of being an adult truly hits you, none of us do, but when Nick Mondo is announced to wrestle after 20 years away from the business? They're the same kid they were 2 decades ago asking their dad to drive them to Philly so they can see Nick Mondo defend his Iron Man Championship."

Mondo starts to attempt to put his eyeliner on, but realizes he has no mirror. He glances down both sides of the hallway, seemingly looking for some kind of reflection that he could use, but it's barren. After a couple seconds, slides his hand down the side of his pants, pulling out a Papa Roach CD before slowly dropping down and crouching against the wall. He flips the CD around and stares into the back of it, once the camera gets a better view of it, we see him using it as a mirror to apply his eyeliner.

Nick Mondo
"ECW is a place that I was unlucky enough to just barely miss out on. When it was open, we hoped one day our deathmatches would lead us to getting noticed and booked on ECW events. When it was closed, we went even harder just so we could fill the gap left by it's bankruptcy. Once I heard word of it's revival, I'll be honest, thought it was total horse shit. Even if it wasn't, the last time it was revived, it didn't seem to go so well, so I just figured it'd be something along the lines of that. Muscular, personality vacuums wrestling in matches that felt like nothing and invoked no reaction out of the human body, and well, seeing my opponent for Barely Legal, I guess it was only a half-truth. Lucien Kross, you can beat muscles, you can beat money, you can beat notoriety, but you can't beat humanity. The feeling people get when Last Resort blares through the speakers and Nick Mondo hits the entranceway, the feeling people get when they see Nick Mondo leave the ring, bloodied up after a match they'll never forget, those are things that you will never get to experience in your life. I make you feel something, I make you passionate, I make you excited, and when you take the humanity and passion out of art, you're left with a void worth nothing, an idea masquerading as art, which is exactly what you are."

Mondo finished applying his eyeliner, raising his hand to his forehead and beginning to write his iconic 'SICK' on top of it.

He writes the S.

He writes the I.

Nick Mondo
"If you don't live for something..."

He writes the C.

He writes the K.

Nick Mondo
"Then you die for nothing!"

Our last shot is Nick Mondo, eyeliner on, SICK written across his forehead, looking into the back of his Papa Roach CD as we fade to black.