Hitman My Real Life in the Cartoon World (80 page)

Taker blew his stack and shouted, “Fuck! I’m gonna bring his ass down here. I want Vince to explain himself to me, you and everyone else!” He kicked the dressing-room door open. As he stomped off down the hall, I could hear angry wrestlers calling out to Taker where he could find Vince.

Paul’s crew left so I could undress. I somehow found some humor in the fact that after his match Davey had borrowed my towel (as he often did), leaving me without one as I headed to the showers.

My head was spinning and my heart had a giant hole in it as the water poured over me. Rick Rude and Davey appeared just out of range of the showers to tell me that, true to his word, Taker had made Vince open his door. Vince had rounded up a makeshift crew of bodyguards consisting of Slaughter, Brisco and his son Shane. I had my friends: Taker, Sham-rock, Foley, Vader, Rude, Crush, Savio and especially Owen, Davey and Jim.

This whole thing could turn into a damn mutiny—or worse!

Finally Vince came down the hall with his posse and stepped into the dressing room.

“He says he wants to talk to you,” Rick called to me in the shower.

“Tell Vince to get the hell out of here before he gets hurt.”

Rick and Davey returned seconds later and told me in unison, “He says he’s staying.”

I told them to please warn him to leave. “If he stays, he’s gonna get knocked out.” But they came back with the same answer.

I came out of the shower sopping wet, with no towel, and calmly walked past Vince. I was actually thinking that if they ever did a movie about this, it wouldn’t look very good if I beat Vince up naked.

As I picked up a damp towel from the floor, Vince dryly offered, “It’s the first time I ever had to lie to one of my talent.”

“Who are you kidding, you lying piece of shit?” I shot back. Shawn now sat crying in the corner.

Brisco and Slaughter tried to clear everyone out of the dressing room. Owen was about to leave when Davey grabbed him by the arm. “Don’t leave,” he said. “Remember what happened to Bruiser Brody.” None of my boys left.

With Davey, Rick, Owen and Jim on my left, I sat down and glared at Vince, surrounded by his henchmen, who all stood with their arms behind their backs. Taker was also there, offering me full support. Shawn was still blubbering like a baby, his head in his hands.

“You told me I could leave any way I wanted. That I was Cal Ripkin. That I was doing you a favor. That you appreciated everything I ever did. That for everything I’ve done there was no reason for any problems. You’ve told me nothin’ but lies all week, all fucking year!” I said in a surprisingly calm voice. Then I added, “If you’re still here when I’m finished getting dressed, I’ll have no choice but to punch you out!”

Vince seemed unfazed, even tried to take credit for my deal with Turner, but I cut him off to remind him that I’d taken the lesser deal from Vince because I’d wanted to stay loyal to him. “After fourteen years, you just couldn’t let me leave with my head up?”

I shot him down on every lie. I was calm and rational as I sized up the room and who was where, noticing too the look on Owen’s face: I could see he was afraid of what it might be like to stay on with Vince after this, whatever this was, was over, but that he was backing me to the fullest. Like one of my best matches, I could see it all play out in my head. I knew a fight with Vince was likely to come down to a half-assed pull-apart, so I intentionally left my shirt off so no one could grab it. I’d be lucky if I got one good shot in before they all pounced on me. When I tied the laces of my high-tops, I stood up and said, “Okay.”

I picked up my knee brace, thinking to smash Vince over the head with it, but I tossed it down, declaring, “I won’t need this!” and went straight for him. Cockily Vince came back at me and we actually tied up. Fourteen fuckin’ years! I launched a rocket-launcher uppercut that connected with Vince’s jaw. My right fist actually popped him like a cork off the ground, and he collapsed unconscious to the carpet. His cavalry jumped in, but they were too late. I found myself jostling with Jerry Brisco, who I would find out later was the one who had designed the whole screwjob for Vince.

I told him if he so much as touched me again, I’d give him exactly the same as I’d given Vince, and the lying little coward backed away with his hands up. For the next forty seconds we all stared at Vince unconscious, splayed like an X on the floor. I calmly took my seat again and noticed that my hand was throbbing. I thought it might be broken. Shane pulled Vince into a sitting position and pleaded with me to let his father get his bearings.

I thought of my dad, who had been at home watching me get screwed on live TV, and my sons out in the hallway, and I remembered that Paul Jay was just outside the door. Vince was blowing like a horse, still out of it, and I couldn’t help but think that maybe Paul should capture some of this. I angrily shouted, “Get him out!” Slaughter and Brisco dragged him backward by the armpits and plopped him on the bench across from me. I stood up and snatched my knee brace with a wild, mad look on my face, and I think I meant it when I shouted, “Get him the fuck out right now or I’ll finish him with this!”

When I came toward him, Shane and his helpers propped Vince on his feet and walked him limping out the door. I would find out later that my punch lifted him high enough off the ground that when he came down he rolled his ankle and nearly broke it.

And as history would have it, Paul filmed a dazed Vince staggering down the hall.

The dressing room was now quiet, except for Shawn’s sniffling. I walked toward him, thinking I should kick the shit out of him too, while I had the chance. Instead I held out my hand. “Thanks for the match, Shawn.” He shook my broken hand and started crying even harder.

It all seemed so surreal. After a few more moments of silence, Jim said with a mischie-vous smile, “I guess they won’t say anything to me anymore about smashing TV monitors.” Rude, Taker, Owen, Jim and Davey all burst out laughing.

When I got back to my hotel I asked Marcy, who was seething over how I’d been treated, to get the truth out to the media and the fans before Vince rewrote history—and with her vast network of contacts, I knew she could. It was an international news story before Vince’s damage-control team had their morning coffee, and by then it was too late for Vince to smooth it over.

The next afternoon, while I was on the plane home, Vince had a talent meeting at Raw in Ottawa, during which more than a few of the boys nearly quit. After the match, wrestlers kept calling my hotel room saying that they wanted to boycott Raw. I deeply appreciated their support but told them to think of their families first. Ken Shamrock was one of those who nearly quit. Davey and Owen came home too; Davey pretended that he had reinjured his knee during the scuffle with Vince, but Owen didn’t offer any excuse. Mick Foley actually quit.

I had no hard feelings about anyone staying on with Vince, including Jim, Davey and Owen. I left it up to them. If things got rough for all of them, I’d see if Eric was interested in any of them, but only if they wanted me to.

On the plane home, I’d been so dejected that my fist held up my chin the whole way, looking out the window with the occasional tear rolling down my cheek. I couldn’t stop them and I didn’t feel like hiding it. Jade just kept patting my hand.

Paul Jay’s crew filmed me on the plane: I couldn’t understand why Paul was so happy. He kept saying to me, “You’re going to love what I got,” but I wasn’t getting it because I was literally in shock. Paul said the God of documentaries had shone down on him in Montreal and he had the whole conversation I’d had with Vince before the match on tape. But I wasn’t processing what he said.

At home on Monday night I couldn’t bring myself to watch Raw, so I called Marcy to find out what happened. When she told me that Shawn had walked out with the belt, said how he’d beaten me in my own country with my own finishing move and had run me out of the WWF, I finally knew for certain that Shawn had been full of shit when he swore to God that he wasn’t in on it. Marcy was on a relentless campaign to get the truth out, and on a leap of faith she contacted Dave Meltzer. She’d never spoken to him before because she knew that I would have considered it a betrayal, despite the fact that it was clear that Meltzer had by this point become pro wrestling’s most accurate chronicler. After a lengthy conversation with him, she pointed out to me that the one thing Vince seemed to be counting on to eventually save his ass on this is that I would never expose the business, and she suggested I talk to Dave. I?had been considering it too, so on Tuesday, for the first time in my life, I gave Dave Meltzer a call. If Vince could do this to me, he could do it to any of the boys. I told Meltzer, “You don’t have to take my word for this. You go ahead and try to disprove anything I’m telling you.” He printed every word I said, at the risk of alienating the sources he needed to make his living. His meticulously detailed story about what has come to be called the Montreal screwjob has never been refuted and is now considered a historic document in the history of pro wrestling.

In the days after Montreal it was rumored that Vince was going to lay assault charges against me.

Apparently I broke his jaw and sprained his ankle. At first I thought, Great, bring it on. Vince would have to sue me in Canada, exposing the truth about what happened in a court of law. I’d be happy to swear to God and explain myself. But Carlo kept calling, building fear in me about what could happen in a long, costly legal battle filled with uncertainty. I paced my pool room and briefly found myself wishing I’d never hit Vince. Then I shook my head and laughed at how surreal this all was continuing to be. They could put me in jail, they could do whatever the hell they wanted, and I knew someday I’d be sorry for a lot of things, but I’d never, ever be sorry for knocking that son of a bitch out.

I didn’t know at the time that Rick Rude had already called Eric Bischoff and told him everything that had happened. When I phoned Eric from my hotel room after the match, he howled with laughter over the fact that I had broken my hand on Vince’s jaw. As far as he was concerned, the whole screwjob only made me hotter. On Nitro the day after Montreal, the nWo came out waving Canadian flags, and Bischoff called me “a knock-out kind of a guy.” Hogan chimed in, “He passed the initiation!” Then Miss Elizabeth conducted as Bischoff, Hogan, Hennig, Macho, Nash, Razor, Kid, Konan, Virgil and the rest of the nWo sang the worst rendition of “O Canada!” I’ve ever heard! But in many ways it was the best too.

Stu and Helen were hurt by what Vince did to me. But Stu reiterated that, under the circumstances, I’d done the perfect thing. The love and support that my parents gave me was the only light I needed. If I’d beaten up Vince badly, I’d have looked pretty bad as well, but one punch was more than fair considering all the factors. What better way to say good-bye to a crooked boss than to deck him on my last day of work?

Davey was trying to get out of his contract and was already talking to Eric. Owen had asked to be released, but Vince refused to let him out of his contract, even when he told Vince that I vowed to never talk to him again if he stayed. This was only a work, of course, but we both thought Vince might feel bad enough to go for it. When I approached Eric about my brother, he was interested, but he didn’t want to pay Owen the same money he was making with Vince.

As a favor to Owen, I spoke with Vince Russo on the phone—he’d gone from writing the WWF

magazine to writing the shows, and we both thought of him as a friend. I told Russo angrily that McMahon wasn’t good for his word and that it was impossible for Owen to trust anything he ever said again. My hostile tone wasn’t directed at him, and Russo and I hung up on good terms. Seconds later, my phone rang, and to my startled amazement it was Vince McMahon. I concluded that he’d listened in on the entire call. He said, “I can’t believe how truly selfish you are that you would want to hold back your brother Owen.”

“How can you expect him to ever believe anything you say?”

“If you say another word to Owen, I’ll sue you so fast that you won’t know what hit you.”

“Vince, if you had an ounce of decency you’d let him go, or at least let him make his own decision.”

“Well, I’m not letting him go. And I’m never going to let him go! And you better get used to it. If you keep doing what you’re doing, messing with Owen’s head, I’ll sue you with a smile on my face. And I’ll sue Owen for breach of contract too!” He slammed the phone down.

I called Owen to tell him what happened. I said I couldn’t do anything more or Vince would sue us both. For some reason, Owen apologized.

I told him not to worry; we would never let the wrestling business come between us. “I’ll always be here for you, Owen. Do what ya gotta do and don’t worry about me. Watch yourself. They’ll be coming for you next, you watch. Watch your back, Owen, and I’ll be waiting for you over at WCW.

Just get home in one piece.”

PART FOUR

PINK INTO BLACK

42

CASUALTIES OF WAR

I ALWAYS FELT THEY KILLED The Hitman character that day in Montreal. Every picture and mention of my career quickly vanished from the WWF’s website. Vince McMahon was rewriting history to suit his own purpose, erasing me like I never existed.

Not surprisingly I’d become an overnight hero of a different sort for having the balls to KO Vince, but I knew he’d be coming after me. He openly challenged me on TV, but at the same time he was still talking about suing me for assault. Neither Shawn nor Hunter had the guts to admit their involvement, but it didn’t matter: The boys had seen the yellow stripes on those two snakes long ago. Soon enough, Taker called to tell me, “I got it right from Vince. That little cunt Shawn, he was in on the whole thing.”

One respected champion after another phoned me. Dory Funk laughed when I outlined what had happened, and said about me punching Vince: “You couldn’t have done a more masterful job of doing the perfect thing.” Pedro Morales was yet another former World Champion who told me that Vince had a habit of doing this to every star he made, and said Vince had learned it from his dad: