The video begins and we see a shot of a psychiatrist hospital. We see a few nurses with patients walking in to the hospital, and then the camera pans to show one of the patients freaking out and needing to be restrained. We hear a deep breath being taken from behind the camera as we see the patient tackled to the ground and finally restrained. He’s taken inside and we begin to zoom out, and it quickly becomes apparent that the video is being filmed from quite a way away from the hospital. When we’re finally finished zooming out the camera turns and we see Syren standing there, still looking in the direction of the hospital and slowly shaking her head. “Can you even imagine what that must be like?” she asks before turning toward the camera. “Can you imagine what it must be like to be taken somewhere like that? Can you imagine what it must be like to go through something like that? Some people who end up in places like that are born with severe problems and are doomed to end up there from the very beginning, but a lot of the ones who end up there don’t start off destined to end up there but something happens to them over the course of their lives that puts them there, in the end. It’s a horrible fate, and quite honestly it’s not one I’d wish even on my very worst enemy. And yet it’s not just one type of person who ends up in a place like that. There are businessmen who end up there. There are doctors who end up there. There are teachers who end up there. And yah, there are even wrestlers who end up there. I think there are quite a few wrestlers who end up there actually...”

She lets out a sigh before looking apologetically at the camera. “To anyone who’s offended by the beginning of this promotional tape then I’m sorry, it wasn’t my intention to offend anyone. Despite what some of you might think though I also didn’t pick this location, or this subject, to pick on anyone in particular. I know there are plenty of those in the wrestling business with ‘mental conditions’, be they real or just made up to suit the purpose of the person at the time, but that’s not what I intend to talk about today. It’s not mental illness that I want to focus on, it’s pressure. That’s why those people I mentioned before end up in a place like that. That’s why they have nervous breakdowns. That’s why they become a danger to themselves or anyone around them. They end up snapping, losing their mind and doing things they wouldn’t ever otherwise do all because the pressure of their job finally gets to them,” she explains, looking over in to the distance toward the hospital again before turning back to the camera once more. “You know in a lot of different ways I can relate to that. I know what pressure is all about. One thing I’ve heard a lot from Jake Starr over the last week is the fact that he’s waited six years for this point. He likes to bring that up over and over again. For me it’s been five. I signed my first SCW contract at the beginning of August 2009, five years ago. The company was still coming off of Rise to Greatness that year. I remember it incredibly well. That’s where it all started for me. So in a lot of ways, this isn’t just my fifth time at this event, it’s my five year anniversary.”

She laughs and shakes her head. “I don’t know why I’m bothering to bring that up really, I mean it’s not like any one of my opponents care,” she says with a sigh and a roll of her eyes. “It’s not like commitment to them actually means anything. But commitment means something to me. Jake talks about how long he’s been waiting for this match, but while he’s not lying he’s not exactly being completely honest either, is he? Jake’s first Rise to Greatness was in 2009, this is his sixth go around, but it’s not been six years. He hasn’t been at every event. He hasn’t busted his ass at every pay per view. I have. For five long years I’ve never missed a pay per view. No breaks. No periods of downtime. Working through niggles, working through pain, working through injuries, I’ve never taken time off. There’s nobody else in this match that comes close to that. But five years of work, five years of effort, five years of showing up week after week takes its toll. Five years of competing at every opportunity and busting your ass to try and win every week takes a hell of a toll on you physically and mentally. It’s like I said, I know a thing or two about pressure. I’ve experienced pressure at every level of this company. I won the Women’s Championship in October 2009, and went on to break every record the company had by holding on to that belt for four hundred and six days with no breaks. While I may not have defended the title every week I did beat everyone there was to beat when I was holding it. I wanted to be the best that I could be; I wanted to be the best champion I could be. That meant I put a lot of pressure on myself.”

“When you’re a champion you’re not supposed to lose,” she states firmly. “There are some who’ll disagree. There are some who’ll claim that it doesn’t matter if you suffer a few losses along the road because what really matters is that you show up for the big matches. That’s bullshit in my eyes. I’ve always believed that to be at the top you’ve got to prove it consistently. And that’s what I’ve done. Every week I give it everything I’ve got, no matter whether I’m competing in a dark match, whether I’m competing in a tag team match or whether I’m competing in a main event. Every week I give it EVERYTHING I have. I don’t just go out there to win at any costs either. I don’t just go out there looking to sneak a win any way I can. I go out there to entertain. I’ve always wanted to be the one that the fans were left talking about. I’ve always wanted to be the one that the fans remembered for the right reasons. It didn’t used to bother me whether it was for the right reasons or the wrong ones though if I’m honest. The only thing I once thought was important was getting their attention. I’ve grown up a lot since then. But with that mentality comes yet more pressure. Now if you’re the biggest dog in the fight then having that mentality isn’t a problem. If you’re the biggest dog in the fight then you go out and you do whatever you need to do and chances are that nobody will do much to you. I’m not though. Hell, I’m not even close. Yet every week I go out and I compete with guys that much bigger than me, that much stronger than me, that much tougher than me. And it all slowly takes its toll.”

She laughs and shakes her head slowly. “I listed a bunch of high pressure professions earlier, but none of them are quite like this one. None of them are easy of course, but while in some you may be fighting for people’s money, in others you may be fighting to save their lives, there isn’t another profession when you’re fighting for your own life,” she says before beginning to laugh again. “And that may sound overly dramatic, but this year that’s exactly what I’ve had to fight for on more than one occasion. I’ve not been competing against respectful opponents who value competition, I’ve been fighting against guys who wanted to hurt me, girls who wanted to cut me open and break my body, and even a guy who wanted to drain my blood. Seriously, I actually had to deal with someone wanting to drain the blood right out of me! Tell me any other profession that’s like that. There isn’t one. And there isn’t another company like this one either. This is a company where you’ve got to be at your best every single week, because the moment you slip, the moment you lose, the moment you take your eyes off the ball there’s someone waiting there to pounce and take it all away from you. When you’re a hundred and twenty five pounds and you’ve got to watch your back at all times, you’ve got to fight impossible odds, you’ve got to go up against not just one person but armies of people and the only person you can trust is yourself, it all just adds more and more to that pressure. It starts to get to the point where you don’t even know how to deal with it anymore. Believe me; I’ve been there too...”

“So why do we do it?” she asks, smiling again. “Why do we put ourselves through all of that? Why do we risk our lives in the ring? What’s it all for? Opportunity! We do it all because we’re seeking an opportunity. For some of us those opportunities come easy, for others they take a lot more work. For me, I’ve always been one of the less fortunate ones. Jake is a Supreme Champion, he’s not really been around that much longer than me though and yet I still haven’t even had a match for two of the titles on the list of those he’s held. For some, chances and opportunity just seems to fall in their lap, for others it’s a long, hard struggle against every single one of the odds just to get one. When you’ve got to fight like that for every opportunity, when you’ve got to put yourself through a tournament for a title match, rather than just having it given to you, it puts that much more pressure on the opportunity when it finally does come to you. It means that if you don’t win, you’ve got to go all the way back and wait for the next tournament, or next ridiculous challenge, to come along before you can get another shot. It means you did it all for nothing. It means you heap every single hope you have on that opportunity, and you can’t blow it. You can’t. Then what if you do? Pressure! That’s what it’s all about. I’ve been fighting for a year for this chance. I’ve had to win another tournament for this chance. It wasn’t given to me. Nobody came along and patted me on the back and said ‘hey Syren, you’ve been busting your ass lately, you’ve only lost one time in 2014 and you’ve beaten the World Champion’ – ok, by disqualification, but still – ‘so you know what we’re going to do? We’re going to give you the next shot’. It’s never happened.”

“Every time I’ve had an opportunity at the biggest prize in this business I’ve had to win it, and that separates me from two of my three opponents. Now I give Kelcey Wallace all the credit in the world for the way she’s fought for her chances – I mentioned it last time, Elimination Chamber and Taking Hold of the Flame? Damn impressive – but Jake and Shaun? You’re the ones I mentioned earlier. You’re the lucky ones. And for Shaun, he seems to think that makes him more worthy of being a champion. I don’t understand that logic at all. What was it he said recently, that he didn’t want to compete in the Trios Tournament because he wanted to win the title the ‘right’ way? Are you even serious right now? Yah, I mean, why compete against a bunch of hungry competitors, right? Why bust your ass to prove yourself? Why compete three times in the same night to prove you deserve a chance? Why do any of that when the ‘right’ way to do things is to go on Twitter and claim you’re the ‘uncrowned champion’ and then bitch and whine until somebody gives you a shot. That seems like a MUCH better idea,” she says, rolling her eyes, her voice clearly laced with as much sarcasm as she could possibly manage. “Honestly, that’s your current reigning World Champion ladies and gentlemen, a man who thinks the best way to prove yourself isn’t to win but to hold out your hand and make demands. And the truth is Jake Starr is the exact same way. Hell, he once held the Board of Directors hostage just to get a title shot. And this is the ‘right’ way to do things? No, it’s not.”

She shakes her head slowly. “That’s what infuriates me about people like you Shaun. You think everything should be handed to you. You think everything should be simple for you. You think you should get whatever you want, whenever you want it. And for you it has been easy. I mentioned before those two championships I’ve never had a chance at, remember? How long did it take you to get a shot at the Adrenaline title? A few months! How long for the United States title? Hell, you weren’t even in the company for long before you were facing Shawn Winters for the World title, were you? And that’s because it’s easy for you. You hold out your hand and you expect whatever you want just given to you. You don’t understand what it means to earn it,” she says, shaking her head slowly. “That’s why you couldn’t ever deal with the fact that Jake cashed in his Trios Contract in the way he did. You had something else you wanted, and once again you just expected it. But Jake rained on your parade. Jake interjected himself where you didn’t believe he belonged. And that’s where your entire title reign, that’s where your entire CAREER came to a crossroads Shaun, because it was THAT moment that you could have done so many different things. If you wanted that match so badly, if you really wanted to face Kelcey one on one, you had so many options. You could have just asked for a match with her. You say you did, but let’s be honest even if you did, you didn’t exactly put much effort in to it, did you? You also could have gone a different route, you could have challenged Jake. You chose not to do that either.”

“In that moment when Jake cashed in his contract it told me everything I needed to know about you Shaun. In that moment when Jake cashed in his contract you could have shown the world what kind of man you were, but instead you chose to prove that you’re nothing more than a child. If you wanted that match you could have made it happen. Not at Rise to Greatness admittedly, unless you managed to convince Jake to fight you beforehand, but you could have had it. Yet you didn’t. It was an excuse. Because you, Shaun, are full of nothing but excuses,” she says with a disappointed shake of her head. “Instead of being a man and stepping up to the challenge, first you whined about it, and when that didn’t work you vowed to destroy the guy who just took away what you wanted. Now if that’s not a child I don’t know what is. He took your toy, so now you’re going to cripple him. That’s the logic, right? Why step up to the challenge? Why embrace the opportunity? Why get excited over the fact that you’ve got an even bigger match to prove yourself? And let’s be honest, what challenge have you actually faced since you won the title? I’m not talking about who you’ve faced, you’ve faced some great competitors, but it was one on one. It was easy. You could see them coming. You remember when I first held that title Shaun? I know you do, because you were part of the match. Double-Jeopardy! You and Tommy Valentine, me and Lucas Knight, winners go on fight each other, all in the same ring at the same time. Did I vow to DESTROY you because you were put in that match with me and Lucas? No. I rose to the challenge. You bitched out.”

She laughs and shakes her head. “The smallest bit of pressure gets put on you Shaun and just look what happens. You get the pressure of Regan Street earlier in the year and you threw her off a stage. You get the pressure of another triple threat match with Jake Starr and you sell your soul to Silas Mason, a man you’ve spent HOURS tweeting about in the past. You hate him, right? He’s a cancer. He’s scum. He shouldn’t be Kelcey’s manager. You’re going to hurt him and free her and blah, blah, blah, but the moment the pressure is on you sell out AGAIN and you turn around and JOIN him. That’s pathetic.  No, that’s worse than pathetic. Honestly, I don’t even have a word for what that is,” she says, shaking her head again. “But that’s you Shaun. That’s you in a nutshell. You can’t handle the pressure. You want everything to be your own way, and when it isn’t the real Shaun Cruze comes out to play. Now I don’t care what pathetic excuse you’re making to explain that, I never have, all I know is that the very moment that the pressure gets applied to you we see the real you. We see the coward. We see the child. That’s the guy who thinks the ‘right’ way to be champion is hold out his hand and cry about it until somebody gives him what he wants. That’s the guy who says one thing and then immediately does another. And honestly, it’s gotten to the point that I don’t even give a damn what you have to say anymore because all I hear out of you is a bunch of the same old excuses and promises that we all know you’re never going to keep. You thought you were so smart aligning with Silas as well, until he turned around and proved he’s as trustworthy as you are. I guess the ‘Impact Player’ got played. Can’t say I didn’t see that coming!”

She shakes her head slowly once again, looking disgusted. “Now I’ve mentioned Jake Starr cashing in his trios contract, but I didn’t mention me. There’s a reason. You think I’m raining on your parade as well, don’t you Shaun? You’ve told me as much in the past. You think I should have saved the opportunity for another time. You think I should have saved it for when it was one on one. You think I should have tried to make my match for the World title as easy as possible, because that’s what you would have done. But as we’ve already seen, you and I are nothing alike,” she says proudly. “I could have done so much more with that contract, I know. I could have used it when I faced you at Supreme Saturday. I could have used it when we were in Los Angeles. I could have saved it and cashed it in on whoever won the triple threat match, hoping you’d be weakened, hoping you’d be vulnerable, hoping I could pick you apart. That’s what you would have done. But that’s not me. I cashed in that contract for the right reasons. I cashed in that contract to make the match bigger. I cashed in the contract to make the match better. I cashed in the contract not just for me, but for every single fan who’ll be watching this Sunday in Miami, because quite frankly Shaun I think they deserve to be entertained, and I think they deserve to see the biggest match imaginable. That’s what this is. That’s what’s going down on Sunday. Whoever wins this match will be able to say they made history. Whoever wins this match will be able to walk away with their head held high. Whoever wins this match won’t need to make any excuses.”

She starts laughing a little again. “And I know what I did as well. I know just what I did to myself. I put more pressure on myself in one night than I ever have before. It’s a Fatal Fourway match. It’s no disqualification, and I don’t even need to be involved in the decision for the match to end. I had one shot, one bullet in the gun, and I chose to fire it not at a sure thing but at the craziest, most insane risk that anyone could. And yet I have no regrets,” she says with a grin. “If I could do it all over again, if I could take the last seven weeks back and with the knowledge of everything that would happen still ahead of me I’d make the exact same choices again, because I’m proud of every decision I’ve made this year. The pressure is intense and I know the risks involved, but while Shaun Cruze has bitched out under pressure I’ve risen under it! I challenged him one on one. He needed his girlfriend, my now FORMER friend, to save him from a pin-fall loss. But pin-fall or not, he still lost. Nobody had been able to beat Shaun since the fall, right? Nobody until me! I rose under pressure. And then Shaun Cruze and Silas Mason did everything they could to take me out. Silas sent Angelica and Kraven to attack me, Shaun took his opportunity to try and hurt me. I’m still here. Later in the night they tried to do the same to Jake, I tried to help him, Silas sent Brittany Lohan and Harmony Fisher to try and end me. I’m still here. The next show in Mexico, rather than fight me as part of a tag team match, they knocked me out backstage. They sent me to the hospital. Guess what? I’M STILL HERE!”

She begins laughing again. “You promised you’d end me. What happened to that? I’M STILL HERE! What’s a promise from Shaun Cruze really worth? You tried your best to take me out Shaun, and yet while you’ve bitched out every time the pressure has been on, I’ve kept working to prove myself. Jake attacked everyone with a chair – that’s what he does – but I got things done in the ring. Angelica, Brittany and Harmony tried to hurt me; I fought them in the ring. Every opportunity that’s come along in the last seven weeks I’ve risen to. I’ve beaten former World Champions. I’ve beaten former number one contenders. I’ve won dark matches. I’ve won main events. Every time the pressure has been on me I’ve risen to it, but I know that can’t last forever. Nobody can withstand the pressure forever, it’s just not possible. I’ve done my absolute best, I’ve done everything I could, I’ve poured my heart and my soul in to the road I’ve walked but this Sunday I know that that can’t last forever, and eventually the pressure on my shoulders is going to crush me,” she says before letting out a sigh. “There won’t be any more of a pressure filled night than at Rise to Greatness. There won’t be any more of a pressure filled night than that night, in the middle of that ring, fighting for everything I have and desperately hoping that I can pull it off. That will be the ultimate test of all of this, because if I can’t deliver on Sunday, if I can’t rise to the pressure, if I can’t rise to the challenge one final time then it’ll all be for nothing once again, and then what happens?”

She lets out a long sigh. “What happens if I lose on Sunday? Will I get another chance? No. I never have before, so why change the habit of a lifetime, right? If I lose on Sunday I know what happens. I drop back down again. I become just another face in the crowd. There are so many people who want that title. There are so many people who want another opportunity. There are so many people who’d give everything they have for that one chance. If I lose this Sunday I have to get used to the fact that I don’t know where my next chance is coming from, and that, once again, just adds more pressure. I have the weight of the world on my shoulders, and I know one misstep and it’ll crush me. Am I worried? Of course I am. I know the risks. I knew the risks when I signed up though. Nothing’s changed. I wanted the biggest match. I wanted the biggest opportunity. Nothing’s changed. See I could look at the future and I could get afraid and I could let that consume me, but I’m not going to. I’m not asking myself ‘what if’ right now. I’m not wondering where my next chance might come from. I’m focused on one thing and one thing alone, and that’s rising to the pressure one more time. I said it before; I’ve waited a year for this opportunity. Now I want to ask Shaun Cruze if he knows what that really means,” she says softly before smiling at the camera again. “I’ll tell you Shaun. It means one year ago I was just where you are. It means one year ago I was in the exact same situation. I walked in to Rise to Greatness knowing that ahead of me was the biggest challenge I’d ever faced, and willing to do anything to get through it.”

She starts laughing once more. “I used to be just like you Shaun. I used to make the excuses. I used to think I was untouchable. I had that title and I loved that feeling that comes with being champion, I loved the power that I felt, and I thought nobody could ever take it away from me. Then Shilo Valiant did. I wasn’t prepared for how it would feel. I wasn’t prepared for what I’d go through. I’m telling you this not to scare you but to prepare you. When you walk in to that show as champion and you lose that championship it takes something away from you. You don’t just lose the title; you lose a little part of yourself as well. There’s something inside of you that changes. You need to be ready for that Shaun. You need to be ready for what it’ll do to you. And as much as I don’t like you – and I think we’ve established that I don’t like you by now, right? – I do respect you. I respect the ability you have in that ring. I respect the fact that you got the job done. I respect the fact that you’ve held the richest prize in this business for as long as you have. That’s why I’m warning you. This Sunday, if you lose this match, you’ll lose a little bit of yourself, and there won’t be an excuse big enough and there won’t be a handout great enough to ever take that feeling away,” she says softly. “You need to be ready for that Shaun. Now you could do what I did and just try to convince yourself that it won’t happen, that you won’t lose the title, that you’re just too damn good, but I know how scared you are. The pressure is on Shaun, and I know what that does to you. It brings out the real Shaun. It brings out the coward. It brings out the panic.”

“There’s going to be a lot of panic on Sunday. There’s going to be four of us going at it for that title. There’s going to be a lot of pin attempts. There’s going to be a lot going on all around you. You’re going to get attacked from all sides. You’ll need eyes in the back of your head. We all will. This is your nightmare, isn’t it Shaun? The man who wants everything to be easy can lose the title without even being involved in the decision. And what happens then, Shaun? What happens if you lose the title without ever being pinned? Worse than that, what happens if you are the one who gets pinned? You can ask me the same question; it’s a valid question as well. What happens if I lose this match without being involved in the decision? What happens if I am the one who’s pinned? I’ve thought about that. I’ve thought about it all. You give me the chance to do this all over again and I still would. I’ve lost the title in a Fatal Fourway match before as well. I wouldn’t change that either. Both times I did what I knew was best. Both times I wanted to fight the biggest challenge,” she explains before smiling. “I lost at this event one year ago, and there’s so much pressure on me not to do it again. There’s so much pressure on us all. Jake has his undefeated run, Kelcey has her Taking Hold of the Flame opportunity, Shaun has his championship and I have my one chance at redemption. There’s so much pressure on us all. It’s no wonder that people end up in the hospital, is it? On Sunday night, one of us is going to handle the pressure, and the other three are going to fail. Which one will it be? I hope it’ll be me. On Sunday night I hope I get to stand tall. If I do, if it’s me that handles the pressure, then Kelcey, Jake and Shaun will be left to do the same thing I did one year ago: BE TOTALLY JEALOUS!”

She steps forward and kisses the camera lens before the video ends and the replay button flashes up on the screen.