Death Clutch (9 page)

THE SWORD

A
ll of a sudden my problems were mounting. I missed the NFL by an inch. IRS problems. A legal battle over my visitation rights regarding my daughter, Mya. No money coming in, and not that many options left because I signed that stupid noncompete clause with WWE. I had no one to blame but myself. My lawyers warned me not to sign that noncompete agreement, but I was in such a rush to get out of there, I got impatient and put my signature on that piece of paper.

That cost me a lot of time and money. I guess this is where I'm supposed to say “you live and learn,” but it still burns me to this day how much money I lost because they knew I was miserable and wanted to break away from their company.

With all these pressures piling up, one on top of the other, I was depressed. Every day, I was drinking more and more vodka, chasing down more and more Vicodins. This was exactly where I was in WWE, except now I wasn't pulling in big money anymore. I was quickly burning through what money I had, and I had no clue what I was going to do next. I had walked away from my wrestling career, so that door was shut. Thanks to the noncompete clause, so was every other door, too.

I was angry. I was drunk. I was pilled up. I was going to do damage to someone or something. My first victim? Myself!

I ended up at a biker bar in Phoenix, right next door to which—and this may come as a big shock to you—there just so happened to be a tattoo parlor. I felt like life was holding a sword right up against my throat, so I went under the ink gun because I never wanted to forget exactly how I felt at that time.

The bad times only make you appreciate the good times even more, and if I was ever told that I could only keep one tattoo, this one of the sword pointing right up against my throat is the one I'd keep. I wouldn't even have to think about the answer. This tattoo on my chest has so much meaning to me. In some ways, it's funny, because the period of my life that I'm talking about is a time I so want to forget, but I know I can use this memory as motivation. And just in case I ever start slipping up, I have this sword right across my torso as a constant reminder of all the things that changed my life.

I look at that sword almost like it was a family crest. It's my inspiration to fight back, because if there's one thing I know deep in my heart about myself, it's that I am not a quitter. I am a warrior, and I will never let anything or anyone—be it the NFL or Vince McMahon—keep me down!

“RENA, WILL YOU MARRY ME?”

E
verywhere I looked, all I could see was uncertainty. But there was one thing I was sure of: I wanted to marry Rena. However, before I could do this, I needed her to get out of WWE. “If we want a relationship,” I told her, “neither one of us can work for that company. We both know the long-term side effects of everything there.”

That was my only demand. Nothing else. Just that.

And so she left World Wrestling Entertainment. She had worked so hard to get back into that company, and now she was leaving it again, except this time she was giving up her career for me. It couldn't have been an easy decision. I was all stressed out, my future was up in the air, and my daughter was still very young. Like all couples, we had some differences to work through, but Rena was willing to do whatever it would take to make things work. She deserves a lot of credit, because at that time, I was just creating controversy everywhere I turned.

One day, of course, I pushed things too far, and Rena decided that she'd had enough of my bullshit. She was smart enough to pack her bags and go back to her own house in Florida.

I knew she was the woman I was going to marry, and I also knew I'd screwed up by driving her away. I started calling her, but she wasn't going to make it easy for me. I guess I should have taken the hint after a week of her not taking my calls. As things turned out, I'm glad I didn't take the hint.

You can think whatever you want about this statement, but I never really chased anyone before. It just wasn't my style. Here I am, calling her constantly, and I'll be the first one to admit I'm begging her to talk to me.

By the time two weeks had gone by, I was beside myself. Rena wouldn't answer the phone, wouldn't return my calls. She was sending a message loud and clear. She wasn't playing hard to get; she was letting me know that she would devote her life to me, but I had to play by the rules with her.

I wanted her to know how serious I was about building a life together, so I hopped on a plane, and in a last-ditch effort to be with the woman I knew I should spend my life with, I headed down to Orlando.

I made one stop on the way to the airport. I went to a jewelry store and bought an engagement ring. This was going to be “all or nothing,” and the stakes had never been higher.

I had been to Rena's house a bunch of times, but I never wrote down the address. I knew how to get there from the airport, but that didn't do me a lot of good.

I got into a taxicab, and right away I'm arguing with this stupid cabbie, because he keeps telling me he needs an address. “Don't worry about the address!” I kept telling him. “Just turn right, go down six lights . . .”

I had to force myself to calm down, because I was going to punch this guy's lights out. Finally, I just got out of his cab, and ended up in another taxi.

This jackass of a driver pulls the same shit with me as the first guy. “I need an address, I must know where I am going!” Well, I'm trying to tell the guy where he's going. “You go down this road, turn right …”

I ended up getting out of that cab, too. I was running out of patience. I just wanted to get to Rena's house, see the woman I love, and get her to marry me. I can't even get there, because these damned taxi drivers are all assholes!

So I get into the third taxi of the day, and I tell the guy, “Listen, I'm having a bad day. I just need to go home. I don't even know my own address. I just know how to get there. Please, just take me where I want to go, okay?”

The taxi driver was either laughing at me, or scared out of his mind. Either way, he says to me, “Just guide me along.”

I was so happy to hear him say that.

Of course, it's not over yet.

Rena lived in a gated community, and wouldn't you know it, the gate is closed when we get there. So I'm sitting there for over half an hour with the taxi driver, trying to figure out a way in, when lo and behold, another car pulls up. We went right in behind it, and after all this trouble, I finally get to Rena's house.

I was so ready to see her. I rang the doorbell. I'm standing there, preparing myself for whatever reaction she has when she opens that door. If she's happy to see me, I'm scooping her up in my arms. If she's pissed, I know I have to make good on my stupid mistakes. So, what's it going to be?

Well, I didn't find out right away, because Rena wasn't home. I'm standing there ringing the doorbell, and I know someone is going to notice me standing in front of her house and call the cops.

I can't just break down the door, because she has all this security. Plus, it would probably piss her off. So, I decide to try to get in from the back of the house. Here's this three-hundred-pound gorilla jumping the fence into the backyard, and it's not like I'm inconspicuous. I'm just hoping to God that maybe she left the window open or something like that. Of course, she didn't. Everything is all locked up.

I saw a neighbor standing by his garage, and I knew he had seen me around with Rena enough to know we were a couple. That was a lucky break for me, because the guy never got suspicious. I told him I was working in the backyard and needed a screwdriver. It was the best excuse I could come up with.

I used the screwdriver he loaned me to get into one of her sliding doors, and of course the alarm goes off as soon as I get into the house. I knew the pass code, so I shut off the alarm, and now I'm inside. I returned the screwdriver to the neighbor, brought in my bags, and started waiting. I was sure Rena wasn't out of town, because it was obvious that the house had been lived in. I figured she would come back, and we'd settle our problems.

Well, I sat around for a couple of hours, and she still wasn't home. I started calling her from my cell phone, which was a dumb-ass move because she hadn't taken my calls in over two weeks. I didn't want her to know where I was, so I just kept calling her from my cell phone, and not from her landline.

I'm sitting in her house, and I'm stewing. I couldn't wait any longer, so I picked up her house phone and dialed her cell. You can probably imagine what must have gone through her mind when she looked at her cell phone and saw her own number pop up on the caller ID.

She answered the phone, and me just being me, I just said, “Hey, how are you doing?”

Rena was pissed. “Brock, where are you calling me from?”

Of course, I was going for broke here, so I said, “Don't you recognize the number?”

She couldn't believe it. “You better not be at my house!”

I told her, “Well, I'm here, and I'll be here when you come home, because I'm waiting for you!”

Just to teach me a lesson, Rena took her own sweet-ass time getting home, making me wait and wait and wait. Once she got home, I knew she was as happy to see me as I was to see her—but I still walked around on pins and needles.

I ended up spending a week with Rena in Florida. When she took me to the airport, she came inside the terminal with me. It was right there, by the waterfall in the Orlando airport, that I asked her to marry me.

I don't think my wife has ever regretted saying yes. I can tell you, I've never regretted it for a single moment. We were meant to be together.

MY NOT-SO-SECRET MEETING WITH VINCE

I
was the last man cut from the Vikings squad. My mission was never to pursue a career in the NFL, but to escape WWE. Once I got cut by the Vikings and left Phoenix, I spent about thirty days doing nothing but hunting and thinking about my future.

I had no interest in some of the weird offers that were coming in. Tabloid news shows want to pay me for my story? No thanks.

Stupid meathead movie roles? I think I'll pass on those, too.

Autograph-signing appearances in shopping malls? I'm sorry, that's just not my style. I have never been one to prostitute myself out for the quick buck.

I needed to find something I could be proud of doing, and enjoy the ride while it lasted. I wanted to do something my parents would approve of, something that would allow me to provide the things for my family that I always envisioned them having.

I couldn't figure out which way to turn, and then my lawyer, David Olsen, called me with some interesting news. David had been contacted by New Japan Pro Wrestling, the big group based out of Tokyo and run by Antonio and Simon Inoki. They were thinking about all the hype they could build around a shooter who'd become the youngest WWE champion in history, and were looking to cut a deal right away.

I had never thought about wrestling in Japan, or anywhere else for that matter, because WWE had me sign that noncompete agreement which said I could only wrestle for Vince, and I thought I was on the shelf until 2010. So, instead of having David get back to the Inokis right away, I told him to contact WWE.

If I went back to the company, though, I didn't want it to be like the first time. I wanted to have some control over when and where I worked. I was going to make sure up front that I had time off written into my deal, and I wanted to get paid what I thought I was worth.

Over the next several months, David went back and forth with the WWE lawyers trying to work out the details. Finally, a one-on-one, supposedly secret, meeting between Vince and me was arranged.

This part still makes me laugh to this day.

As soon as I walked into the WWE offices, they had cameras all over me. Before Vince and I even said hello to each other, the front page of their Web site had the headline “Brock Lesnar Meets with WWE!”

So on one side of the world, I'm walking into Vince McMahon's office to see if we can patch things up, put everything behind us, and do some business together again. On the other side of the planet, the Inokis were probably reading about my “secret meeting” with Vince, and could have been starting to think they are in a bidding war with WWE.

By putting our “secret” meeting on the Internet, Vince gave me all the leverage I needed to negotiate with the Inokis. He might as well have put a big red bow on this early Christmas present. The Inokis had put so much thought into bringing me in, it was now a matter of pride for them. They were willing to pay whatever it took to keep me from going back to WWE.

I didn't want to have to go all the way to Japan to make a living. If I could have had my way, I would have ended up back in WWE, but on my own terms. I walked into that meeting with Vince to give him first dibs on my services. All he had to do was be reasonable with me. If he wanted me back, he had that opportunity. If he didn't want me back, then I was just wasting my time so that Vince could look me in the eye and tell me how disappointed he was that I left. It was his decision, and it wasn't going to take long for me to find out which way the meeting was headed.

Vince invited John Laurinaitis to join us in the meeting. Laurinaitis had replaced Jim Ross as head of the talent relations department, and Vince wanted him to sit in with us while we talked things out. I'm not one to beat around the bush, so I told Vince . . . right in front of John . . . that we were getting started on the wrong foot.

“I thought this was going to be mano a mano,” I told Vince. Obviously, he had other ideas.

“Well, Brock,” Vince said, setting the tone for the entire meeting, “John runs talent relations, and I would be disrespecting him if I asked him to leave this meeting. I'd be excusing him from a meeting that affects his entire department.”

All I could think of was, “Just get to the part about my deal. I'm not even here ten minutes, and I'm already sour on the experience!”

Before we could talk about money, Vince and John had to play their little games with me. John started talking about the tattoo on my chest, and actually asked me to take my shirt off.

Right there. In the middle of a business meeting. And not just any business meeting, either, but one where the people involved were trying to put a lot of bad blood behind them. There were issues that had had a lot of time to work themselves out, but both sides were still hot at each other. We're trying to find a way to work together again, to make money with each other, and the head of the talent department wants me to take my damned shirt off in the chairman's office so I can show off my new tattoo?

Screw that.

That's when Vince stakes out his position, and tells me I'll have to start all over again because I walked out on my first deal. “Start at the bottom, and work your way back up to the top!” he tells me. “That's the only way this is going to work!”

Vince wasn't talking about a push. He was talking payroll. I'd have to come back for a deal worth a lot less than I had been making. The fact that I'd left on top meant nothing. Vince was offering me a rookie deal, and he knew it was a complete insult.

It didn't matter that my value was still high, that I put over Eddie Guerrero for the title and Goldberg at
WrestleMania
. It didn't matter that I could be back on top in no time at all, or that I could be back drawing Vince big money with the right reintroduction, the right angle, even just the right promo.

Vince wanted to bully me like he does everyone else, because most people who end up on the outs with Vince McMahon don't have a pot to piss in. They have to crawl back on their hands and knees, begging for scraps.

Well, I had a ton of problems and a tattoo that symbolized the sword I felt I had at my throat, but I wasn't going to let anyone talk to me like I'm a piece of shit. Vince was talking to me like I was some low-life jerk-off who had nowhere else to go.

What Vince never understood about me is that I am, at heart, still a poor kid from that farm in Webster, South Dakota. Yes, I lived the life of a rock star for a few years in WWE, but I knew I could be happy with my future wife no matter what I did for a living or how much money I made.

If I had to farm for a living, I'd be one happy, hardworking farmer, married to the woman I love, and satisfied with myself because I never let anyone talk to me the way Vince did in that meeting. He could have had me back, almost one hundred percent on his terms, except with just a little concession about the schedule, and he blew it.

After I walked out of my “secret” meeting with Vince that day, I headed for the airport. Rena asked me on the phone what had happened, and I told her the meeting went well. I also told her that I had swallowed my pride, and it looked like I was going to go back to work for Vince. But before I made the final decision, I wanted to see the contract his lawyers were supposed to send to David Olsen. When we got Vince's deal in writing, it still looked to me like a rookie deal, for rookie money, with no more days off than I had before. That was the moment I decided I was going to find out what the Inokis were willing to pay me to wrestle in Japan.

Brad Rheingans had been working with New Japan for about nineteen years, so I made sure I got him in on the deal. With Brad on my team, I had the perfect person to smarten me up to the Inokis' way of doing business. I knew going to Japan could be a big score, but I also knew I was going to have to have a good strategy to get that kind of money out of the Inokis.

I also guessed that Vince McMahon was going to do everything in his power to stop me from making a living.