Strong Black Woman
I’m sipping my mocha; my hair is short and done; my nails are done, my shirt is pink and I have on a dull green striped vest and matching pants with solid green heels. I know how good I look because I take care of myself; you see, I have to take care of myself because no one else is going to do it for me. There are three kinds of people in this world: people who suck up, people who suck it up, and people who just plain suck. You need to figure out which one you are and get to work kissing butt, fighting back, or committing suicide. The world is not a place for the weak; parasites and vampires have an excuse because living off the life force of others is how they survive; it’s what they are. I can’t say I haven’t done my share of sucking up and I can‘t say I haven‘t done my share of being bitter or vindictive, but I wouldn’t be where I am now if I didn’t.
I’m a strong, independent Black woman with a law degree from Harvard and a Ph. D. from Cornell. I stand 5’11”; I’m about 150 lbs with good sized breasts, a curved smooth stomach, wide hips and a big tush, strong legs and feet that are always soft and well taken care of. I have fair skin (very, very light skin) brown eyes and short black hair and my name is Felicia Powers. I am very proud of the woman I am because I had to come a long way to get where I am. I have two houses and I’m about to purchase a third; I’m married to a celebrity chef who’s also a stay at home dad when he’s not cooking (he’s White, by the way), and I have three beautiful girls. I am a very successful attorney; I was a prosecutor back home Orlando for three years after I got out of law school, but I stopped to go back and get my Ph. D. and that’s when I got the job I have now. I’m on the OPW (Omniverse Promotional Wrestling) board of directors… it’s a challenging job on a lot of different levels, but it’s more interesting than being in a court room or an office. I get to travel all over the world; I get to interact with other strong women, and I get to push my agenda. Plus, the insurance plans and the money is more than I’d ever make as just an attorney or college professor, even with my own firm. Not only am I on the board, I run seven feds of my own under OPW’s farm system. I did all of this, and I’m only 25 years old.
I look at this little girl… 5’4” 125 lbs, Japanese… short black hair, good build, wears red… her name is Reiko… good personality, sounds committed to bettering herself, highflyer with technique… has a pretty strong following over there but with the earthquake and the tsunami, she’s here with the others… I’ve studied her work and I’m fine with it, but I see room for improvement… we can do something with her.
“Lee,” I say to my aid... Lee Gabriel, 4'11” but right around 110 lbs, with long curly black hair, big almond brown eyes, and a good solid shape; she’s Asian as well, but was raised in Seattle as an orphan after being abandoned in South Korea as a little girl, “Get her the Standard contract for me, please.”
When you’re looking at talent, you’ve got to worry about what she can’t do as much as you worry about what she can do. I know how to fight; I’ve had a great deal of self defense training and spiritual training as well. To do any job that involves interacting with fighters, you’ve got to know something about fighting, whether it’s arguing with other board members about who should get a push or booking, or getting in the ring with a girl who you don’t really know that well to see what she’s got. I like to know the product we’re investing in and I’m a shark. If you don’t want to deal with shady people and cutthroats, you’re in the wrong business… and the business I’m talking about is life. You will meet all kinds of creepy, shallow people in life and if you’re not ready for or used to that by now, you’re headed for the gutter fast. The saying is “only the strong survive.” That’s what you need to live by, seriously. If you stop for one second and let people see your weakness, you’ll lose and once you lose, there may be no comebacks. And it is all about you, because it‘s all about me. My husband does whatever I say and I don’t ask for much, but I like my houses clean and I like “other things” a certain way.
You’ve got to be… a bitch… if you want to survive sometimes. If somebody gets hurt stepping in your way or when you step on that person’s toes, you just keep going and hope that person can use that hurt as motivation. I grew up the youngest of five children in Orlando, Florida. I have four older brothers and my parents invested everything in the boys while I was raised to cook dinner and wash dishes. They went to big schools like Florida State and The U (University of Miami), while I was supposed to go to some community college after I graduated from high school. I was always the smartest, but that didn’t mean anything. My Dad was a big time chauvinist; women belong in the kitchen and in the bedroom. He’s a big time lawyer and my older brothers all played sports and were trained from birth to devalue women the same way he devalued my mother by cheating on her and controlling her. Oh, he treated me well; everything I asked for, he gave to me… but not my own identity. I wanted to play sports, be a tomboy, get dirty… but he didn’t like that and neither did my mother. Girls would pick on me because I was light skinned and came from a rich family, and I would want to fight back, especially because I was taller than they were and I had a temper, but my mother would find out and go to the principal. I’d go play football with the guys or basketball and my parents wouldn’t let me be on the team, even when the coach begged them to let me play. Maybe my mother didn’t have a problem with my lifestyle and my father made her tell me what a woman’s place was. When I got my academic scholarship to The U, my father even wanted me to major in Nursing or something like that, since I was female. But if you’re a bird, you’ve got to fly… and I’m a hawk.
I went to Miami determined to become a lawyer and be better than my father. I used the system; I used being Black; I used being a woman, because when I was growing up, I went to Black schools and the only people I ever saw getting anything handed to them were not Black… or they were suck-ups. I pledged and joined all sorts of organizations and I’m still active in them today. You can join something just because it looks good on your resume without actually participating, but there’s only so far I’ll go with taking advantage of the opportunities and connections out there. I learned self defense when I was young; I’m a proud third degree black belt in tae kwon do and while I’m soft in some places on my body, I’m very confident that if I had to, I could take somebody out. If you haven’t learned how to defend yourself against attack, whether physical, verbal, or emotional, you need to start asap. My heart is in working with and bettering women; a man is a man and while I appreciate the strength and intellect of a strong man, I am a strong woman and I will not be controlled by anyone.
I sit in board meetings with Siena Blaze, the owner of OPW, her daughter Christina Munoz, the CEO and one of the top female fighters in the world, and several other people. Christina has hated Siena practically all her life, but they both have very favorable opinions of me and the other members of the board. There’s no room for weakness in OPW, whether you’re a wrestler or a crew member, or on the board. We want to put out the best possible product for our fans and we want to reward the women in our company who put the time in and win the matches. One of the benefits of having so many territories to farm is that, just like in baseball, we can send someone in OPW down to a lesser promotion to either get it together or help that promotion, and we can move some of those stars in sub-promotions up to give them a shot at the big time. And you have to know your clients. Negotiating a contract extension with Glory is different from negotiating one with Samantha. Talking to Rachel Apache about fighting on a tribute card for a new hall of fame inductee is different than getting Jolene Rictor’s opinion on a new t-shirt design or going over Justine Credible’s schedule and appearance dates with her. And when you’ve got girls like Gemma Rox or Marie B., who get into more fights outside of the ring than they do in the ring, or people like Fortune or Prophecy, who have reputations for being hard to work with, you’ve got to have a strong backbone. If you don’t know how to look someone in the eyes and say “no,” you’ll get crushed.
I’m looking at this girl right now here in this empty evaluation room and I can see that this is probably not going to work… she’s 5’4” 125 lbs; she has short spiky bleach blonde hair and looks like the singer Pink with the long tongue and the eyes, but she‘s got more of a rounded face, but just as much spunk… and she’s got this really annoying hip hop look with boxer shorts and sagging pants. She’s got on a big t-shirt, but she’s pulling it up and scratching and rubbing her stomach; she’s got good abs and a navel that sticks in and looks like an upside down triangle. I ask her where she’s from and she says “Detroit, ya dig? Just like Eminem and I got the heart of John Cena!” Are you kidding me? Eminem is a phony who raps about raping his mother and badmouths everyone, but chickens out and apologizes when confronted (like he did when Christina Aguilera confronted him at the Mtv Music Video Awards some years ago). And John Cena is about as “gangsta” as eggs benedict; he’s “straight outta West Newbury, Massachusetts.” If it’s one thing that I absolutely can’t stand, it’s a poser. Maybe she can fight, but I can’t stand the phony “White rapper talking gangsta” foolishness because as a Black woman, that offends me. I had to put up with racism growing up, even in Orlando, and I got it from darker skinned Blacks because I’m fair skinned. Racism is everywhere, and you will deal with it no matter what race you are, but if you can’t just be who you are, then you’re a poser.
“So, can you rap?” I say, “Rap some insults at a wrestler of your choosing.”
“Yeah, let me bus’ a flow,” she says, turning her cap sideways, “Yo, it’s me MC Sweet T in the place to be; I got skills, in the ring ‘cause I pay my bills and I do my thing; Marie B. said she invented White girl rap, but when I see her, I’mma straight shut her White girl trap, ‘cause I’m the baddest bitch in the whole fighting world; I’m a real woman from Detroit, not a little girl, watch the pain unfirl, on Marie B… when she gets pinned by me for the 1,2,3! What?”
I’m glad I don’t have a mirror because I’m pretty sure I would intimidate myself. I look down at her and say, “Girl, you wouldn’t last five minutes with Marie unless she wanted you to… or anyone else. Work on your gimmick, get real, and the scouts will keep us posted.”
Then, her voice changes. She takes the hat off and looks up at me with her big light blue eyes and says, “Please, Ms. Powers. Just give me a shot. I grew up in Detroit; I went to Black schools. I had to act this way to fit in and stop them from beating me up. I was scared. Now, I know how to fight; I’ve trained hard and I’m on a winning streak. I’m just marketing my image; that’s all.”
“What is it about ‘no’ that you don’t understand?” I say, narrowing my eyes and putting my hands on my hips, straightening myself to my full 5’11” and towering over her. She looks at me like she honestly wants to take a swing at me… really. I give her the “yeah right” look, turn and start walking away, but I was blessed with good hearing and I hear her say, “bitch.” That stops me right in my tracks; I turn around and walk right up to her and look her right in her blue eyes.
“WHAT did you say?” I don’t like the word “bitch,” even if I use it myself, and I do not like anyone calling me one either.
“I just want a crack at the big time, that’s all,” she says, folding her arms
“I didn’t ask you that,” I say, getting closer to her, but not raising my voice, yet sticking my finger right in her face and poking her forehead with my nail, “I asked you what did you say. If you want to see a bitch, I’ll show you one.”
“Yo, yo, why you gotta be touching me?” she says, turning sideways and lightly nudging my solar plexus with her elbow. At this point, I’m almost leaning on her because her stupid act is really getting on my nerves. I came in peace and I was honest with her and she just let her gimmick take her someplace she didn’t want to go because I am NOT the one. I try not to cross the line with potential talent because I am, first and foremost, a LADY, but when you take me there and go toe-to-toe with me, I will win. She keeps nudging me with her elbow and she’s going lower to my stomach; I wear my pants pretty high above my bellybutton because that’s how they’re styled, so the fabric is absorbing most of her poke. That doesn’t stop it from hurting a little… it’s like I’m moving to bump her and she’s bumping back subtly with her elbow to my stomach. She gets me with one just above my bellybutton and I let out an “Uhhh.” I bend a bit and straighten myself up, letting out a “Whoo” in an exhale. She’s looking at me and she knows that she knocked some wind from me and she looks surprised. Like I said, some parts of my body are softer than others and I’ve been having a battle with my stomach since giving birth to my youngest daughter and even before that. Most of the women in my family are overweight and when you’re endowed in your chest and bottom, some softness in the middle goes with the territory. And it’s not like I’d just get into a fight and let somebody hit me in the stomach; I can block and defend myself… but she caught me off guard.
“You’re a poptart, sweetheart; you’re soft in the middle, like the kitty with the fiddle in Hey Diddle Diddle” she says, stepping closer, “I’ll eat you for breakfast and disrespect your necklace, slap you into a nexus if you think you can wreck this.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about, but I’m pretty sure it’s trash talk. She’s close, but I throw a downward chop and somehow, she weaves around it, “Uggghhh!!!” she punched me in the pit of my stomach and I try to back up and it’s pretty obvious that I’m hurt because she doubled me over with that one and I can’t get my air.
“Let me show you some of my signature moves,” she says as she pulls my right hand away from my aching stomach and pulls me up on her shoulders. I’m shocked at how strong this little girl is; she stands with me laying across her shoulders in torture rack position with no effort.
“I like John Cena and Randy Orton, ya dig?” she says, “So I combined their moves with a little twist of my own. This is my finisher and it’s called Sweet Dreams!”
She throws me off of her shoulders in a reverse death valley driver (Cena uses a usual death valley driver and calls it the F-U) but she grabs my neck in mid air and gives me a Diamond Cutter (Randy Orton uses the Diamond Cutter, does it a bit differently and calls it the R-KO)… ……………………………….................
“Yo, yo, yo!! Wake up!!”
My head is killing me and so is my stomach as my eyes open up… I’m on my back and I’m in my pink bra and panties… what the hell did she do to me… I sit up and look down at my pink painted toenails and wiggle them just to make sure they’re working. I run my hand across my stomach and I feel like I could go to sleep on this cold floor. “Ooough!!” a foot just crashed down on my stomach, right at the middle of my waist about an inch and a half above my football shaped innie bellybutton. She grabs my arm and pulls me to my feet. She ducks under my right arm, then loops her right arm across my chest and over my left shoulder while grabbing my right buttcheek with her left arm.
“This is another one of my dope moves,” she says with glee, “It’s called the Sweet T-Bone Suplex!”
She spins me and slams me on my back on the cold hard floor… it hurts so bad… I’m seeing stars and I know the back of my head banged when I hit. I don’t even notice that she’s not on me anymore.
“And now, it’s time for another one of my bad ass slap yo mamma moves,” I hear her voice, “This is the Sweet Roll!!”
I turn and see her go into a somersault and now, she’s rolling at me like a human bowling ball. I slowly get to my feet and move, just as she gets up and does a jumping 450 splash, but she doesn’t look to see if I’m still there, and she bangs her face and the front of her body on the floor. Dummy. I give her a hard kick to her left side and she groans a nice “Unnnhhh!!” and rolls on her back.
“Now, let me show you what I know,” I say
I drop my butt right down on her stomach and watch her cheeks fill with air and feel it blow in my face with a “Whoooosh!!” I start punching her in the face, counting (which is a hard habit to break, even after getting to third degree black belt; I like counting though). She starts covering up, so I show her some of my self defense/pancrase training and throw down some forearm smashes to her guard, mashing her own fists and forearms into her face. I can see that she’s bleeding and there’s a feeling that I can stop now. I stand over her, exhausted and worn out. I really need to hit the gym more. She’s still down holding her face and I step off of her, but she grabs my ankle and twists it and I fall, banging my chest and stomach on the floor… ugghh… huuuuuuhhh… I’m pretty sure she heard me exhale… she leans over me and cross faces me… I feel the strain in my crossed legs and I know she’s got me in an STF.
“Now, I didn’t change the name of this move,” she says, taking time to pop the gum she’s chewing, “STF works fine for me because I can always say it stands for the Sweet Tea Folder… ‘cause you’re getting folded, ya heard me? Tap out and I‘ll let you go.”
The move hurts like hell, but tap out, to her? Ahhhhhh… my leg, back, neck and face are hurting and my right arm is being bent back too, but submitted to a girl with a gimmick that would make Vanilla Ice look legit? I… ahhhhh…I can’t… I can’t let her beat me… AHHHHHHHH!!!
“I got Felicia Powers down for the count, I could hold on for hours while she whines and pouts, she thought I was a coward without any class, but I’m the one with the power ’cause I’m kicking her soft ass! What?”
I know I’m losing… I just have to get to my feet… if we’re standing up, I’ll beat her senseless… just have to power out of this…
“Yo big baby, you’re weak and soft… yo big baby, you can’t buck me off… yo big baby I’m choking you out, so go ‘head and cough… yo big baby, you’re weak and soft… wait, I already rhymed that. Oh well… you can’t seeeeeeeee me!!! Yo Felicia, I know you‘re trying hard, but if you‘re not gonna win ‘cause you ain‘t that hard, you want me to cut the rap out? I suggest you give me what I want and just tap out!”
I manage to roll us both on our left sides, but she’s snaked her left arm around my neck and she’s got a partial choke on me. She starts looping rights around and hitting my stomach.
“Look at your belly; look at it jiggle! I got you down so tight, you can hardly wiggle. I wish your dumb fake ass would just buy a clue; you gotta submit to make me release you, or you will be through; I’ll put you to sleep, and your bra and panties will be mine to keep, as a souvenir, because they are so dear, like the sound of the ocean in my ear, so crystal clear, full of fish and ducks, and I--- UNNNHHH!!!”
I drove my head back into her face and felt her body shake and the hold loosen. Then I break free. I roll onto my stomach and I really want to stay on the ground and get my air back, but I get to my feet and so does she. She comes straight at me, looking to grapple, but I give her a jab and a right cross that turns her head and staggers her in range of the sidekick I thrust into her solar plexus… “UUGGHHH!!! HUNNHH!! KUH, KUH!!” She staggers back, coughing hard and I move in on her, peppering her with five straight punches and dropping her to her knees with a roundhouse kick to her left side.
“Come on, you want some more? Come on,” I say calmly, slowing my breathing and getting my peaking pulse under control. I move in on her and say, “I think I’ll try a rap of my own. Guess what, poser? Your wind’s cut; it’s over.”
I lift my right leg and bring it around to kick her in the temple and end it, but AUGH!!! She punches me right in the crotch and I go down, holding my privacy.
“Damn right it’s over, you need a four leaf clover, or a dog name Rover, to bite me, ’cause you sure can’t fight me! You wouldna got your ass whipped if you was more polite, see? They say cheaters never win and winners never cheat, but clearly I‘mma win because I got you beat. You got some cute feet; I wanna suck your toes; and I love your cute little button nose; I supposed you bloomed like a rose, but wither like one too, girl, do you know what I want to do to you?”
I can barely hear her over the pain and the sound of my own loud breathing, and she gets me with three hard short shots to my stomach… ooooooooh…I got back down on my back and hold my stomach and try to breathe, but when she tries to mount me, I put my feet on her chest and shove her back hard. I get up quickly and because of that, I almost go back down. She’s up and eying my stomach; I know she wants to hit me there, but she’d have to get close to me. She throws a shot…no… she faked that… I went for the feint and she kicks me right in the stomach… GUUUUUUHHHH!!!! I feel my eyes bug out of my head and my legs buckle as I double over… I feel the punch to the jaw, but I don’t see it………………………………................
“Mrs. Powers… Mrs. Powers! Are you alright?” that’s my aid Lee’s voice. Did that poser really knock me out? I guess so… I get up slowly with Lee’s help and she helps me put on my clothes… I see something laying across my shirt… it’s an OPW contract that’s signed with Sweet Tea’s real name (Tammy Sweeney) on it. She must’ve taken it out of my stuff and signed it while I was out. I put on my clothes and stare at the paper… Lee is holding a stack of new signees to developmental deals and there’s a lot of pain in my heart about losing to this girl. I’ve got a lot of pride, but she did beat me. I take her contract, sign it and give it to Lee to put with the rest of the new signees. I guess the lesson to learn from this is to never underestimate your opponent. I’m taller than she is; I’m a much better and more experienced fighter than she is, and I let her gimmick and poser jargon lull me into thinking she was a push-over. I guess that’s why she’s so successful. I’m a strong Black woman, but I have still have a lot to learn; that, I can openly admit to. I won’t be so foolish with the next set of girls I evaluate. I pop four Advil and Lee and I walk to the car.
The End
