Forgiven: One Man's Journey from Self-Glorification to Sanctification (11 page)

In putting an end to this chapter in my life, I also want to say, to any teenager or young adult out there who may be reading this book, if you ever experience any of the symptoms I talk about, please don’t handle the situation like me. Obviously, in that period of my life I needed both God and professional help, but I was just too proud and stubborn to seek out either. I was in the wrong place — and faith and a qualified professional could have saved me a lot sooner. Today, I also realize I was not alone. I recently read the autobiography of Donny Osmond, who had no doubt visited the same place I had. It’s common, but when it happens to you, do yourself a favor and address it immediately.

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Chapter 12

THE COMEBACK

1987 was no doubt my comeback year. Aside from Will (he was named after former San Francisco Giant Will Clark, though to this day Amy thinks we named him after her dad — a great man in his own right) being born, I realized a lifelong dream — I opened my own business. No more publishing, no more colleges, no more crooked professors. I was now going to do something I truly wanted to do — work for myself. As I stated earlier, you get out of a situation what you put into it — as long as you are the one controlling the situation. From this point forward there was going to be no “outside interference” slowing me down, no bosses telling me what to do and how to do it. I was going to control my own destiny. I was going to be the chief.

While peddling textbooks for cbs, I got a weekend gig at a store called Video Breakthrough. A fine, trendsetting establishment, “vb” was a video superstore before video superstores existed. They had the 66

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latest in video technology, along with thousands of movies for sale and rental. The store was founded and built by two high school teachers chasing the same dream I was. They designed, crafted and built the place from the foundation up. When construction was complete, it was a movie wonderland. And they both took such pride in it — it was their “baby.” Working as a sales consultant at Video Breakthrough, I treated the company as if it were my own. My bosses treated me with respect, and in turn, I pushed hard to help make their dream become a reality. The role was right up my alley, too. I was a big-time movie buff. To this very day I can quote every line from
Saturday Night Fever
and
Rocky
. I’ve always loved the movies and television. To me it was the perfect escape. And as a writer, I feasted on good dialogue. In my opinion, the words always made the movie.

Movies played a big role in my life as I grew up, and perhaps one of my best childhood memories was of my father taking me to the drive-in to watch a 10-hour Ape-athon.

I was a huge
Planet of the Apes
mark, and when I was about 12, my father took me to see all five pictures in succession — from the original, all the way through to
Battle
. The monkeyfest began at about 8

p.m. and ended somewhere near 5 a.m. Jim was out by the second one,
Beneath the Planet of the Apes
(it was also the worst). But I’m proud to say that I made it through all five. I’ll never forget my father doing that for me — those are the things that count. He didn’t know Cornelius from Curious George, but at the time, he knew it meant everything to his son.

With the birth of Will, things really began to turn around. And, shortly after his arrival, I bought Video Breakthrough. Well, I didn’t
actually
buy it — my parents refinanced their house to help me mortgage it. I think we paid about $200,000 for the store, half cash/half note. I promised my parents that the business would pay them back —

and it did, but only for about four years. At one point, business was so booming we opened a second location. There were no superstores at the time — we were it. Our stores were hip, the customers loved us and we all worked out butts off . . . except, of course, the Fruitinator.

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Vince Russo

First of all, Fruitsy hated the customers. Why? Because, in general, she hates everybody. To get out of working, she would start an argument with me five minutes into every day, then throw her hands up and say, “That’s it!” Then she’d grab her pocketbook and go home.

Every single day this happened. I opened up the store at 10 a.m. and closed at 10 p.m. — I was there
every
minute. That came to 84 hours a week, but I didn’t even care. I dove in head-first and never even came up for air. Unfortunately, Amy was raising Will by herself. What was I supposed to do? Finally, I had everything I wanted. My days of working for somebody else were over. I controlled my own destiny, and I was going to be big-time successful. . . .

I should have seen Blockbuster coming.

We were making money hand over fist; I was literally stuffing it into safety-deposit boxes. It was coming so fast, we just didn’t know what to do with it. We were all working so hard — me, my father and my partner/boyhood pal, Jimmy Monsees. And we took great pride in our business. Will the Thrill’s Video (we changed the name) was a huge success. I smelled early retirement, baby, until somebody ripped the wind from our “sales.” About a mile down the road from our original location, the construction of a building began. It looked like an ordinary building to me, until the sign went up — “Coming soon: Blockbuster Video.” They had done their homework. They knew we were the only game in town, and they knew we were a success.

Immediately, my parents panicked. My father had just taken early retirement, and now he was screwed. I did everything I could to calm the troops, but the writing was splattered all over the proverbial wall.

We just didn’t have the money to compete with them. We’d buy 10

copies of a new release to rent, they’d buy 50. And all our “loyal” customers who we had kissed up to for well over four years — forget it.

People aren’t loyal. If they could get
Dirty Dancing
from Blockbuster the first day it came out, they were headed to the blue and yellow.

Well, at least we had our second location, and that was a goldmine.

They soon figured that out as well.

That’s right — across the street from our new store, Blockbuster 68

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Forgiven

Video opened up another of their own. We were dead in the water.

Eighty-four hours a week became 100 — it didn’t matter. The fat lady hadn’t just sung — she’d given a whole concert, with two encores to boot! On principle alone we hung in there for about a year — but the end was inevitable.

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Chapter 13

NOW WHAT?

I couldn’t believe my bad luck. It had taken me four years to get my life back on track, and now this. Amy should have divorced me. Since we had been married I spent
zero
time with her. I was always obsessed with work, my success, the challenge — and for what? I had no clue what I was going to do, but I knew I had to do something. Will the Thrill’s receipts were down to about $100 a day. The customers were gone. It was
The Omega Man
, and I was Charlton Heston. Everybody abandoned us. I needed to find a new line of work, but I had no idea what that was. The last thing I wanted was to go to work for someone again. What can I say? Corporate America and I mix like Jerry and the rest of the castaways from
Survivor 
. I’m a free spirit — I just can’t handle rules and regulations.

Enter John Arezzi.

One day while working in the video store, a man in his late 20s walked into my nightmare. He introduced himself as John Arezzi and 70

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Forgiven

told me that he had a wrestling talk show on a local Long Island radio station. Arezzi had heard of Will the Thrill’s through some listeners who had come to my store on occasions when I had done promotions involving wrestlers. Over the years, we had wwf superstars Jake “the Snake” Roberts, Demolition and Brutus “the Barber” Beefcake.

Literally thousands of fans would show up when we had wrestling promotions, with lines wrapping around the entire strip mall. I remember the first one we did with Jake. About an hour before he showed up, I went outside to look at the crowd. Well, it was more like a mob. I remember thinking, “What did I do?” I was so concerned that I called in the police to help maintain order. What a promotion

— but at Will the Thrill’s, that was the way we did things. We deco-rated the entire store like a snake pit, with running water fountains, hanging moss and everything. What a bunch of marks we were and, to his credit, John Arezzi knew it. John’s show, “The Pro Wrestling Spotlight,” was struggling and John needed help. He asked me if I would be interested in advertising on the show. Fully realizing that John might be nothing more than a shyster smelling the money of a mark, I decided to get in on the game anyway, because I saw an opportunity. I needed a new profession, and I saw John as my ticket into the world of professional wrestling. Sure, on the surface he seemed a bit shady, but he also seemed to have all the right connections. With my business savvy and his black book, I could make this thing work. Exactly where I was going with it I had no idea, but I had to go somewhere, because Will the Thrill’s was hanging on by its short hairs.

So, I was on to my next chapter. Little did I know at the time that it would be a chapter I would continue to write for more than a decade.

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Chapter 14

MY DINNER WITH JOHN

I began doing business with John Arezzi in late November, 1991. And what a venture it was. I paid for a good chunk of John’s show every week. Amy thought I was out of my mind. My video stores were going out of business, and here I was handing money over to a stranger so he could play on the radio every Sunday morning. But John was just business — he had a love and a passion for wrestling, and he was focused on success. But again — why did Amy stay with me? I never fully realized what I put her through until I started actually getting it down on paper! It was always the Ralph Kramden get-rich-quick scheme. Everything was the next big thing. Man, were my priorities out to lunch. It was always about me, me, me — with Amy having little or no say in the matter.

From a business standpoint I thought Arezzi’s show had a lot of potential. While there was room for it to grow on a production level, John was very passionate about wrestling. Like me, he grew up with 72

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Forgiven

it, and that love never left him. I also felt the show could grow as far as our audience was concerned. It was on a local radio station with a weak signal, drawing the same audience and the same callers week after week. We definitely needed to expand if it was going to become profitable. So I did some research, and contacted other radio stations in the New York City area that were selling airtime. Within a few weeks, we struck a deal with wevd in the heart of New York City.

With 50,000 watts of power behind us, we were now ready to make some noise. We kept the show on Sundays, but we moved it to 11 p.m., a time slot where more listeners would have their ears to the radio.

Now reaching the entire tristate area (New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania), our show grew dramatically — as did its price tag. The hour on wevd cost us roughly $1,500 per week. My video store alone was not going to carry that, so we — mainly I — had to come up with other income to pay for everything.

Doing what I did best, I went back to writing. John and I began to publish a biweekly newsletter,
The Pro Wrestling Spotlight.
Within a month, business was beginning to pick up. We took in more than 500

subscriptions, but remember, it cost us money to have the newsletter laid-out, typeset, printed and mailed. In other words, a good portion of the dough to stay on the radio was still coming out of the pocket of the dying Will the Thrill’s Video. I’ve got to tell you, I was busting my butt to make this thing work. I even hit the pavement in search of sponsors. But I didn’t feel John was putting in the same effort I was.

I felt he was using me for the money; but then again, I also saw the situation as an opportunity, so I just dealt with it. I took the venture seriously — as a matter of fact, seriously enough to actually get into the ring.

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Chapter 15

MY LIFE AS A GRAPPLER

You’ve got to understand something about me. When I get into something, I go
all
the way. I wanted to learn every aspect of the wrestling business. Yeah, I was a fan of the product. But what went on inside — behind closed doors — in the locker room? I wanted to know the complete ins and outs of the game. Understand —
I never
wanted to be a wrestler
— I simply wanted to get an education, to be a student of the game. All I needed was a teacher.

My quest for sponsors for the “Pro Wrestling Spotlight” brought me to Brooklyn, New York, the famous home of Gleason’s Gym.

Gleason’s was located directly under the Brooklyn Bridge — you couldn’t get any more raw than this. This place was the real deal. If you wanted to learn how to box, you went to Gleason’s. Man, it was straight out of
Rocky
. There was nothing glamorous about this joint at all — it was basically held together by blood, sweat, tears and a lot of spit. But it was a slice of life — Brooklyn at its finest.

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Forgiven

Located in the back of Gleason’s was a ring a tad bigger than all the others. Sitting next to a small office, it was Johnny Rodz’s wrestling ring. Now, if you’re a New Yawker, you know who Johnny Rodz is.

During his prime, Rodz was a wrestling legend. Sure, he was a peren-nial jobber (a guy who loses matches for a living), but he was the best at what he did. Plus, there was always that “unpredictable” label. On any given night, whether it was a high school gym, or Madison Square Garden, Rodz could beat you. Even if he lost 100 straight matches, you would always remember that one win. One of my favorite things about Johnny Rodz was the fact that he had character.