Match A Day 04.14.10: Week 52 – Triumph

Previously on Match A Day:

– Wow, was Wrestlemania 25 ever bad last year! After months of theorizing the demise of modern mainstream pro-wrestling in my old column Wacky Wrestling Theory, I decided to stop letting the big companies tell me how and what I was going to enjoy! I knew I would never be able to give up watching WWE, in some way, but I certainly wasn’t going to watch it every week and buy into their hype and bullshit! Just watching one match a day, that was enough!

– After many months of conflict and break-ups attempts, the stress of my life in Seoul, South Korea with my girlfriend Suzy caused me to have some kind of breakdown. Afterwards, I was trapped in my room for months as my girlfriend collected the insurance checks and medicated me into a half-normal state of naive bliss …

– Upon returning to my senses and kicking my girlfriend out… I revealed to the MAD readers that I am straight edge, just like our pal CM Punk, and that I never drink alcohol, do drugs or smoke cigarettes.

– At first when my friend from back home, Eddie, moved here to Seoul, I thought he just wanted to hang out… but then I discovered he was selling his own experimental new drug called Madness! I even helped him sell it for a while… but that was a bad idea!

– Turns out my damn ex-girlfriend reads this column and snitched on me to the local cops! In the rush to escape my apartment raid and ditch the drugs, I had no choice but to swallow 20 Madness pills as I jumped out my window… since then I’ve been hiding out in coffee shops, 24-hour sauna rooms, and subways while watching a match a day on my iphone.

– Having wandered through the city in a haze, spending all my money, sleeping in streets, getting into fights, giving up on watching wrestling completely, and then finding the love again… my drastic daily change in emotion and fortune, whether chemically enhanced or not, finally came to a shocking standstill when I found that I was once again back in my apartment, but that it was now 2009 and I was watching myself watching wrestling?!?

And now MAD Week 52 can begin…

I look at myself, typing at the desk of the computer my eyes red bloodshot my eyes now blue bloodshot and I tap myself on the shoulder and I try to tell me to stop watching, whatever I do don’t watch Wrestlemania 25 at least, then things might be different, it’s not worth it it will only bring you pain and misery but I look back at myself and I ask, Don’t you remember this conversation? and say that I know that what will come will be bad already that’s why I’m doing this of course I met you from the future and I still chose to do this obviously because you and I are here.

Then things get blurry and speed up. The days go by in front of my in fast motion like I’m a ghost watching myself wake up, go to work, get home, eat dinner, watch wrestling, go to sleep, as the sunshine and night rotate light through the room in a matter of seconds. Transposed over my view of this tedious yet natural routine, I’m seeing a rewind of images from the last year of my life spent watching one match a day, scenes rush through my head, seeing my friend Eric smoking hash in my apartment, Genba Hirayanagi, TNA Impact Zone fans going crazy over nothing, 411 Music Zone writer Jesse Coy standing at my front door, shamelessly loving WWE, ROH and TNA DVDs, Kofi Kingston, Brent Albright, Big Show chokeslamming Cena into an exploding spotlight, playing Guitar Hero and hurting my arm, , KENTA, Kento Miyahara, Jun Akiyama, my old student Mia, Doink vs. Marty Jannetty, Antonio Inoki beating Bob Backlund for the WWF Title, ROH on HDNET main events, Lockdown failure, and Wrestlemania aftermath.

This overload of sensation makes me feel like trapped inside the closing moments of 2001- A Space Odyssey, or even better, Speed Racer… until the two timelines converge and freeze at one single moment, that damn main event of Wrestlemania 25.

Match #1 – Sunday April 5th
WWE Title Match: Triple H vs. Randy Orton
[Wrestlemania 25th Anniversary, April 2009]

… the first match in my Match A Day journey. The match sucked. Okay, that’s pretty harsh, maybe it ‘kind of’ sucked. I certainly wouldn’t call it good though, unlike the Triple H vs. Chris Jericho match from Wrestlemania X-8 that I thoroughly enjoyed regardless of the dead crowd or harsh criticisms. Without getting into it too much, I think we can all understand and accept the circumstances around other poor WM main events, like Savage/Dibiase or Undertaker/Sid and even HHH/Jericho, but why exactly we were forced to suffer through this match this year? We can only assume that one half of the match, Triple H, was put into this position despite his previously poor performances in WM main events (4-Way, Batista, Cena) due to his marriage to the boss.

… as I’m watching myself overly criticize this match, I find that I’m currently drawn to something very unique about what I’m seeing on the screen. Removed from the contextualization of the political and economic environment around this infamous match, or the in-text storyline that led up to this moment, there was a beauty in the ring that I had missed before.

While the stipulation that a DQ will make the title change hands does handcuff the match needlessly, this match does do one thing very effectively: it captures the essence of the inspired, ‘heel’ persona of Randy Orton. Unlike other poor main events, such as Savage/Dibiase, Hogan/Sid, HHH/Jericho that feature excessively dull and pandering imagery, HHH/Orton is much like the WM 2000 4-Way, the Sid/’taker, or Cean/HHH main events that while poor matches did encapsulate the peak moments in the careers of certain legendary wrestlers.

The mission Orton was on in 2009 was to produce a methodical, patient, precise, powerful new style of wrestling that melds the traditions of pro-wrestling with the popularity of mixed martial arts realism in a way that even Kurt Angle, Bryan Danielson and Samoa Joe have been unable to do. Orton combines a very small, tight move set with specifically intense and effective facial expressions in a way that makes those individual motions and strikes seem more realistic than the stuff seen in most other main events from the past few years. This is a very subtle change that began with Orton’s spotlight heel run of early 2009 and reigned throughout his fantastic feud with John Cena that year, but in this match, this methodical style was forever captured under glass.

Triple H brings nothing new to the match, and possibly hinders it with his Attitude Era cartoon-ish offense that is connected more to personal feuds than in-ring athletics, but his presence as a billion dollar punching bag for Orton to display his style is necessary. For example, as unbelievable as the scene when Triple H was going to irrationally smash Orton on the head with a TV was (which would have resulted in ‘The Game’ uncharacteristically losing the title because of misplaced emotion), it did allow Orton’s comeback performance to highlight his angry, assault. The facials and tensed muscles in his follow up DDT on the floor helped to make the move seem all that more realistic and theatrical than most other offense on the entire Wrestlemania card itself. Then once Orton rolls Triple H back into the ring, his breathtakingly intense series of stomps set a standard for the entire wrestling world. He re-creates a move so simple that it has been taken for granted as a throwaway standard by most, yet Orton makes it seem as effective as it would in a real street fight.

The abrupt and predictable ending, and lack of any real back-and-forth leading up to it, has marred the match in poor reviews, but I still feel, upon this fresh viewing, that this is a valuable match for presenting Randy Orton in his prime, at a main event level, portraying the best character and wrestling ability of his pre-Hall of Fame career.

I watched my disappointed self shut off the TV and sulk. Why was I so disappointed? Maybe it was because of the fact that Wrestlemania, long considered a time for ending feuds and storylines, once again proved that it was just another pay-per-view in a cycle of un-ending viewership that seems to have no reward. As someone trapped inside his own story, stuck in time and full of hallucinogens my straight edge body doesn’t know how to handle, I certainly understand that everything needs an ending. I think that Wrestlemania has been so fiercely disappointing to me in recent years, not because the wrestling is exceptionally poor, but because at my age, having watched every Wrestlemania at the time it aired, I’m starting to wonder when this story, when the narrative of my fandom, is going to end.

As much as I need to get back to 2010, I also need to find a way to get satisfaction out of watching the WWE and all pro-wrestling, once again. Is it possible go back to the way I was in 2009? Has this year of reviewing one match a day outside of the regular pro-wrestling continuity tainted me forever?

The answers may not be within the bigger theoretical models, as I’m always looking for. Just like there is no way I’ll be able to build an entire time machine from scratch, I can’t just go back to being the same wrestling fan I used to be. There is a metaphysical solution to my problem, and I think my new path lies within the details, both inside of pro-wrestling and inside my room.

As my body in 2009 goes to sleep, the me of 2010 goes to work looking through my stack of DVDs for that one event that I know will help me out.

Match #351 – Tuesday, April 6th?
ROH World & Pure Title Unification Match: Bryan Danielson vs. Nigel McGuiness
[ROH Unified, August 2006]

The key to understanding how to mature as a wrestling fan is to see the narrative inside the career of individual wrestlers. Unlike a sport, where you can follow a team and track that team’s success over a season, and choose to follow them again the next year or not, pro-wrestling is more inclusive. Wrestling asks you to invest in the lives of characters and intricately fabricated storylines, not genuine athletic feats of greatness or win/lose records. But these dramas never end. The characters inside those stories will never find a satisfying conclusion to their narrative. Just look at wrestlers who were active before most of us even started watching, Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, Antonio Inoki, the part these men play is still going on, regardless of countless false endings and milestones in their fictional ‘careers.’ Therefore, the satisfaction of following pro-wrestling might not hinge on the storylines and waves of success of certain companies or promotions, but relay on focusing on one wrestler. Since the constant cycle of soap opera dramas and illustrative fights will never have a true conclusion, to follow the ebb and flow of a man playing a character as a career, now that could be the true metaphysical act of a matured wrestling fan.

Choosing who you like when they (or you) are starting out and then cheering on their success or wallowing in their failure, for the rest of your life could be one way to build a personal fan narrative inside the infinite business model of professional wrestling. In this half bark, half smark state, a fan can delineate those rare moments on the arc of a career, for example, like the way Randy Orton’s performance in the arguably poor Wresltemania 25 main event was in fact a triumph for his unique style of expression. Or how Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair returning to wrestling in TNA, while a critically poor decision, is a pleasurable rebirth for genuine fans of either man’s career.

I realize for me, the man I might want to follow could be Bryan Danielson.

The arrogant Danielson of 2006 was in full effect in this awesome match in England against his main rival, Nigel McGuiness. Danielson’s cocky smirk is like the swagger of a mafia boss on his way to court with the world’s greatest lawyer on his side, and for him that lawyer is the supreme technical skill and striking impact that few wrestlers in history have ever been able to display. His early salvos of offense are joint twistingly clever, and he rarely looked phased as the bigger and resilient McGuiness came back with his own potent attacks.

I loved how Bryan taunted the rabid British audience, and then backed up his words with a display of textbook wrestling moves, a stiff kick to the back, a full standing suplex, a flying head butt and then his first attempt at his trademark Cattle Mutilation. I loved the ending sequence of this match, when Dragon repeatedly pulled Nigel’s head into the ringpost on the outside, in an excruciatingly stiff and blood producing sequence, and then followed it up by launching from the top rope into Nigel’s refuge in the ringside seats; his air born attack seemed as crucial and dangerous as any buzzer beater, hail mary or final bullet in the chamber at a shoot-out. And I loved how this was directly followed by a desperation headbutt battle in the middle of the ring that transitioned from a Jawbreaker Lariat, into a Cattle Mutilation and than the Elbow Strikes by Danielson for the victory.

The match played out on a level of sophistication that the battle between Triple H and Orton could not achieve. While the hyper-real, high def Wrestlemania main event is almost microscopically built for scrutiny and dissection, the grainy ROH DVD plays like an old VHS copy of ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,’ a unique representation of a moment in time that could never be repeated, of a collaborative artistic vision fully realized regardless of power, glitz or money, and a time capsule of supreme arrogance in the body of the irrationally perfect Bryan Danielson of 2006.

To a fan of Bryan Danielson, this match was the ultimate justification of his style. Pursuing a moment like this should be the focus of wrestling superstars, not just winning ‘worked’ titles decided on by backstage producers, but taking those scripts and producing authentic emotion that will burn into the memory of a fan forever. If a pro-wrestler can take on this independent responsibility, and a fan can recognize what they are doing, then synchronicity is achieved.

As I return the DVD to the case, I look down and see a different picture on the cover. No longer are two youthful visages standing in front of the Union Jack, but now a handshake between two older competitors, looking more seasoned, more polished and more professional. I look at the DVD in my hand and above that moment of snapped respect are the words, ‘The Final Countdown.’

Match #352 – Wednesday, April 7th
Bryan Danielson vs. Nigel McGuiness
[ROH Glory by Honor VIII – The Final Countdown, September 2009]

This match starts out rather maudlin compared to their Unified encounter three years earlier. Instead of swagger and intensity, both men begin humble and appreciative towards each other and the crowd, showing a maturity that soon becomes apparent in their patient mat wrestling and strategic back-and-forth during the first ten minutes of the match.

When Danielson hits his top rope dive to Nigel in the seats, this time it happens in the middle of the match as more of a thrilling attraction than a desperate, risky attempt to hurt his opponent enough to get a crucial victory. When Bryan is on the receiving end of multiple skull cracks on the outside ringpost, it seems more like a wink and goodbye to the fans and to the history of this feud rather than an in-text moment of battle lust and determination. These moments are the emotional connection that are made valuable not by the loyalty to the art of pro-wrestling or Ring of Honor, but because I am a devoted fan of Bryan Danielson.

As the steepness increases towards climax, the wrestling speed picks up, that competitive stiffness from their England encounter returns when Bryan withstands an attempt at the Elbow Strikes by Nigel, toughs it out while getting to his feet, and then instigated the first forearm standoff of the match to really feel intense. Then they have a truly artful, charging headbutt battle that makes their previous matches seem tame. Danielson gets the better of that exchange, and finishes off McGuiness with a triangle leg scissors and repeated elbows to the skull. While the ending was good, it was anticlimactic from the critical perspective of a match review. However, the history of these men combined with the emotion of crowd and Ring of Honor crew following this finish, shows that being a fan of pro-wresting is more than just reviewing matches or evaluating business models, more than wins and losses or innovative moves, it IS about the connection you can make with that one special wrestler that touches your soul.

My eyes watered up. Not because it was sad but because of intensity, because of change… because I knew these two men were going on to make irreversible changes in their careers. No longer would I be able to count on them to provide consistent quality on these ROH DVDs that I have been buying regularly for over four years. Yet, just as the change to my selfish life seems miniscule, I put myself in their place and I feel that same sense of apprehension. They must be thinking a million different things, walking into the WWE is like volunteering to serve in Iraq. There is a good chance these two men/characters will be ruined forever and the passion they have for wrestling killed through humiliation and under-use. There is also that chance that they won’t have to dance and wear a funny costume, they may be catching that moment of magical spring snow when the WWE fans, the producers, and the politics all come together to inconceivably make a wrestler like Chris Benoit, Rey Mysterio, or CM Punk, while keeping their integrity and love of pro-wrestling intact. These are real emotions, real fears, and proof that the fake carnival art of pro-wrestling can mean something tangible to a fan growing older and less patient with the politics and gossip of a corporate industry.

Match #353 – Thursday, April 8th
Daniel Bryan vs. Chris Jericho
[WWE NXT, March 2010]

And now we have Daniel Bryan.

I feared that it would be impossible. Bryan Danielson successful in the WWE? That would be like the Butthole Surfers doing a mainstream nation commercial for Nintendo. Wait a minute…

-anything is possible…

Okay… but there was no way American Dragon would get a high profile debut and maintain his gimmick as well. Not in this day and age, not in 2010.

But… was I ever mistaken!

-whoa, this is 2010 alright!

The debut WWE match for Daniel Bryan was the centerpiece of an entire episode of a new show that basically read like a promotional vehicle for Bryan. And his performance throughout matched the obvious high expectations of the WWE producers. He wrestled like a professional, his spirit was undeniable, and he was seamlessly incorporated into an instantly compelling storyline feud with The Miz. The odd dueling commentary during this match even added an extra effect to the persona of Bryan, as the usually dry Josh Matthews took a passionate and belligerent tone in response to the dismissive comments by the ‘heel’ Michael Cole who didn’t want to accept that Bryan had any credibility. And although Bryan tapped-out in his first match, tapped to the old-fashioned Walls of Jericho, another symbol for his pure fans that this is not a watered down version of the American Dragon.

Bryan making it to the WWE without compromise is the sweetest of victories for him personally and professionally. This match against Jericho who took a similar path is surreal justice. Yet, to a long time Danielson fan, this was more like a brilliant final page of a novel that leaves you satisfied yet hoping for a sequel. If there was ever a time to end a career of watching wrestling, this would be the happy ending a mid-thirties smark fan like me could appreciate: the final episode of ECW one week removed and the career of the epitome of ROH wrapped up and sealed with this glorious bow of a WWE TV episode. Sticking around to watch more now might be greedy.

Or, should I continue on, make Daniel Bryan the centerpiece of my fandom. Can I follow him and let the universe of pro-wrestling evolve around his achievements rather than the exhaustive style of following the over-arching business of wrestling and watching how that affects Bryan?

Something yet pulls me forward… there is still something left to do…

I’m back in my apartment, definitely now in 2010. The small one room is barren. Everything has been cleared out. My clothes, computer, papers, boxes, bed. An empty room as empty as my stomach… and my head. A serene calm has taken over my body, like I’m in a meditative trance. The drugs seem to be wearing off. I lay flat against a wall in the empty room and fall asleep.

When I wake up, I don’t want to move. I don’t want to do anything. Except, I feel like I need to watch another match. Luckily there is still enough battery on my iphone, and enough wi-fi in this apartment building, for me to watch something online. There could be no better choice than a serving from BEYOND Wrestling, the minimalist nirvana for pro-wrestling performance, as my insides and my appetites match my current barren surroundings.

Match #354 – Friday, April 9th
High Five Academy Tournament Final: Chris Dickinson vs. Corvis Fear
[BEYOND Wrestling, March 2010]

Watching BEYOND Wrestling on youtube is like being in an empty room… you don’t have anything to sit on, in most cases the only exposure to these wrestlers I’ve had is on these free, commentary-less videos, and as I’ve said in the past, I love it that way! I get to look at these matches like the paintings of the abstract expressionists: simple, clean, and igniting the imagination through negative space. In this match’s case, there is a perceived tension between the two BEYOND staples, Fear and Dickinson, as their early interaction teases an acquaintance or friendship that slowly dissolves as the match progresses. The seemingly more seasoned Fear takes control and openly mocks his opponent, leading to a passionate comeback by the plucky Dickinson. The perceived personal tension soon takes center stage and leads to a very stiff strike exchange, but the ending is something that can only be witnessed to understand:

Due to the BEYOND blank slate environment, where the audience can’t tell you how to react, there is no microphone-d screaming matches, and no commentary, it makes for a text that lets my imagination create the stories. I think the reason why I really like that a lot is because I’ve cultivated that sensation by following Japanese pro-wrestling so passionately. BEYOND Wrestling is the closest thing I’ve ever seen to Japanese wrestling, not only because of the obvious in-ring influences, but also because the culture that is presented is so foreign to me. Since I have never trained, practiced or hung out with a group of wrestlers, there is something uniquely authentic about this window into that universe; comparatively the way “puro” is an un-interpreted view into an ultimately inaccessible environment.

Like I’d said, there was a strange calm throughout my body on this day. After weeks of wavering emotions, fantasy and pure wackiness, I was feeling like a rag doll; I didn’t want to move, eat, sleep, think or feel, and that’s how I wanted it to stay. As they say though, the calm before the storm.

Match #355 – Saturday, April 10th
IWGP Jr. Title Match: Naomichi Marufuji vs. Koji Kanemoto
[New Japan, March 2010]

The storm on the horizon were the sharp convulsions of pain twisting through my body, started in my toes and rocketed up to my eyes every few minutes. Knowing I couldn’t go to the hospital, and assuming this was just the effect the last day of a near overdose of an experimental drug, I tried to distract myself by watching this match. Little did I know, this contest was so intensely brutal that it would do little to take my mind off of the concept of pain.

The air of danger and tension during the opening striking exchange between these two is pure sports. With the crowd firmly backing New Japan original Kanemoto, Marufjui brings the sense of an away team playing for the championship on Kanemoto’s home field. This is what I’ve always loved about the Japanese style. They treat wrestling like a fake sport. There is not a lot of scripted, soap opera storylines, yet the wrestling moves are just as fake as the American or Mexican styles. When the aura of a big time match in Japan, like this, enraptures you, there is no doubt that you feel like you are watching a moment of genuine sporting bliss.

After dragging Marufuji around the ringside seats, Kanemoto starts viciously kicking all over the body of his opponent with his steel shins. Each crack of shin pad hits me in the chest. He soon begins to focus his attack on the left knee of Marufuji, one of that man’s top weapons, and my knees start to feel creaky and sore too. Hobbling, Marufuji unleashes his own counter attack, using that delicate yet stealthy leg to hit sharp, precise kicks to different points across the head of Koji. The head strikes intensify as the match pace slows. A dizziness twirls behind my eyes, as the sleepy faced Kanemoto slouches against the turnbuckles and ropes.

Kanemoto shrugs out of a face slamming Shirinui from Marufuji that most certainly would have ended the match. However, I feel like my face was rammed into the mat, and I stare at the match on my screen as a tingle drizzles across my face like a black lace death shroud is being slowly slid off from the side. As Kanemoto starts to counter all of Marufji’s attacks, and setting up for bigger and more violent counter-attacks, all launched from the top rope, an exploder off the top, a belly-to-belly off the top, a fisherman’s buster off the top. Each one almost scoring Koji the victory, energizing the crowd, yet robbing my lungs of air.

I’m sucking wind, watching frantically as a startling sequence of ankle lock attempts and reversals puts the crowd on edge. And then Maurufji is caught… he looks ready to pass out, my eyelids get heavy… now he looks dead, and I can feel the last jiggle in my toes rigor-mortizes… his face asleep in the mat, the referee certain that he’d passed out, the crowd ready to crown their favorite the champion…

… yet Marufuji lifts up…

… and I start to feel the air coming back into my lungs…

Marufuji is alive… as am I! He works his way to the ropes, to his feet. He is back at full strength, and I pull in one long, strong breath. I feel the Madness free of my system. He throws his trademark super kicks, pinpointing the knees and chin of his opponent, and I feel my own blood bubble and pump into each limb as he does. Then he hits a series of finishers before finally folding Kanemoto up and dropping him with a package Michinoku Driver for the win!

The neck crushing finisher hits my chest like the shock from a defibrillator. I jump to my feet. I remember that Wrestlemania 26 will play on cable TV here in Seoul tomorrow. There is a 24-hour Laundromat nearby, no one is usually there, and they have a TV I can watch. I must go there now… and wait.

Match #356 – Sunday, April 11th
Career vs. Streak: Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker
[Wrestlemania 26, March 2010]

When I was very young, the man who basically raised me, my grandfather, retired. About a week into his retirement, he took me aside and started to tell me some very shocking stories. He told me about the things he did during World War II. From what I know now, this was the only time he ever went into great detail about the events of that time in his life, and the vivid and shocking specifics were the kind of thing you would think men might want to keep secret forever. I think at the time he assumed that I was going to be too young to remember any of what he told me, or that I wouldn’t care. Frankly I don’t think he even was telling me because of me but I think on that day he was feeling mortal and wanted to remind himself of when he felt most youthful and alive, to talk about the time when his actions made a difference, not just in the life of one young boy, but to millions around the world. Up until this point, I also have rarely spoken about the information he told me then, but on this particular day after watching this particular match I feel that one of his stories is exceptionally relevant.

Near the end of the war, in the winter of 1944, my grandfather and his battalion were cut off from the rest of the other squads, and surrounded by Germans in a battle near Antwerp in the Netherlands. There were about ten of them left, and for a few days, with almost no food, they fought off the Germans, killing most or at least holding them back. My grandfather and his men were discombobulated, undernourished, and lacking rest, and a number of his men had died as well, but finally, it seemed quiet for almost a day and they assumed that the Germans were gone. Yet, they had been so outnumbered for so long, and with no imminent back-up coming that they knew of, they were too frightened to try to move out of their trench.

As the days passed, every time that my grandfather went to sleep while some of the other men guarded, he would wake up a new man had been murdered. These were murders, not from natural causes or gunfire, but someone had slipped into the hole and killed one of the men with a knife and then left. It was a perplexing situation for my grandfather, since they all couldn’t stay up all the time, yet every twelve hours or so, one more of his brothers was murdered, until finally he was left all alone with the ghostly killer.

He told me that he doubted his own sanity at that point, and even suspected himself for being the murderer. However, he gathered his wits, trekked out into the harsh, dry, winter forest, and tracked down the one remaining Nazi soldier who had been stalking his crew. There had only been one man left, and without any ammunition, the German must have improvised a new strategy to take out his enemy, and it had been working, until he came upon my grandfather. As he told me directly, “I beat the ever living shit out of that fucker,” yet he did not kill him. Instead, he propped the man on his shoulders and proceeded to lug him for miles through the forests towards Antwerp.

As they emerged over one hillside, there was a Red Cross station set up in the distance, and my grandfather, relieved and exhausted, stopped to take a break. He put his enemy down, who was then tied at the wrists and ankles, and gagged. The Nazi still had a look as if he wanted to stab my grandfather with his eyelashes if he could. My grandfather pointed towards the Red Cross flag in the distance, and the wounded villain looked defiant yet relieved that an end to their bitter, rabid days of battle was in sight. After a short break, my grandfather hoisted the man on his shoulders and again began carrying him towards that solemn refuge.

A few meters from the Red Cross tent, my grandfather stopped again. He pointed once more at the international symbol for peace, and this time the smile in the eyes of his enemy showed that he definitely knew how close they were to safety and respite. Here’s a man who systematically murdered all of my grandfather’s best friends, and yet they were equally as relieved and tired for their feud to be coming to an end. In that moment, my grandfather said that he felt like they were kind of equals in some ways, diametrically opposed yet passionate enough to lay their life on the line for their country. So they shared a moment of uncomfortable respect.

And then my grandfather pulled out his knife and slit that motherfucker’s throat.