"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
George Santayana

Silence.

 There was just something about it that John Taylor found intriguing.  For years on end, he had found such comfort in silence.  That said, the better half of a decade he spent in HKWF, he had become accustomed to the uncomfortable variety.  Back then, his tongue wasn’t his own.  His voice was not his voice, but rather just another medium through which John Profit and Fox Giovanni could spread their message across a roster that had long been tired of listening. 

 Taylor had been compared to a saw utilised by an expert carpenter, a hi-tech Common Gateway Interface script run by some top-level computer hack.  Yes, he’d been a tool, an implement.  But honestly, he couldn’t have asked for two better or more advantageous users than Profit and Giovanni. 

His years as ‘bodyguard’, ‘hitman’ and ‘lapdog’, pretty much anything but ‘wrestler’, had since proved to be more beneficial than he ever could’ve imagined.  Certainly more so than either of his bosses had even considered.  Each successive year of being ordered around and waiting on every beck-and-call of those in authority had only made him stronger.  His business sense had grown by the day.  He’d seen ruthlessness and evil in their purest forms, he’d done their laundry and had lived to tell about it. 

 However, this wasn’t the ‘evil’ on which people like Seven made a living.  It had been a far more subtle, pale and hidden evil.  It was the kind of evil that orphaned the children of its workers through absolutely preposterous gimmick matches.  It was the kind of evil that would fire a lifetime employee without even lifting a finger.  It was the kind of evil and ruthlessness that John Profit depended on for basic survival.  All that time, Taylor had been picking it up like the man’s cigar butts...

 …And nobody had noticed. 

 He’d done it all on the sly.  Behind closed doors.  In silence.

 The thought now brought a smile to his heavily bruised face.  Every subtlety that he’d made his own ensured him that it was worth those years of purgatory.  For, it was his silence since the closing moments of Aftermath 2K4 that simply accentuated the incompetence of the new old champion, Pimp Bizkit.  Every passing day in which GZW’s airwaves remained silent simply knocked Pimp’s worth as champion down that little bit further.  Taylor found a great sense of irony in this, as it was like someone had just rewound the course of history to closing moments of Fallout: Return To Glory and pressed play.  Regardless of anyone else, Taylor was sitting and watching history repeat itself.

 The prolonged, cringe-inducing silences.  The excuses.  The empty promises.  The brash claims with nothing but Pimp’s worthless word to back them up.  Taylor knew the symptoms all too well.  He knew this course of events.  He knew where things were heading.  Not even off the ground, Pimp’s reign was already preparing for landing.

 Who was to blame for all of this?

 The obvious answer, to Taylor at least, was the Heretics.  After all, it was Pimp’s stablemate “Buzzing” Electric Sharpe that had delivered the fatal blow on Taylor’s title reign, both physically and metaphorically.  It was Electric Sharpe, under Pimp’s direction probably, that smashed a glass jar in Taylor’s face.  It was the two-on-one advantage and the jar that allowed Pimp to keep him down for those three seconds.  As miserable a way as Taylor thought of it for a man to earn the right to call himself ‘champion’, Taylor knew that it wasn’t all Pimp and company’s fault.  Should the Lone Gunman have expected anything less?

 Perhaps.  Perhaps not.

 One entity should have, however.  It was that very same entity that allowed such blatant ridiculousness slip through the proverbial cracks last time around at Fallout: Return To Glory…  It was that entity’s fault back then.  Taylor saw no difference now.  It was the administration.  The booking committee.  Those upstairs.  Regardless of what they were called on paper, they were to blame.  In terms of media focus, they were represented by the sisters Profit, Angel-Marie and Devotion.  Taylor sometimes felt like wretching when he thought back on how completely unprofessional their handling of the Return To Glory situation was.  He thought the very same thing now, in the aftermath of Aftermath 2K4.  It had once puzzled him.  Often had it frustrated him.  However, if the last few months had taught him anything, it was that red tape and foul play upstairs was just not worth getting worked up about.  If the sterile memory of their brother as World Heavyweight Champion had faded and they saw it fit that he should parade around with the belt once again, then so be it.  Taylor didn't mind.  He knew that it wouldn't be long before the Human Miracle allowed his shortcomings to rear their ugly heads, and then it would only be a matter of time before the strap was off Pimp's shoulder once again.  Taylor didn't mind.  He could wait.

Sooner or later, they'd realise the error of their ways once again.  Once again would they try to repair the damage they caused as quickly and as painlessly for themselves and their brother as possible.  There'd be another scapegoat, too.  Another Tonya Glory who, along with the devalued title belt, would be handed the charge of doing the actual damage.  At one point, Taylor would have given anything to be that scapegoat.  No longer.  Although Pimp was now champion, Taylor knew that the ball was firmly in his court.  For as numbered as Pimp's days were, Taylor's had no limits. 

Sooner or later, they'd come crawling back to "New Reliable".  Sooner or later, they'd see the hypocrisy in the mirrored words of Sincere and Pimp Bizkit.  It wasn't John Taylor that was wrong with GZW today.   Taylor seriously questioned whether or not Sincere truly believed otherwise.  Even still, he knew the limits of how far he'd get by simply arguing with the respected Jade Dragon's word.  Of course, he had every oppurtunity to get his own message out there.  He could interupt any CCW broadcast he liked and spend two minutes or two hours in the middle of the ring pleading his case.  He decided the better of that, though.  The silence would speak for itself.  Without Taylor's lead, Pimp would struggle.  Taylor knew this.  Pimp was a fine supporting actor, but would never be a true leading man.  Perhaps a week or two of Pimp conducting one-sided arguments with himself on GZW TV would act as an accelerant to what would at best be a stagnant period for CCW's flagship promotion.  Silence would make a potent catalyst.

Sitting in the dark in a media room within the GZW2K1 Towers, Taylor could have spoken out.  He could've verbalised these thoughts of his.  He chose not to.  He opted to linger in silence and allow Pimp dig his own grave that little bit deeper.