Ever since the death of Ace's cousin, Shawn Mathers, he has been on a downward spiral. He fell off of the wagon and is now drinking heavily again. He has worried his close friends but believes that he has done no wrong. Ace instead, blames Chapel and his relationship with Hudman as the reason for all of his troubles. Ace thinks that Chapel and Hudman have had a long time friendship that he will never be able to compete with and that Chapel's only reason for befriending Ace was because he felt sorry for him. John Adams then made the match between the two when he discovered that he could capitalize on the opportunity by putting them against each other for the World Title at the pay-per-view.