Shame.

La vergüenza.

It is a disease, amigo. An infection that crawls into the heart, spreads to the soul, and rots a man from the inside out. I have seen it many times in my long vida—proud warriors, powerful fighters, reduced to whispers of themselves because they could not escape it.

Shame does not come from nothing. No, no… it is born from choices. From mistakes. From betrayals. It is the shadow that follows you when you close your eyes at night, the ghost you see in the espejo when you look at yourself in the morning. And worst of all, it is a sickness that the weak… cannot cure.

Doom. Mi oponente. You carry this disease with you, and I can smell it on you like the stench of death in the Temple of Bones. You hide it well with your words, your science, your schemes… but I see it in your eyes. I see it when you think of Felix Foley. I see it when you remember that you turned on your friend, broke his trust, spit upon bond you had.

You suffer because you know you took the easy road. The road of el cobarde. You betrayed instead of fought. And that betrayal planted the seed of shame inside you, and now it grows. Every time you look at Foley, every time you step into this ring, that seed becomes a tree, its branches wrapping around your corazón, squeezing tighter, reminding you that no matter how smart you are, no matter how dangerous you are… you are weak.

Because shame makes you hesitate. Shame makes you doubt. It makes you second-guess yourself in the moment where there is no time to think. In the instant where the strong move forward, the weak—los débiles—they falter.

I do not suffer shame, Doom. No tengo vergüenza. Not because I have never made mistakes—Dios sabe, I have made many—but because I have faced them. I have worn them like armor. I have looked in the mirror and not looked away. That is why I am still here, in my fifties, still fighting, still winning. That is why I am El Dragón Caído and not a broken man hiding behind excuses.

And when you step into the ring with me, I will show you what a man without shame can do. And in that moment, you will wish you were free of this disease, you will wish you had cut it out before it consumed you… but it will be too late.

Because shame, amigo, is not just a sickness—it is a chain. And when you carry it into battle, it drags you down. It slows you. It makes you vulnerable.

You may be a genius, Doom. You may have every plan, every counter, every calculation… but the shame you carry will be your undoing.

And when you are lying there, staring up at the lights, your disease will whisper to you one last time.

It will say, “This is your fault.”

And you will know… que el Dragón tenía razón.