THE CHAPEL SHOW
Episode: S01E21
Date: 30/11/2014

The video begins and we see the inside of the Chapel apartment in Anaheim, California, where we see luggage still unpacked. The camera is focused on the couch however where we see Lexy Chapel sitting cross-legged in front of the camera. She’s not wearing shoes and is dressed in jeans and a t-shirt that reads ‘I’m not always rude and sarcastic, sometimes I’m asleep’. She looks at the camera without her normal enthusiasm but with a somewhat positive look on her face. She nods at the camera. “What’s up fuckers? I’m Lexy Chapel and I became a wrestler because I was told that a lot of guys wanted to slam me,” she says before shrugging innocently. “Welcome back to the Chapel Show, and I’d love to tell you that today is the day that the Chapel Show returns to normal, that today is the day that the Chapel Show returns to everything that you’ve come to expect from it, but I’ll be honest with all you guys right now I have had a REALLY bad few weeks. We got back from England earlier today, which is later than we were originally planning to come back but while I’m being honest I may as well confess that the truth is I wasn’t even sure if I was going to come back. If you guys didn’t see the last episode – which is Lexy Chapelprobably a good thing since it was by no means our best – then you won’t know that before the last show my mother passed away and I was highly emotional and far from my normal self. Considering the complete lack of support I’ve gotten from all the people I work with, the people who I thought were supposed to be my friends, or at least people in my life who didn’t treat me like complete crap, there was a period over the last few weeks when I seriously just thought about hanging up my boots, at least temporarily.”

She shrugs at the camera. “See, the thing is that I went home and I realised that as much as I love being out here in California, as much as I enjoyed the challenge of trying to make it on my own – well, trying to make it with Nate, which is sometimes a lot like trying to make it with a small child in tow,” she says while trying not to smirk too much, “the fact is that I realised just how many things there were about being home that I missed. I missed my friends, I missed my family, and getting to go home and see all of them last week at my mum’s funeral was really just amazing. We planned to go back over there for the funeral, which was last week, and we had tickets to come back last Saturday originally, but then I saw so many people at the funeral who told me that we had to talk, that we had so much to discuss, that I basically wasn’t allowed to leave the country again until they’d all gotten to talk to me, and... You know how they say that you can’t go home again? Well they’re wrong. You can DEFINITELY go home. The fact is that you SHOULD go home sometimes, because being away from all of it sure you forget some of the reasons that you wanted to leave in the first place, but you also forget some of the amazing things that make you life that much better, and being home really helped me realise that. It helped me realise that there was so much that I missed, so much that I haven’t done, and... Well, we delayed the tickets until earlier today, and when we got to the airport we both sat down and looked at each other and both Nate and I seriously started to question whether we wanted to come back.”

 She stops for a moment, looking around the apartment before taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “I mean, our lives out here have been amazing, don’t get me wrong. We’ve met some incredible people – we’ve also met a whole bunch of complete assholes as well, but that’s a different issue – and there’s a lot about this that we agreed that we’d miss if we did stay home, but there’s a lot that we wouldn’t miss either. And for the first time in a long time I had no real reason to stick around anymore because, in case you guys were living under a rock and missed Autumn Effect, the reign is over, the good times finally ended and Lexy Chapel is no longer the EXODUS Pro International Champion. And that makes me sad. Like, that was one of the major reasons why I thought about just giving it up now. That’s not bitterness talking either, that’s just... you know how you can do something and it can be incredible, but when it’s over and you realise how much you’ve got to do to get back there again you just look at it and think ‘is it really worth it?’ and you start to wonder if perhaps it isn’t? That’s kind of the way I looked at that loss. I’m not going to take anything away from Christian Kane, he was great, but he pretty much just kicked my ass the whole time, didn’t he? I pretty much got no offence in, and... I think I got maybe one pin-cover the whole match? It was...” she says before clenching her fist and then putting her head in her hands and letting out a long sigh. “I can’t deny that he deserved to beat me. Nobody can deny that he deserved to beat me when he stepped in to the ring and dominated the match from beginning to end. And it left me thinking... how do you come back from that?”

She shrugs her shoulders and lets out another sigh. “What do you do after an experience like that? I wanted to fight for my mother, and all I could do was step in to the ring and get my ass absolutely beaten, conclusively. It’s not even like I can say it was close. It wasn’t. I...” she says before groaning again. “I don’t even know how to talk about it, if I’m honest. I went in to that match and I admit that I didn’t get all the preparation I wanted, I didn’t get to do all the training I wanted to do, and I did have somewhat of a MAJOR problem a few days before, but... how do you come back when you spent the whole match on your back? You know I try to look at the positive side of most things but right about now I don’t even know what to say. I’m pretty sure there isn’t a positive to come out of this. And I’ve heard all you guys talking about my reign, I’ve heard all the incredible things you’ve had to say about it, but all I did at Autumn Effect was prove you all wrong. You guys said I’d proven myself, you guys made me the favourite, you guys said that I’d finally made it in the company, and all that happened is that I got beaten worse than I’ve ever been beaten. And I can’t say I didn’t try, because I did. So, how do you come back from that? I’d tell you guys to tweet me the answer but you may have noticed that I’ve not exactly been great at keeping up with Twitter either. Then again it’s not like I’m missing a thousand tweets from people, is it? So, serious question hoping for a serious answer, what do you do when you realise that everything you’ve done, all the work you’ve put in has been for absolutely nothing?”

She laughs and nods her head. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. You quit. That’s what most people do, right? You guys are wrestling fans, you’ve seen that a thousand times. You take your ball and you say ‘screw you guys, I’m going home’, and if you have a really cool Cartman impression you do your best attempt at that at the same time to leave on a comedic note. ‘Screw you guys, Ah’m goin’ home’,” she says in what is clearly her best attempt at impersonating the South Park character before she begins shaking her head and laughing. “That’s what so many people have done before. They go home and they come back in the future, maybe, and they act like they had a reason for taking their ball in the first place, and they try and pretend it didn’t happen. That’s the way it works. That’s what ego does in this business. Well, as you probably noticed by the fact that the Chapel Show is still going, at least in this shortened format this week – which I’ll get to in a moment – I’m not taking my ball. Do I even have a ball? I still feel like the rookie who everyone thinks they’re that far above. I still feel like I’m dwarfed by the shadows of everyone else. Maybe I am, I mean Christian told me that he was going to kick my ass and he did EXACTLY what he said he’d do, right? So maybe that’s just the reality of it. Maybe I don’t have a ball. Maybe I should go home. But yet I’m still here. I’ve got a hundred reasons to walk away, I’ve got a thousand excuses I could make, and right now I could still be sitting in England with my friends and my family still trying to come to terms with what has been the most horrible experience of my life, but yet I’m still here.”

She says it positively, like a mantra, and then pauses again like she just realised what she said. “Err, you guys know I meant that losing my mum was the horrible experience, right? Compared to that getting my ass kicked was actually not as traumatising or painful,” she says before smiling a little and shaking her head. “My mum would have appreciated that line. That’s always been kind of her sense of humour. She was a wrestler before and after she had kids, and I remember I saw this promo she filmed which she must have done the second match she had back after she had me, so I’d have been like maybe eighteen months old by that point? Something like that. Maybe I might have been a little older because she didn’t go back to wrestling again for a while after I was born. Anyway, she lost her first match back and in her second match it was against the same woman, and that woman did all the normal stuff, you know? The kind of stuff that makes me face-palm when I hear it! She claimed she was the best, she claimed that she’d proven herself the best, she claimed my mother couldn’t ever beat her and that she was going to give her the ‘most traumatic experience of her life’, and my mum – I swear to god I’m not lying about this guys – looked straight in to the camera and said ‘bitch, I’ve had three kids, what you called the most traumatic experience of my life wasn’t even as painful as booking the entertainment for my son’s last birthday party’. Ironically she did actually lose that match as well, but she by no means got her ass handed to her. My mother was a fighter. She always was. So I feel like of humiliated in the fact that my attempted tribute to her was getting my ass kicked.”

She pauses again and just laughs a little before once again shaking her head slowly. “So, where do I go from here? Quite frankly I’m a little shocked that they gave me another televised match. Most times the people who can’t even get a few decent shots in don’t even get used again on the next shows. I feel like I should be signing up to (R)Evolution Wrestling and telling them that I clearly need more work,” she says before rolling her eyes. “Nah, on second thoughts I’m pretty sure that most of that roster would kick my ass as well. Actually I kind of feel like I insulted them by claiming otherwise! So seriously, what do you do and where do you go from here? Do you get up like the fighter who’s taken one too many shots to the head and keep swinging and telling people you’re not out yet? Do you stand defiantly screaming ‘it was a fluke, it’ll never happen again’ and get back in to the ring only to get your ass handed to you on a silver platter a second time? Do I even get a chance for that? I mean, do I even get a rematch? I didn’t actually get a chance to read my new contract before I signed it – you guys remember that, right? It had a big number on it and I got all worried and told Jon that I wasn’t worth it and he told the world that I was. Heh, who’s laughing now? I mean, I did kind of warn you this would happen – so I don’t know whether I’m contractually entitled to a rematch or not, and if I am I don’t know whether I even want one. I know that sounds pretty crazy to say, but it’s very true right now. I don’t actually know whether I want a rematch.”

Lexy continues sitting on the couch only a second Lexy walks in to the shot and shakes her head and looks down at her other-self disappointed. “Of course you want a rematch Lexy,” the second one tells her angrily. “What kind of madness is this saying you don’t?”

The second version of her throws her hands up and storms off. The first one laughs and shakes her head. “In case you’re wondering yes, we got help with that effect,” she says before laughing. “But seriously, I don’t know if I want a rematch and here’s why. Being the International Champion was by a long way the single greatest experience of my life. It was like a wild ride that I never knew where it was going to take me or how it was going to end. It got all you guys talking about me more than I could ever have imagined would be possible before it began. And without that experience all you guys tuning in to the Chapel Show to hear what I’ve got to say wouldn’t be tuning in because you just wouldn’t give a damn about me. Being the International Champion to me was an honour as well; it was something that made me push myself further and harder than I ever thought I could. It was literally a life-changing experience. So why wouldn’t I want that again? Why wouldn’t I want the best experience of my life to restart? Because as great as it was, first and foremost it was also one of the most trying and testing experiences of my entire life. There was so much pressure on me every week because I knew if I slipped up, if I had an off-week, if I lost one match – especially as badly as I lost last time out – then I’d be back in that ring again with the same person again and they’d be singing and laughing and telling the world how they beat me once and they were going to do it again, like it was a foregone conclusion. And that was amazingly stressful. But that was only one small part of it as well, because as amazing as it was it was also one of the worst experiences of my entire life.”

She nods her head slowly. “Yeah, do you know how disrespected I felt as International Champion? Do you know how goddamn annoying it is to bust your ass and be wearing that title and care about it as much as I did and WANT to represent it proudly and WANT to be the best champion you can POSSIBLY be, only to see guys who have NO respect for it handed title shots? Do you know what it’s like to give EVERYTHING you have in your body only to see the show the next week and think ‘yeah, I gave the best performance of my entire life last week, this week they’ve GOT to reward me for that, right?’ only to see you’re fighting in the third match of a show when all you want is the main event? Hell it’s not even about the main event either, I genuinely felt like at one point that sleeping with Jonathan Collins was the only way I could ever get myself any higher because... well, I’m not going to say that I’m better than Fiona because that would be an egotistical and bitchy thing to say but I will say that I gave as much as she gave, I tried as hard as she tried, I fought as hard as she fought and EVERY week I have to look at the card and see ‘oh, hey, look, Fiona is in the main event’ or ‘oh, hey, look, Fiona is in the match two after me’ and it’s so frustrating,” she explains passionately. “When you want something that badly, when you give THAT much, and you feel like you get NOTHING back for it... when you feel like there’s a glass ceiling over your head and NOTHING that you do will ever get you through it... oh man is it frustrating! And it caused me to become a different person as well. It caused me to become embittered and angry about it.”

She shakes her head, clearly disappointed in herself. “The reason I was angry was because I didn’t know what more I had to do, and I started looking at that title on my shoulder and I started wondering if THAT was how I was always going to be treated,” she says, still looking disappointed in herself. “I’m sure there are people out there who can relate, right? It’s like when you’re at work and you work just as hard as the guy next to you, and you show up earlier than he does, and you go home later than he does, but he’s the one who has the in-jokes with the boss or he’s the one sleeping with the boss’s daughter... or sleeping with the boss... and then he’s the one who gets the big promotion and you’re stuck at the same desk and you just look at it and you think ‘son of a bitch, what do I have to do?’ and you feel like screaming or quitting. That’s how I felt. I felt like I was being held back. And ha, who got the last laugh there? Well done Lexy, you weren’t being held back, it turns out that you just absolutely and completely suck in comparison to anyone who’s an ACTUAL star in the company, am I right? Christian Kane proved that. So yeah, I guess they got the last laugh there, didn’t they? So, do I want a rematch? Do I want a second chance at the stress, the pressure, the anger and the resentment? And that’s assuming I could actually win, I mean what if he just whoops my ass all over again and humiliates me a second time? That’s a very real possibility. I’d have to consider it something of a win if I could get two big moves in next time though, right? That would be an improvement. PROGRESS!”

She laughs and rolls her eyes again. “Heh, it’s a good thing I can laugh about it, but if you can’t laugh about it the only other alternative is to cry about it, right? And the past few weeks I’ve cried my eyes out more than enough. But let’s go with the best case scenario. What if I do win? What if I beat Christian? What then? Another match with him? Another match with someone else? What if I can’t win that? What if my second reign as International Champion is over in two weeks? What if my second reign is a complete and total failure? What happens then? I don’t think I could handle finding out,” she admits before shaking her head slowly. “So, do I want a rematch? Do I want a second chance? Do I want another shot at becoming the International Champion and getting even more pressure on myself to match or equal what I did before? I don’t know. I don’t think I’m in a good place to answer that question right now. Besides, I don’t exactly see anyone rushing to offer me a rematch right now so maybe that’s not even on the table, and maybe I should do something else. Maybe I should move on. Maybe it’s time to find another passion. And I guess that’s what this week is about. But before I get to that, you probably noticed the lack of anything but me sitting here talking to you? Yeah, sorry about that! Like I said, it’s been a bad and hectic few weeks. We’ll have something for you next time out, I promise. But, as a good hostess, I’m always looking to keep people happy, so... would it make you feel better if I showed you my boobs? Would that make it up to you for the lack of content? Ok, if you insist...”

She reaches down in front of the couch, which is hidden by the table in front of her, and picks up a large set of fake plastic breasts that look like they’re from a Halloween costume and holds them up to the camera, looking at them with a nod. “There we go. So, these are boobs and they belong to me. Do you feel better now? What, did you think I meant something else? Why you dirty perverts, what kind of girl do you think I am?” she asks jokingly before tossing the plastic breasts aside and laughing. “Ok, more seriously, this week is about moving on, right? This week is my chance to move on from humiliation and the ass-kicking of a lifetime. This week is my chance to show that I actually CAN compete in the ring and I’m not in there are a dummy for people to throw around and look good... only I feel like those matches in Japan where those guys fight the blow-up doll... the doll gets more offence than I got in at Autumn Effect. Yeah... true story! But this week is about moving on, and the person I get to face in my first attempt to move on is a guy who could very realistically kick my ass just as badly. It’s a guy who wants to be the World Champion, a guy that the powers that be have previously promoted as a possible World Champion, a guy who’s trained future generations for competition in the ring – yeah, nobody is EVER going to ask ME to do that after Autumn Effect, are they? Just another career path not open to me – and so realistically speaking this is probably going to be another week where the highlight of my week is getting owned.”

She laughs. “Maybe this could become a thing. You guys love putting videos on YouTube of all the guys and girls who fall off bikes or fall off other things and land on their faces and probably get seriously hurt, maybe my new gimmick in wrestling can be the human crash test dummy and you can make videos like that about me. Maybe when Zack Lifer gets done with me this week and I’m left in a whole body cast then that’ll be the thing you can all do to celebrate my complete failures. It’ll be great. It’ll get a lot of hits. And hey, suddenly that double entendre at the beginning suddenly screams true. Guys do LOVE to slam me,” she says before letting out another sigh. She’s clearly putting on a brave face to what is obviously an unhappy fact for her. “Hell, that’s possibly even a triple entendre when you think about ‘verbal slams’ as well. I’m sure Zack will have a few of those. Or maybe he’ll be one of those opponents who does the whole ‘look how respectful and nice I am, I’ll call her the greatest champion in the history of the International division despite all the evidence to the contrary’ thing that people tend to do. If he does then it proves he’s an idiot. Because here’s the truth, here are the facts, here’s the absolute horrible reality behind what is likely going to happen this week and that’s that Zack Lifer, the former International Champion, the wannabe World Champion, the man who everyone claims has that in his future, is likely going to humiliate me this week and do you have any idea how powerless I feel to be able to prevent that?”

“I want to put on a brave face,” she admits emotionally. “I want to be able to say that I’ve got this, that I’m going to give everything, that I’m going to bounce back, that I’m going to beat Zack Lifer, that I’m going to prove that there’s fight left in Lexy Chapel but do you want to know the truth? The truth is I’m not sure there is. I’m not sure if I do have it in me. And as I was sitting in that airport talking to Nate and he was telling me that that was bollocks, that I had the fight, that I had the skill, that I was going to show the world how great I could be, I heard the words and I loved him more for saying them because god knows he’s about the only person in my world right now who IS telling me those things – although in fairness I did ban my friends and family from even MENTIONING what happened because I didn’t want even more of their pity when they were already giving me more than I could handle after what happened to my mum. The fact is that he’s the one telling me I can do it and that I can prove something this week and I’m genuinely not sure I can. I have doubt. I hate myself right now. And part of me didn’t want to get on that plane because of it. Part of me didn’t want to come home because of it. Part of me wanted to crawl up under the duvet of my lovely bed back home in England where I was safe and never have to put myself through anything that humiliating ever again. Part of me wanted to be safe back home and never have to face the criticism and the laughter and the fact that I couldn’t even defend the MOST IMPORTANT THING IN MY LIFE AT THAT MOMENT with a fight.”

She laughs again, trying to pretend that it’s all a joke, trying to laugh about it all like she’s done so convincingly so far, but it looks like she’s on the verge of the cracks showing in that charade now and it looks like she’s about to give in to the way she clearly feels. “Part of me just can’t face the crowd, the humiliation, it can’t face the fact that I didn’t just get beaten for the International title but the fans SUNG when I did, and part of me just can’t face that because part of me doesn’t know how to handle that. Part of me wants to scream at them and shout at them and hate them for rejoicing in my complete humiliation. Part of me is never going to get over that, is never going to move on from that, is never going to be able to put it behind me, and another part wants to show the world more than ever than I CAN compete with Zack Lifer, that I CAN actually get more than ONE lousy pin attempt, that I CAN be everything that people said I was, everything that I wanted to believe I was... but once again I’m left asking myself what if I can’t? And here is the truth, guys, here’s the truth for you and for Zack and for everyone else. I’ve had some frustrating nights. I’ve had some humiliating nights. I’ve won matches by count out. I’ve promised I’d go at it in a tag match and then had my opponents AND partner make a joke of the whole thing. I’ve been outshined by a guy in a mask and the aforementioned woman who haunts everything I do by being the golden girl of this company who I’ll never get to compete with. But nothing compares to what happened at Autumn Effect and if Zack does the same thing, if he beats me without me being able to do a damn thing about it then I won’t even know what to do anymore.”

“I wanted to prove that I deserved that belt on the biggest stage, I wanted to fight for my mother and make her proud of me, and I got beaten and humiliated and had to listen to an arena full of people singing someone else’s theme after that loss. I didn’t get a ‘well done Lexy’, I didn’t get a ‘congratulations Lexy’, I didn’t get a ‘good job on everything up to that point’, I didn’t even get a single ‘we were sorry to hear about what happened before the show’ from a SINGLE PERSON because that’s the way I’m treated, that’s the way people really think about me in the locker room, and people that I admired, people that I respected, treat me like I mean THAT little to them and it kills me and I know this week it can all happen again, I know that the fans could sing someone else’s theme, I know that I could be humiliated a second time in a row and this isn’t even about Zack this week,” she admits before shaking her head. “Zack is an amazing competitor, I’ve watched so many of his matches and I’ve been in awe of everything he can do, and I know he has a history of controversy, I know that not everyone has always liked him, I know that he has a habit of rubbing people more than the wrong way and I know that he can be everything that I love and everything that I hate about this business, but if I can’t beat him, if I can’t... Where do you go when you’ve been beaten and humiliated and had something you valued taken from you like you meant nothing to anyone? I don’t know the answer. But if I can’t beat Zack Lifer this week, if I CAN’T move on this week, if I really DO become that person I joked about earlier being a human crash test dummy then... then maybe I don’t deserve to be here at all.”

She looks down for a moment like she didn’t want to have to say that last bit. “There, I said it,” she says softly. She looks like she’s barely holding it together. The facade she was putting on earlier with the jokes is almost completely gone now. “Autumn Effect 2 was the worst night of my career, a night where I wasn’t just beaten for a title but I was humiliated. I can’t do that again. I can’t go through that again. I wanted to walk away. I was so upset over everything that I wanted to quit and walk away and never come back but I didn’t. I’m back in Anaheim. On Monday night I’ll be at the Honda Center, and Monday night for me isn’t about proving I can be a contender, it isn’t about proving I can be a champion, it isn’t about proving I deserve a rematch, it isn’t about proving ANYTHING LIKE THAT, Monday night for me is just about proving that I even deserve to stand in that ring and you can all tell me I do and I’m sorry but right now it’s not about that. I’m not looking for sympathy. I need to prove something to myself. I dedicated the biggest match of my life to my mother and I didn’t even come CLOSE to winning it. I got HUMILIATED in that ring. Monday night is about nothing but proving something to myself, and if the same thing happens to me again... well, I’m not going to make any threats because I don’t even know what I’ll do. I can’t even consider it. Monday night I have one option and that’s to prove I deserve anything in this business, and do you want to know what’s kept me from sleeping today, despite the fact that I’m jet-lagged as hell and Nate is actually fast asleep right now? Because I can’t close my eyes without imagining the worst...”

She laughs again, far more weakly, before shrugging her shoulders. “Lexy Chapel’s lost her confidence and right now she feels about four inches tall. Zack Lifer is going to kick her ass all over her adopted hometown and when he’s done the fans are probably going to sing for him as well. I mean I love you guys but honestly, seriously, FUCK you guys for that, ok?” she says before letting out another sigh. “So, that’s all I’ve got for you this week, and I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry I can’t be laughing and joking and I’m sorry I can’t give you more right now but I don’t have it in me. I’ve had too much bad in my life, and it’s sucked all the fun right out of me. I need something good. If you guys want to apologise for singing in my misery then you could do one thing for me that’ll make it just a little bit better, and that’s hit like and show some love, and subscribe if you haven’t already. And if you haven’t then why not? Do it! Do it now! GET TO THA CHOPPA!! Sorry, that’s a whole different thing. Eh, that’s the show for this week. As always I’ve been Lexy Chapel, your guide to depression and humiliation and how to laugh to stop yourself from crying, and this has been another episode of the Chapel Show. Until next time, fuckers!”

She lets out another sigh pouting at the camera as the video ends. The Chapel Show logo flashes up on the screen as the video fades out and comes to its ending with the replay button appearing.

The Chapel Show

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