Hitman My Real Life in the Cartoon World (53 page)

Flair called every spot, even the outdated ones, including a barrage of his painful, stiff open-handed chops that left red handprints across my chest. Some guys liked it stiff, while some worked too light and phony. To me, chops were stupid and brainless and went against everything logical about the business. We’re only supposed to pretend we’re hurting each other; when you really are hurting and being hurt, you’re the mark. The only guy more stupid than the guy chopping you is the guy taking them. I suffered through more than enough chops, out of respect, before exploding into a huge comeback. I suplexed him off the top corner into the ring and stepped into the sharpshooter. My mind flashed back to all those wrestling magazines I created as a kid; the times I made my own championship belts out of cardboard and broken bottle glass. Ric Flair pounded his hands on the mat screaming uncle, and my childhood dream became a reality. I was champion of the world!

The crowd was stunned, and so was I! No one figured I’d be the one to pull the sword out of the stone. I had to respect that Flair at least passed the torch to me. I came back through the curtain, limping and holding my finger, to an ovation of handshakes and backslaps, Owen clapping the hardest.

Before I was taken to the hospital, I did a live interview with Mean Gene Okerlund in which I said,

“Since I was small I’ve been involved in wrestling, my whole family’s been involved in wrestling and I’ve dedicated my whole life—to wrestling. My father taught me, took me on the mat and made me feel the pain and I’ve listened and learned technical wrestling. I’ve had my share of wins and losses and I’ve waited for my whole lifetime for one chance and I’ve got that chance. I want to thank every single wrestler that I’ve ever worked against. I’ve wrestled the greatest wrestlers in the world and learned so much. I want to thank each and every one of them, especially Ric Flair. I want to thank you for stepping into the ring with me tonight and giving me that chance. I also want to thank all my fans all over the world for supporting me all these years. And to all my friends that have backed me up. Most of all I want to thank God above. God almighty, thank you for the greatest moment in my life! I’m proud to be the WWF World Champion!”

Oddly enough, the title match never aired on TV and afterwards, Flair promptly gave notice that he’d be finishing up in a couple of months to go back to WCW.

I limped back to my room late that night after a visit to the hospital revealed that my finger had been dislocated. Julie and the kids were too exhausted to celebrate much. I fell asleep in my cramped hotel room, tired, sore and hungry.

The following night at Regina TVs it was announced that I was the new World Champion, and I received a long ovation. After the show I celebrated with all the wrestlers at the hotel bar. Taker, Curt and Shawn Michaels grinned at me with the deepest respect. Owen, Bruce and Davey all slammed down empty glasses and even Stu honored me by tossing down a shot of J.D. It burned his gums and eyes and really lit him up, like Dracula drinking holy water.

28

ONWARDS AND UPWARDS

I QUICKLY ADJUSTED to being the biggest star in the company, the guy with the heaviest load and the biggest pay. I got a $55,000 check for SummerSlam 1992, and my paychecks tripled to around $6,000–7,000 a week. I finally believed that I’d one day be able to pay my house off, and took down the FOR SALE sign for good.

One of the first wrestlers I called after I won was Roddy. I’d already said to Owen that I was relying on him to help me watch my back, because as much as the wrestlers all said they were happy for me, everybody wanted my spot. Roddy echoed those words, stressing how important it was for me to get close to Vince, to try to be his best friend. I’d already been told by Pat that Vince liked to hear from his champion every day, so I was calling Vince daily even though to me it just felt like brown-nosing.

On October 27, at TVs in Terre Haute, Indiana, Vince and Pat told Davey it was time for him to drop the IC belt to Shawn. Instead of reminding Davey that dropping the belt to Shawn was part of the plan all along, Pat explained that they could only push one babyface champion at a time, and I was it.

This sowed seeds of discontent in Davey. Meanwhile, I did my best to be a friend to him, reminding him not to take it personally. But Davey grumbled long and loud about leaving to go back to Japan or WCW.

Over-the-top gimmicks had been the fad for some time in the WWF. Vince’s newest creation was an evil clown he called Doink, to be worked by Matt Bourne. In fairness to him, I have to admit that Matt had an uncanny ability to be a creepy clown; Doink had potential. But when Vince shot an angle having Davey lose to Doink, Davey misread the opportunity. Instead of realizing that working a program with a hot new heel would be good for him, he chose to listen to Diana, who was increasingly calling the shots and who convinced Davey that he was above jobbing out for a stupid clown.

As Vince’s new champion, I was counted on to fill Hulk’s shoes. Being a successful World Champion requires more than just being the best worker, and in fact, sometimes the best World Champions aren’t the best workers—Hogan and Warrior being the prime examples. Although I had a massive grassroots following, I didn’t have the level of promo skills or charisma of Hogan. I wasn’t six-foot-eight with twenty-four-inch arms. Strangely, it worked to my advantage. My athletic physique was as realistic as my wrestling, and Vince, in the midst of the steroid scandal, was doing his best to turn his business around based on my believability. If anything, I was the perfect contrast to Hogan, especially for fans who were sick of his all too familiar act. I was recognized for being an artist and a storyteller. If Hogan was the Elvis of wrestling, I was the Robert De Niro.

Vince needed me to steer clear of any and all trouble, and he was counting on the fact that I could work a four-star match with almost anyone. The days when the WWF was stocked with the best lineup of heels in the business to get Hogan and Warrior over were gone. Now almost all of the great heels that Vince had invested so much TV time in had disappeared from the WWF under the harsh light of the steroid scandal, and some were now riding high in WCW.

Soon enough, I was launched on return bouts with Flair, who seemed bent on sabotaging our matches. I wasn’t sure whether he was doing it accidentally or on purpose, but he was never there for me on my comeback and seemed to bungle the finish every night. I began to refer to Ric’s ring style as full blast, non-stop non-psychology. He made things up on the spot and did them whether they made sense or not. As a technician Flair was one of the best, but I was baffled by how little he really knew about building a great match. And I was even more baffled by how this went undetected by fans and sheet writers, who continued to worship him.

On November 18, Vince phoned to tell me he’d just fired Warrior and that, unfortunately, Davey was going to be next. He wanted to tell me first so I could prepare for any backlash that might happen as a result. He said that Warrior and Davey had been receiving shipments of growth hormone from a dealer in the U.K. who’d just been busted. Vince was so under the gun that he fired them both immediately. The fanciful vision I’d had of me twisting Warrior into the sharpshooter and him screaming uncle at WrestleMania IX vanished forever. After so many wrestlers had lain down to make him a star, Warrior would never return the favor. As for Davey, he was out of work and trying to get on with WCW.

Taker and I knew we were being heavily relied on to be the new leaders. Vince also pinned his hopes on Shawn, who was beginning to blossom into an obnoxious pretty boy heel who took great bumps, comparable only to Perfect or Dynamite. He was a tag team wrestler finally finding his niche as a singles performer. I fondly remember Shawn praising me the night I won the belt and telling me how grateful he was that I had finally opened the door for the smaller yet better workers who never got a break. “Guys like us!” He smiled and slapped me on the back.

Vince was building six-foot-seven Scott Hall as a takeoff on Al Pacino’s Scarface character. He cut promos with an obviously put-on Cuban accent and a toothpick dangling from his lip until he flicked it away. His neck was adorned with fake gold chains and a tacky razor medallion, his unshaven face was framed by long, greasy black hair and one casual curl carefully positioned to hang right down the middle of his forehead. Hall was well built but still green. On Curt’s suggestion he was dubbed Razor Ramon. Since Vince was dangerously low on heels, Razor was mega-pushed to the top and set to work with me in January at Royal Rumble 1993. Another potential top heel was Yokozuna, a huge Samoan named Rodney Anoa’i, whom Vince billed as a legit sumo wrestler and passed off as Japanese. Mr. Fuji was his manager. Last but not least was The Beast from the East, Bam Bam Bigelow, with his tattooed head. He’d departed a while back only to reappear with a much-improved attitude. He couldn’t have come at a better time.

I desperately hoped Vince could build some of these heels for me as soon as possible.

On November 25, after a long match at Survivor Series in Richfield, Ohio, I caught Shawn Michaels by the ankles as he was coming off the top rope with a flying drop kick and put him into the sharpshooter to retain the World title at my first pay-per-view as champion. Shawn confessed to me that he wasn’t in working shape to go a long match, so I paced the match a lot slower than I would have liked, as a favor to him. Vince said the match was right on the money, which was all I needed to know.

In Montreal, in early December, Pat brought me and Ric together and diplomatically told Flair to start trying harder. Ric was as obliging as ever before we got into the ring, but the match turned out exactly the same—maybe this was just how he worked. Then Ric apologized to me for our matches not being better, explaining that he was simply burned out and was dealing with family problems. I wanted to believe him, so I did. He would be leaving soon, anyway.

On December 14, at Green Bay TVs, Vince pumped my hand and slapped me on the back as he closed his office door. Then he said, “I thought you should know Hogan’s coming back, but he’ll have nothing to do with my plans for you and the belt. He’ll only be working tags with Beefcake for a short time as a favor, to help promote a movie he’s got coming out.”

I pictured Hulk shaking his head, with a big grin on his face, maybe a little relieved that the belt was on me instead of Warrior, or worse. I thought he’d be glad to see it on someone who’d at least worked hard for it, someone who respected and protected the business. I still had such respect for Hogan that if Vince had asked me to step back and hand him the belt, it would have been fine by me.

Vince had his problems to deal with in Green Bay. For the past six months, he had been building Kevin Wacholz as a psycho-killer ex-con named Nailz. Kevin cornered Vince in his office and screamed at him for fifteen minutes about all the lies he’d been told. His yelling got so loud I had goose bumps up my back as I listened from down the hall. Suddenly there was a loud crash—Nailz had knocked Vince over in his chair, choking him violently, until Lanza, Slaughter and a swarm of agents teamed up to pull him off. Nailz walked out and immediately called the police and accused Vince of making a sexual advance to him. Vince was charged with sexual assault (the charges were dropped shortly thereafter). Some of the boys actually admired Nailz for snatching Vince and then covering his tracks well enough not to get charged himself. The last thing Vince wanted was yet another scandal. The FBI was about to indict him for receiving steroids through the mail from the convicted doctor, the WBF was sinking fast and his wrestling empire was on shaky legs too. I wanted to come through for him: Only days earlier he’d said to me that he hadn’t always done right by his wrestlers but that starting with me he was going to change all that.

On my Christmas break, Julie and I celebrated what had to be the best year of my life. It appeared that we might actually succeed after all: the house, the kids, the dream. It all looked so nice through my rose-colored glasses. But there I was leaving on Christmas Day again. When my bags were packed and set by the door later that night, Blade came down in his pajamas and said, “Can I come to the ’port, Dad?”

Boy I’d sure miss him. He was already two and a half. I picked him up and said, “You can come if you promise me that you won’t cry when I leave.” He nodded and scampered away to put on his winter boots.

It was midnight when Julie and Blade dropped me off. We had a long hug and then a few short tight ones and a few good kisses. Blade said he wouldn’t cry—and he didn’t.

I took my seat up in first class next to Owen, who had been upgraded for the flight, and who wore the same heartbroken expression as I did. In a few hours we’d be sleeping on the airport floor in Toronto, with our bags for pillows, waiting to connect to another flight to work back-to-back double shots.

TVs were now every third Monday and Tuesday. On the other Mondays of the month, Vince added a show called Monday Night Raw, which would alternate between live and taped matches. The concept for Monday Night Raw was that it would be at the same venue each week, a historic 3,500-seat theater within walking distance of Madison Square Garden called the Manhattan Center. In January 1993 alone, the WWF produced something like fourteen hours of TV and a major pay-per-view. For the shows that didn’t air live, commentary was overdubbed in a number of languages at the WWF’s slick in-house production facility in Connecticut and beamed via satellite to networks worldwide. That’s not to mention the forty-two towns run that month with two teams of wrestlers for the house shows. This schedule became normal. They published it for fans in the monthly WWF

magazine under the banner “Killer Kalendar”—and that’s what it was.

On January 9, 1993, I had to do another return match with Flair at the Boston Garden, billed as a one-hour marathon match; it was the first show of a weekend of back-to-back double shots. I’d come up with a good finish that I ran by Vince, but when I told Flair he began telling me what we were going to do instead. I finally cut him off and, with regret, dressed him down in front of several wrestlers. “Ric, I’m the champion and this is how it’s going to go.” He dropped his jaw, turned red and sat on a bench saying, “You’re the champ.”