An open letter to Lance Archer

Dear Lance Archer,

Do you know why you didn’t win the AEW World Championship from “Hangman” Adam Page in Atlantic City?

It isn’t because Hangman is a great wrestler in the prime of his career who has been able to best the likes of Kenny Omega and Bryan Danielson with the crowd behind him every step of the way, although certainly he’s a deserving world champion who has a better than even chance to beat anyone on any given day.

It’s because, for all you project an image of unrestrained ultraviolence, for all you’re willing to stab a man in the head over and over with a fork and throw him from the ring into the steel steps so hard he bounces to the floor, you don’t have the real killer instinct.

You have Jake “the Snake” Roberts in your corner. An absolute legend, one of the canonical “best to never win a world title,” and one of the most cruel and devious men in professional wrestling history. He’s an old man, Lance, his body is broken and crooked but his heart is still strong and true, and violence still lives there.

He chose you to sit under his learning tree and reap the rewards of having him at ringside. He believes in you to the point where he was willing to get involved in a Texas Death Match, to sacrifice his body for you, and how did you repay his faith?

He had Page hooked for the DDT, and you pulled him away.

Rationally it’s obvious why you did it. Jake might not get up from a back bump these days, and every time he gets physical, he himself goes for the short-arm lariat that leaves him on his feet.

But here’s the thing— in other men’s hands, a DDT is just a move that gets a nearfall, but for Jake Roberts?

DDT means “the end”, man. His hands are withered but the body remembers, and that DDT would have won you the match.

Jake gauged the risk, and he was willing to take it, but for all your bluster, you decided that his health was more important than winning the world title. A real Murderhawk Monster would have deemed a title win worth a manager’s shattered back.

Hangman? He’ll hit a goddamn lariat off a referee’s back if it’ll keep the title around his waist. I don’t think you’d have even taken that much of a chance, Archer.

That’s why you lost.

Yours in wrestling,
Claire Elizabeth

PS. What does Dan Lambert even do for you, my dude?