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Date Posted: 19:18:43 02/06/03 Thu
Author: "The Natural" Matt Thornhill
Subject: Back to Basics, Part 1: Inner Thoughts

**This entire RP is off-camera.**

Never before has getting on an airplane for a 14-hour flight felt so good.

I'm leaving Tokyo not only with my first victory, but with a slight measure of respect. I feel more, now than ever, that I've finally "made it" into professional wrestling. I've got the opening-victory jitters taken care of. Heck, I've even been able to forge a friendship with George Foreman. I see a lifetime of grills in my future...

But more than that, I am leaving Japan with a newfound sense of purpose, of resolve. I understand now, more than ever, what my job is...or rather, what my job should be. And I know the way I have to get to where I need to be. I have to get back to basics.

My childhood was a mishmash of different places, people, and environments. My father was in the army, so it wasn't uncommon for me to live in two different time zones within a year. Whenever someone was moving or being restationed, it always seemed that the prders came down to my dad. Because of that, I had to establish myself QUICKLY if I wanted to have any friends anywhere I went. So I took up amateur wrestling. Everybody likes associating with a champion, so I decided that was what I would have to become.

I couldn't find very many kids in any high school who would want to work with me, and no coach wanted to put so much time into a project that would be leaving soon, anyways. However, I learned that quite a few of the soldiers stationed at any given base had an amateur wrestling background, and most, if not all, of those trained soldiers had no problems giving some lessons, and lumps, to an awkward, but eager-to-learn, high school freshman.

I lifted with the soldiers. I ran with the soldiers. I followed the soldiers' nutrional plans. And I wrestled with the soldiers. To say that these men instilled in me a measure of toughness would be an understatement...
But I improved. Rapidly. In fact, it was one of those soldiers, Sgt. Joe Wilburn, that first nicknamed me "The Natural." He taught me more than anyone else about wrestling; he was a NCAA Champion in his day, too.

Joe and my father became great friends, and as fate would have it, the move to Joe's base was the last move our family would make. After my father's death, my mother decided to keep us in the city we were in. Redstone Arsenal, in Huntsville Alabama, would become my final army home. However, even after my father's death, Joe didn't allow us to love contact. He cheered me, rooted for me, and continued to train me. Joe was there for me when my father couldn't be, after his death. In many ways, he took over the fatherly authority figure role I needed filled in my life.

That is why I've sought out Joe. That's why I'm calling on him to help me, one more time...that's why his experience, expertise, and like-a-library knowledge needs to be tapped by me. I can already see how the next two weeks are going to go...I've seen it before. Lived it, breathed it.

It made me stronger once. It will make me stronger again.

And once it does, watch out.

Thornhill will declare war.

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