Hitman My Real Life in the Cartoon World (65 page)

Back in the dressing room, Owen stood with a bunch of the other wrestlers clapping as he said, staccato, “The best there is! The best there was! The best there ever will be!”

Davey Boy double-crossed Lex and turned heel. Undertaker was, once again, called upon to work a miracle, this time with Mabel, who had won the King of the Ring crown. And Bob Backlund was running for president of the United States. Not really, but they had a lot of people actually believing that he was a candidate!

As an offshoot to my on-and-off feud with Lawler, the storyline continued that his mouth had become infected from my toes so I was now to wrestle his dentist, Dr. Isaac Yankem, at SummerSlam in August. Yankem was actually a curly-haired, broad-shouldered six-foot-eight rookie named Glen Jacobs, who’d only just started working Lawler’s Memphis territory. He later became known as Kane.

I found it hard to get excited about working the cartoon storylines that Vince had for me, especially a September In Your House match I was supposed to have with Pierre LaFitte because he stole my ring jacket. I did my best to make these lame angles fly.

The night after Evansville TVs, at Mattingly’s, a sports bar owned by the New York Yankees, Taker sat with me and confided that he didn’t trust Shawn. While I’d been away, the clique had been prancing around acting like their shit didn’t stink.

Our attention turned to a disturbance at the far end of the bar. Shawn had made some kind of a racial slur, and the situation was escalating because Razor stepped in and head-butted a black guy.

Diesel was there standing guard over Shawn, who’d taken a handful of Somas and was in no shape to back up his own words. Lurking in the shadows was Paul Levesque, who was now working as a snooty, rich aristocrat named Hunter Hearst Helmsley, eventually to be known as Triple H. With him was his girlfriend, Joanie Laurer, a fellow graduate from Kowalski’s school, who was now working as his valet, Chyna. She was a female bodybuilder who resembled the Incredible Hulk cartoon character with a black wig on, but spoke with a little, squeaky high voice. Chyna was built better than most of the boys, but as far as I know Vince didn’t steroid test the girls.

Earlier that day Vince had told me Diesel wasn’t cutting it as champion, making the excuse that it was because of his elbow. But I’d always thought that Diesel was as good as dead after he worked with Shawn back at WrestleMania XI. I suggested to Vince that Kevin needed sympathy, and I knew how to get it for him. I could beat him for the belt by using an idea that came to me while watching Sabu in ECW crashing through tables. It was a new finish designed around dropping the belt back to Kevin at WrestleMania XII. As I explained it to Vince, he frantically scribbled it in his big black book.

Three days later, wrestling was all a strange, faraway dream. I sat on the Lonesome Dove set in a saloon called the Ambrosia Club waiting for my next scene. I was thrilled to hear that it was all but certain that I’d be a full-time cast member next season, playing the sheriff in all sixteen episodes.

On August 6, Vince called to tell me that he wanted me to win the belt, at Survivor Series, by crashing through a table. I listened to Vince tell me my finish as if I’d never heard it before. The only thing I could come up with was that he’d read what he’d written down in his black book and somehow actually thought it was his idea. All I could do was hope that he’d write down all my ideas from now on!

But it was Shawn he wanted me to drop the belt to at WrestleMania, not Kevin. “Do you have any problems with that?”

I thought about it. Despite how the boys felt about him, Shawn was a hard worker and had paid his dues as far as I could see. Of course I had no problem with it. The timing was perfect. I could go right into my sheriff role, filming all summer long, and reappear just in time for SummerSlam ’96.

By mid-August, Pat stepped down to take a break, voluntarily making room for Vince to hire Jim Ross’s mentor, the one-time Louisiana promoter (and more recently WCW booker) Bill Watts. I took this as a positive, especially since Watts was a hard-nosed, in-your-face, tough guy who liked his wrestling to look real.

I had a better match that anyone expected with Dr. Isaac Yankem at SummerSlam. I was pleased to find that despite being green, Glen Jacobs had a willingness to listen and learn. I told him to be proud of himself, and he was.

On September 4, WCW launched a Monday night show called Monday Nitro to go head to head with Monday Night Raw. The centerpiece of their debut show was a surprise appearance by Lex Luger, who, like Randy, had read the writing on the wall and left the WWF before it was too late.

Owen and Yoko lost the belts to a young cowboy team called The Smokin’ Gunns. Owen was now the proud father of a brand-new baby girl, Athena. For all those times he’d pulled pranks on me, I’d told everyone, straight faced, that he named her after Stu! It was kind of funny how mad he got when everybody kept congratulating him on the birth of his daughter Stuella. I?enjoyed finally paying him back.

I didn’t mind putting Shawn over at WrestleMania XII, but I knew that Shawn wasn’t the guy to fill my shoes, and I was damn sure he wouldn’t draw any better than I did. One big difference between me and Shawn, which would cost him, was that I appreciated my undercard. I always took the time to shake the hands of even the lowest jobber. A relatively small babyface always needs the heels to make him, but Shawn treated a lot of the wrestlers like they weren’t good enough to work with him.

The clique had managed to alienate themselves from nearly everyone, even the ring crew. Ron Harris, one of the big, bald-headed twins called The Blues Brothers, didn’t take kindly to Shawn’s remarks about his match. He grabbed a terrified Shawn by the neck in the shower at Madison Square Garden and told him if he wise-assed him again he’d shove his head up his ass! Shawn had even berated Chief, in what was the beginning of the end for one of Vince’s most loyal generals.

Bill Watts lasted only a few weeks, resigning on October 13 when he realized that Vince just wasn’t listening to him. It got back to me that Watts quit over Vince putting the belt on Shawn. He thought Shawn was too damn scrawny and that the belt should stay with me. Vince brought Pat back to work with him on booking, but lessened his load by putting Jerry Brisco in charge of all the wrestlers.

Brisco cozied up to me, pretending to be an old friend, one of the boys, and as there didn’t seem to be any choice, I tried to trust him.

The day after Watts resigned, Shawn yapped off one too many times, this time to a bunch of marines in a Syracuse bar. According to Davey, who was there with Kid, Shawn hit on a soldier’s girl, who was waitressing. By the end of the night the three wrestlers were loaded up on Somas, and the willing waitress offered to drive them back to their hotel. They staggered out to their car, only to be met by—depending on what version of the story you believe—four to nine angry marines. The three of them were helpless. The soldiers jerked Shawn out of the front seat, and Davey and Kid fumbled in slow motion to get out of the back. Kid made a pathetic attempt to throw some karate kicks, but he was so out of it they pushed him over like a scarecrow. Davey was so pilled up that he was barely able to stand, but as hard as they tried, they couldn’t take him down. He winced when he told me how they slammed Shawn’s head in the car door and pummeled him with fists and boots, with Shawn too drugged up to even put his hands up to shield his face.

At In Your House in Winnipeg on October 22, Shawn made a brief appearance, explaining that he’d been jumped by nine marines and would be out of action for a while. He conveniently forfeited the Intercontinental belt to Razor that same day, via an ECW import called Shane Douglas, so he could go home while his face healed up. Because the IC belt was still a big money spot, the attitude in the dressing room was that it was the clique looking out for their own again.

I was a guest announcer for Diesel’s match with Davey, and we got into a pie-face pushing kind of thing while I was at the announcers’ table. Diesel got no help from the Canadian audience, and the match bombed badly enough that Vince hurled his headset down in disgust and hissed, “Horrible!” It was around this time that WCW accomplished the unthinkable by beating Vince in the ratings, which only made things seem that much worse.

My match with Diesel at Survivor Series was brutally physical. We complemented each other, working and building the match for more than twenty-five minutes until I dove over the top onto Diesel; he moved out of the way and I bounced hard off the padded floor. Diesel pulled himself up the ropes and back into the ring while I slowly got to my feet. Walking past the announcers’ table I began to climb up on the apron when Diesel charged past Earl Hebner, using the top rope to catapult me crashing backward into the table, which was nowhere near gimmicked enough. It didn’t break the way it was supposed to and it was a loud, bruising crash.

As I lay hurt and helpless atop the shattered table, Diesel came out and tossed me into the ring like a rag doll, all the while taking his time appearing to be upset about it. He raised his black-gloved fist and pulled me up for his jackknife finish when I dropped and folded him up in a quick small package for the one . . . two . . . three. The crowd exploded! On what was my forty-first pay-per-view, I won the WWF World title for the third time. Diesel furiously bumped down the ref and gave me not one, but two, very sloppy and painful jackknife power bombs that knocked all the wind out of me.

Referees hit the ring like Keystone Kops, and Diesel left them lying on the mat. In an unscripted moment, he stood over top of me, dropped the World belt across my chest, glared down and snarled, “Don’t forget who did you the fuckin’ favor.” This was the same guy who, two years earlier, did nothing but suck up to me.

I thought Vince would play up the fact that I was now a three-time WWF World Champion, but I was wrong. The day after I regained the title, Raw was live from Richmond, Virginia, but the announcers only mentioned in passing that I was champ again, showing a brief clip of the match. It was Shawn’s first day back since getting beat up, and he and Diesel took center stage. Diesel made out like it was a tainted win for me. Not all the fans bought the pay-per-views, but everyone watched Raw, and for a while Diesel’s side was all a lot of them had to go on.

Later in the show, Owen worked a dandy little match where he jumped up and delivered an Inoki-style spin kick to the back of Shawn’s head. According to plan, Shawn carried on briefly, but then collapsed to one knee and fell unconscious. Soon paramedics frantically worked on him and Vince was in the ring, his headset off, looking visibly distressed. Owen played confused and left Shawn alone. And that was how they went off the air. It was done so realistically that almost everyone watching on live TV thought Shawn was really hurt. There were tearful girls everywhere, overshadowing the fact that the World title had changed hands.

Two days after I won the belt, they finally had me do an interview, but it was on the taped Raw, which wouldn’t even air until a week later. Such tactics certainly weren’t designed to make the champ look strong. In fact, before I’d even said a word, Backlund came out of nowhere and chicken-winged me until I was rescued by referees and agents and helped to the back.

I’d given Vince a five-star match with Diesel, but it was so quickly passed over that it was soon forgotten. Even the buildup to my In Your House match against Davey on December 17 was nonexistent, with all the attention being lavished on the ex-champion and the apparently seriously injured Shawn.

Diesel continued to imply, during his live TV interviews, that I only got the belt back because I sucked up to Vince. I now had the belt, but I didn’t have the power that usually came with it. Clearly Diesel and Shawn were in control, and I was only carrying the belt until Shawn could dispose of me at WrestleMania XII. What with Hogan, Lex and Diesel having failed at taking my position, Vince seemed determined to put me in a holding pattern and make certain that Shawn became the new king.

Vince must have realized that he had to do something with my match with Davey, so he flew Diana to Richmond TVs with the idea that maybe Diana could turn heel on me too. I didn’t like it one bit.

First of all, I thought it took away from Owen being the black sheep, but also with so many relatives turning on me—Owen, Jim, Davey, Bruce and now Diana, along with Diesel saying that I was a suck-up—a lot of fans would have to conclude that I must be hard to like.

Vince suggested that Owen, Davey, Diana and I talk over what we should do. Diana said matter-of-factly, “I’ll just tell Vince that I’ll do whatever he wants me to do.” I gasped and warned her, “Never, ever say you’ll do anything they want! They’ll make you shave your head and walk backward out there!”

A few minutes later, Owen and I stood talking privately in the hall outside Vince’s office. Owen had real concerns that Diana would come off looking bad as a mother and a parent and make the whole family look bad. Then we noticed Diana eavesdropping from around the corner. When we all went to Vince’s office to talk about it, Diana ignored our warnings. Her very first words to Vince were, “I’ll do whatever you tell me to do, Vince.” She so infuriated me and Owen that we shot the whole idea down in front of Vince, who decided it would be best to leave her out of things until Davey’s upcoming assault trial was finished.

I racked my brain for weeks trying to think of a way to make the match mean anything at all. Davey offered nothing, relying on me to figure it all out. My mind was a big blank. It was while driving to the Hersheypark Arena on the day of the match that I saw a pharmacy sign and it dawned on me that a little accidental blood would change everything. I bought razor blades and scissors. As I headed out to the ring I was determined to break Vince’s holding pattern and blow them away one more time.

Davey and I spent fifteen minutes building a two-part story. As I’d anticipated, in the early going the crowd was less than captivated by our storyline. After giving them an unsurprising part one, I straddled Davey atop a turnbuckle and climbed up to attempt a standing suplex off the top rope. But when I went to suplex him, he blocked it, and with his amazing strength he lifted me and threw me crotch-first onto the top rope. The crowd gasped as I collapsed to the floor, where I discreetly coughed the blade out of my mouth. When I got up Davey charged me from behind, leveling me head-first into the steel steps. I cut high in the hairline and blood poured hot. As Davey worked me over, my head looked like a bloody pulp and even the simplest moves popped now. People praised Robert De Niro for his dedication when he gained 150 pounds to become Jake La Motta for Raging Bull. How come the same compliment isn’t paid to pro wrestlers who bleed in the name of realism?