The rain pounding down upon my face, the pain pulsating through my body yet the only thing I could feel, the only thing I knew was the embarrassment. The falla sat upon my shoulders, it felt like the weight of the world.

It was then that he extended his hand.

‘Get up, Chico’

I grabbed his hand; larger and stronger my hand was swallowed up in his. Effortlessly he pulled me to my feet.

‘We all stumble, Chico. Life is about how you get back up after someone’s kicked your teeth in.’

‘You don’t lose if you get knocked down, only if you stay down.’

I brushed the dirt from my torn and tattered clothing, wiped the trickling blood from my lip and raised my fists, put one foot in front of the other and moved forward again.

We all stumble, none of us walk a perfectly paved path to grandeza but that day as a young boy has stayed with me, like a passenger in my journey of life. It taught me a lesson that I carried with me, my whole life, that defeat isn’t the end. Even the grandeza Patrons have lost battles, but it’s the war that is truly important.

I learned it was okay to have your friends pick you up, to extend a hand in your time of hurt, your time of weakness.

I’m taking those lessons, those things I learned as a small boy, that first fight I lost, with me to Slam this week.

El Rey del Stupido and El Tropico de Frio, you’re the pebbles on my path this week. And that’s a shame, because frankly I find you both to be entertaining, comical, maybe even ‘frio’. But I cannot control where I am pointed, I cannot control who enters my crosshairs. My job is simply to pull the trigger and end those who are put in front of me. I’ve made a living doing this, and this week both of you will be no exceptions. It has been ordered, so it shall be done.

Alas I stand side by side with my friend, my compadre. A man from a dead world, like me. A man with nothing to return to and therefore nothing to lose.

You see that’s what makes us different, while our opponents fight for fun, for comedy relief. We do it to survive.

My whole life I’ve been fighting, as a boy it was simply to put food in my belly. As a teenager it was to prove my worth to the Patron. And as a man, to climb the ladder in the cartel. And now, it’s to protect my amigos, to walk the path of grandeza I know myself to be capable of.

So, this week, I rise to my feet again, put one foot in front of the other and continue on my path to grandeza. For I will not stay down and I will not stumble again.

And I know for certain, both of you will very soon meet God.