Death Clutch (4 page)
Authors: Brock Lesnar
A
s soon as Vince was sure I was serious about professional wrestling, and that I was willing to make the necessary commitment, we got down to business. In no time at all we agreed on the money, shook hands, and I was on my way.
My lawyer took care of the details, and just saying that now sounds funny to me. Only a few weeks before, I had gone to “my lawyer's” office in downtown Minneapolis for the first time, and I had to borrow money from him to get out of the parking ramp. Now I was paying him to look out for me.
Before the ink on my new contract was even dry, I was told that I had to relocate to Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW), WWE's developmental territory in Louisville, Kentucky, to begin my pro wrestling training as soon as possible. I called J.R. and told him that I had some amateur wrestling community commitments in Minnesota, and it would be few weeks before I could make it to Louisville. I got lucky on that one, because WWE was working hard to develop a recruitment “understanding” with the amateur wrestling community, and I was given the extra time.
For the first time in my life, I had money in my pocket. I used my signing bonus to pay off my student loans, and I bought a motorcycle. I hadn't even stepped foot into a wrestling ring yet, and I was debt-free. Those WWE paychecks were coming in every week, and I thought I had it made.
I've heard people say I got a handout from WWE because I got a big contract without coming up through the ranks like everyone else. That just pisses me off. I've never asked for a handout in my life, and I'd never take one if offered. Vince McMahon didn't become a billionaire by giving money away. People who think I got a handout from the WWE, or from anyone else for that matter, have no idea what they're talking about.
Truth is, I worked my ass off to become an NCAA Division I Heavyweight Champion. Nobody handed me that honor. I worked for it. After I accomplished that goal, I looked at myself as a commodity, for sale to the highest bidderâsimilar to the dairy products we produced on the farm back in Webster. I knew I had a high value in the market because, after years of hard work, I was a rare commodity. I was a six-foot three-inch, 285-pound athletic freak of nature. I was built like a big man, but could move like a small man. On top of all that, I wasn't just some local college wrestling champion from half a decade earlier. The NCAA Heavyweight Champion is wrestling's equivalent of a Heisman Trophy winner, and I had just won the title.
During my college days, I proved that I had that certain something. Love me or hate me, people paid to watch me compete. Vince McMahon knew I could put asses in the seats. That is a rare talent, I took it to the market, and the market rewarded me.
Even though I was going to remain in Minnesota for a while, I still wanted to get a jump on my pro wrestling training. I never do anything half-ass. I wanted to learn from the best and it didn't take me long to learn that meant a call to Brad Rheingans.
Brad was a decorated amateur wrestler. He was an NCAA champion in 1975 for North Dakota State University, and placed fourth in the 1976 Olympics. He qualified for the Olympic team in 1980, but didn't compete due to the United States boycott. All that hard work, and he didn't get a chance to pursue the dream.
Brad had also been an active professional wrestler for over a decade. In the United States, he was best known for his work with Verne Gagne's American Wrestling Association (AWA). He also worked overseas for New Japan Pro Wrestling, first as a wrestler and later as an agent for the office.
Lots of the wrestlers who headlined big shows for many years have nothing to show for it, but Brad was smart and saved his money. All of it. I bet that cheap-ass has the first dollar he ever made. And now, because he worked so hard to save, he has a great life. Brad has a beautiful home, and can go hunting and fishing whenever he feels like it. He enjoys his time, and he should. He earned everything he has, and his body bears the scars of years on the mat and in the ring.
Soon after I started with Brad, I realized he was doing me a special favor. First, I found out that Brad had had stopped running camps for aspiring pro wrestlers over a year before he agreed to bring me in. Then, about two or three weeks into my training camp, I went out to lunch with Dan Jesser. Dan was a local wrestler that wanted to make it big-time, and at the time, he was one of the top guys on the independent circuit in Minnesota.
We were just shooting the shit, and I mentioned that I had talked to Brad about something at Brad's house. Dan looked at me in shock and said, “Brad doesn't let anybody in his house!” Dan told me had been working with Brad for eight years and had never once been invited over.
From that day on, I knew Brad considered me to be more than just a student. We were developing a long-standing relationship and building a true friendship. Brad trained hundreds of students over the years, and training those guys was always just business; but with me, it was different. Brad became my older brother, and to this day, he's family. Brad doesn't have a large familyâit's just him, his mom, and her husband, Jim. At Christmastime, Thanksgiving, all the family holidays, Brad is always welcome at our dinner table. I've opened my home to him the same way he opened his home to me.
W
hile I was training with Brad, I met someone who would become another great influence in my pro wrestling career. His name was Curt Hennig, and I wish he was here today to read this chapter.
Curt was a second-generation wrestler, the son of a big time wrestler in the AWA territory named Larry “The Axe” Hennig. When the old timers all get together and start shooting the shit about “the good old days” of the AWA, they all talk about what a big tough son of a bitch Larry Hennig was in his prime. Curt's dad smartened him up early about what the pro wrestling business had to offer, and the price you have to pay to achieve success in it.
Curt taught me something that sticks with me to this dayâin the wrestling business, you have to “Get in to get out!”
I can still hear him say the line. Curt knew the pro wrestling business was built on a pile of people who had been used for everything they were worth, and then dumped on the side of the road. I'm not saying that's right or wrong. I'm just saying that's how it is. Since that's the score in pro wrestling, Curt came up with the idea that the only way to keep your sanity, or your health, was to “get in to get out.”
I wish he practiced what he preached. Curt got in and really got out. He died in 2003. Nice rib . . .
I really think about him every day. We could have had so much fun together. I miss him so much, because with Curt you were never just passing time. You were enjoying every minute of it.
Why did he have to go and die?
A
fter training with Brad for only a few months and fulfilling my commitments to the amateur wrestling community, I was ready to head to Louisville and enter the WWE developmental system. I had started to watch a little pro wrestling on TV so I could see what I was getting myself into. I bought a pickup truck, loaded all my things into the back, and hit the road.
When I arrived in Louisville, I met up with former Golden Gopher Shelton Benjamin. I followed him as the number one heavyweight at the university, and he stayed on as an assistant coach while I was there. Like me, Shelton had signed with WWE after being recruited by Gerald Brisco. Shelton and I found a two-bedroom apartment to rent, and I was ready to start training.
My first training session was at nine o'clock on a Monday morning. When I got there, I couldn't believe it. The “OVW training center” was nothing more than a little box in the middle of a warehouse district. I thought, “I'm working for this huge international company, and this is where all the big-time television wrestlers get trained?”
When I walked in the door, Danny Davis came right up to meet me. Danny was the owner of OVW and also the head trainer. I liked Danny from the beginning, and we became pretty good friends when I was in Louisville. I have nothing but good things to say about Danny.
On my first day, he asked me, “Can you hit the ropes, kid?” There I was, NCAA Heavyweight Champion, almost three hundred pounds, ready to take on the world, and Danny wanted to know if I could hit the ropes. I thought to myself, “I've done this thousands of times at Brad'sâI'll show this SOB just how hard and fast I can come off the ropes, and how good I look doing it.”
I got in the ring and, with a full head of steam, threw myself into the ring ropes just like I did every day back at Brad's camp. But instead of launching my body back across the ring like I was supposed to, I went straight through the ropes and crash-landed on the concrete floor with everyone watching. I nearly broke my ass in the process.
What I didn't know at the time is that there are different types of “ropes” for wrestling rings. When I trained in Minnesota, Brad had an old-style WCW wrestling ring, with ropes made from steel cable covered by a garden hose with tape over it. Danny's ropes were made out of real rope (just like the WWE used). Real rope has a lot more give to it than cable. I learned that the hard way.
Looking back, I can see that making a fool out of myself was a good icebreaker, because it showed everyone I was humanâI make mistakes and bleed like everybody else. I can laugh about it now, but it wasn't the least bit funny to me then.
Despite my initial stumble, I progressed quickly and excelled in practice every day. I understood what they were teaching, and I could do the things they wanted me to do in the ring.
In a matter of weeks, Danny Davis decided to put me and Shelton together as a team, and we started going to all the little towns in the area, wrestling in front of tiny crowds in bingo halls, local community churches, high school gyms, you name it. We were working with a number of guys who are pretty well known today, but at the time were just starting out like I was: Batista, John Cena, Randy Orton, Mark Henry.
It was a pretty easy life at OVW compared to the training I was used to. We were home every night, and the checks came in steady, without fail.
Danny gave me the “honor” of transporting the ring to each show, and then back to his house for storage. He said he chose me because I kept talking about my work ethic, but I think it had more to do with the fact that I had a pickup truck. Regardless, the ring was my responsibility.
Since I was in charge of the ring, I made sure all the other guys were there on time to help set it up. If they weren't, Danny heard about it, because to me it was a team effort. I didn't give a shit how long somebody had been there. And nobody was going to give me any back talk either, because if they did, they were going to have to get into it with me. I don't think I was disliked for making everyone carry their own weight, but if I was, I really didn't give a damn.
I was there to excel, and I had made up my mind to be better than anyone I was training with. I wasn't at OVW to win a popularity contest. I was there to learn so I could move up to the WWE where the big money was.
Some guys at OVW would stay out late every night so they could act like they were somebody for the locals in the bar. I probably ended up at the bar only twice a month, at the most, because I had no desire or interest in trying to impress the locals down there. I wanted to hit the gym in the morning before practice, do my workouts in the ring, and then have the rest of the day off. At the time, we were only doing the local wrestling shows three nights a week, with weekends off, so I had a lot of time to myselfâjust the way I like it.
I had a good time at OVW. Danny and his wife, Julie, were great to me. Just like with Brad, my relationship with Danny was more than just teacherâstudent. We actually became friends.
Danny invited me into his home, and I appreciated it. I was at Danny's house often (because the ring was there), and Danny and Julie would usually invite me in for lunch. In exchange for the free lunches, I did some handyman work for them here and there. That's one thing about being a farm boy: you learn to fix anything. But I also knew that if I offered to fix something, Danny would always cook me a big steak when I was done. We remain friends to this day.
After a while, I knew I had learned all I was going to learn in Louisville. John Laurinaitis was just then transitioning into the role of WWE's VP of talent relations, and I told him I was done doing the small local shows, and that I needed a bigger challenge. I told John, “If you want me to get better, then you need to put me in the ring with better people!”
I asked John to give me a chance at the next levelâjust a couple of “dark matches” to show them how far along I had come. The dark matches are non-televised matches done right before television tapings to warm up the crowd and to let the WWE brass take a look at you.
I knew all I needed was a chance. Let me perform on the nontelevised portion of the show, I told John, and I will work harder and better than everyone else. If I can show you what I've got, I'll be up on the main roster.
If I didn't belong, I knew Vince would get rid of me. He was paying me too much to wait forever for me to make him a return on his investment. But as far as I was concerned, I had done my time in the Louisville minor leagues, and it was time for me to see how far I could go in the big time. I reminded John that both J.R. and Brisco had said I would only be in Louisville for a year, and by that point I had been in Louisville for a year and four months. I felt like someone had lied to me. I had done my time. I was headed back home to Minneapolis.
W
ithin days of returning to Minneapolis, I received the call. WWE wanted me to go on the road with them, and start out by doing dark matches. The fight to make it as a wrestling entertainer was on.
The very first dark matches I remember are the ones where they put me in the ring with Billy Gunn. We were in Nashville or Knoxville (all these towns ended up being the same to me real quick) one night, and Curt and Brad had come down to watch. I was doing the Shooting Star Pressâan inward backflip off the top rope to a full layout landing on top of my opponentâat the time, and both Curt and Brad had these looks on their faces like, “What the hell is wrong with you, Brock?”
They both got on me right away, saying “You're gonna have a pretty short career if you keep doing that three-hundred-pound gorilla backflip. Figure out a new finish.”
Those guys told me straight up, because they cared. “Leave that to the smaller guys,” Curt said. “They need every advantage they can grab in this business. You don't need that move. It's not worth the risk.” But I kept doing the Shooting Star, because it was spectacular. I wanted to be the best, and no one my size should be able to pull off that move.
If you can't picture the sight of a three-hundred-pound man rotating through the air and crashing down on his opponent, or if you've never seen me do the Shooting Star, the videos are easy to find on the Internet. You will be amazed by what you see. You will also be horrified when you see what happens when I don't land the move. I'm lucky that I didn't end up in a wheelchair.
In the beginning, I was traveling with Kurt Angle and Taz. That was both good and bad, because both of those guys played pretty big roles in my development, and my near destruction.
Kurt Angle was the 1996 Olympic Gold Medal winner in wrestling, and I liked the way he approached the wresting entertainment business, because when he laced up his boots, the shit was on. The word on Kurt was that he only had one gear, and that was hyper-overdrive.
Kurt and I got to know each other pretty well because we had amateur wrestling in common. And he answered my questions about the business of pro wrestling because he started a few years before me.
Kurt could have turned to ultimate fighting right after the 1996 Olympics, but the timing would've been bad. The UFC wasn't “happening” in 1996, and the money was nothing like it is today.
The very first day I met Brad Rheingans, he told me, “Life is about timing.” It didn't dawn on me at that moment, but years later I got it. Everything has to fall into the right time frame. If you're not in the right place at the right time, it's not going to happen for you.
To this day I get asked questions about Kurt and his chances as an MMA fighter. Let's get one thing straight: Kurt Angle was one tough son of a bitch. Could Kurt in his prime have fought in the UFC? Absolutely. And he would have torn it up. Could Kurt fight in UFC now? Absolutely not. After all of his pro wrestling injuries, I don't think he could even pass the physical.
Taz was a unique guy, too. Here was this sawed-off, pissed-off wrestler whose biggest push was behind him, and he was trying his hardest to transition into the role of an on-air commentator. Why not? It's a great gig, the money is good, and you don't have to take bumps in the ring every night.
Taz could talk his ass off, which would have made him a good commentator, and did make him an entertaining guy to be in the car with. Taz was also a big amateur wrestling fan, knew my history, and he knew I wanted to make it to the top. I wasn't shy about it, and he liked that about me.
One day Taz heard the stupid way they wanted me to work in a dark matchâold-fashioned, plodding, monster heel, fake pro wrestling bullshit. Taz just shook his head. He said, “That sucks.” No sugarcoating, no bullshit. I liked that about Taz. He had been around for a long time, and he wasn't playing the corporate puppet. He respected my credentials, and I respected his honesty. Taz heard all these veterans giving me bad advice about how a big man is supposed to work, but I knew it was a new day and age. Taz knew it too, so he took me over to meet Paul Heyman.
As you know, Paul is writing this book with me, so it's kind of funny talking about him, but this is where we became instant friends. I didn't know Paul from Adam, but he got involved in my next two dark matches. Paul went right to Vince McMahon and went to bat for me.
All of a sudden the machine started getting ready for me. I was told I was needed at
WrestleMania
in Toronto, and I'd be wrestling during the Fan Axxess convention. Next thing I know, Paul is pulling me aside, all excited, and says, “We're starting on TV the day after
Mania
.”
I made my national TV debut in March 2002. I started by doing these run-ins, which are brief appearances on camera, where I would jump in the ring and hit people with my finishing maneuver, which they ended up calling the “F-5.” The maneuver consisted of me throwing my opponent up over my head, spinning him, then slamming him to the canvas all in one fluid motion. Everyone ate it up. WWE fans were looking for a new star, and here I was just smashing everything in my path.
After my first TV shot, everything happened so fast. It's really all just a blur. Kind of like I've been F-5'd myself.
My entire time in WWE was a blur, actually, but those first few months were even blurrier. Paul became my on-air “agent,” (they didn't want him to be an old-school “wrestling manager,” and Vince liked the idea of a heel agent because he hated dealing with Hollywood agents), and I got moved into a program pretty quick with the Hardy Boyz. I really liked working with them. They could move around, the crowds loved them, and they could sell my moves in a way that got the audience into the match and mad at me. Lita, one of the WWE “divas,” was dating Matt Hardy at the time, and she was with them on camera as well, so that gave me and Paul someone else to pick on to get even more heat. Nothing like picking on a woman to get a crowd riled up.
I want to mention something here in this book quickly, and then I want to move on from the subject:
While all this is happening, my daughter, Mya, was born. Right after my debut, and just as I started going on the road, this little baby came into my life and changed everything forever. I became a father on April 10, 2002. No matter what I do for the rest of my life, I'll always be Mya Lynn Lesnar's father first and foremost. I love Mya very much, and I can tell you that from the day my daughter was born, I have been a blessed man because of her.
I was picking up some really good steam on television, and I started getting booked for WWE shows all over the world right away. In the business, the more you work, and the more fans you draw, the more you make. While my paychecks were getting bigger and bigger, I was away from home more and more. That's the trade-off, and it's just another way the wrestling business eats you up.
Life on the road was wild. I was flying to a new city every day, and living the life of a rock star. Everywhere I went people knew me. I was having a great time, and who wouldn't? Money. Girls. More girls. More money.
The only problem was that none of it was real. It wasn't a life. It was killing time. I would look around the locker room before shows and think how lucky I was. I was probably the youngest guy there, and I was headed straight to the top. The other guys in that room weren't so lucky. They were trapped in the life. They had no way out. They were drinking and popping pain pills like they were going out of style, and they were miserable because they had lost their faith along with their familiesâall they had was the Federation.
I didn't want to be an old man, pulling pads over my surgically repaired, broken-down knees, struggling to pull on my elbow pads with arthritic shoulders, popping pain pills to make it through one more big-money match. So as much fun as I was having, even right off the bat I was thinking about how I was going to get out. Curt's words were ringing in my ears: “Get in to get out.”
Once we got past the Hardys, the rocket ship was really strapped to my ass, and the fuse was lit. That's when the whole deal went down involving the match that never happened with Stone Cold Steve Austin, one of the WWE's biggest stars at the time. Why was he a star? “Because Stone Cold says so.” He was a big, tough, raunchy, rude, crude, beer-guzzling good ol' boy, and the crowds couldn't get enough of him.
Paul knows the story better than I do, because he was behind the scenes with Vince, and I was just doing my job, being on time, wrestling my matches, collecting my paychecks. But I'll do my best to tell you what I remember.
I got to Atlanta, and the WWE road agent told me I would be working with Steve that night, and that I was going to beat him somehow. But minutes later, everything changed. I heard that Steve had walked out. Went home. With Steve gone, Vince needed to do something quick.
Paul pulled me aside and brought me two steaks from Vince's office. He always stole a couple of Vince's afternoon steaks and brought them to me. I never asked if Vince knew. I was just happy to get the prime cut.
As I worked on the steak, Paul explained the new swerve: Vince himself was going to wrestle Ric Flair that night, in Atlantaâa battle between two fiftysomething guysâwith the story-line being a winner-take-all bet for Vince's story-line 50 percent of WWE ownership against Flair's story-line 50 percent. But just when it looked to the crowd like Flair was going to beat Vince, I'd come down, jump into the ring, and cost Flair the match. Vince would then owe a huge favor to the Next Big Thing.
According to our quickly prepared script, Paul was supposed to call in my favor for me by telling Vince, on national TV, that if I won at
King of the Ring 2002
, I would get a title shot at the
SummerSlam
pay-per-view. The fans watching the show didn't know it yet, but Vince had already decided to make me the youngest WWE Heavyweight Champion in history.
Here I was, just a few months after my official TV debut, and only a year out of college, and I was being set up to take the WWE title in the main event of the second biggest pay-per-view of the year. I had been watching my checks get bigger and bigger every week, and I couldn't even imagine how much I was about to make from those two events. The main event of a pay-per-view show is as big as it gets in our business.
That's just it. It was always about business for me. I wasn't in it for the fame or the glory, though I had some fun with both for a little while. I was in it for the money. I wanted to feed my family, give my parents and my children the best lives that I could provide for them, and get out while I was still relatively young and healthy.
That summer on my rocket ship to the top just flew by. I don't really remember making my Madison Square Garden debut against Ric Flair, but I sure remember getting paid for it. I don't remember how many times we went to the UK that summer, but I remember that my paycheck got bigger each and every time I went back. I don't remember any specifics about the
King of the Ring
pay-per-view, but I remember it being by far the biggest payday I had to that point in my career.
That's what happens when you live on the road, and in front of the TV cameras. You can't tell one town from the other, or one show from the next. They all just blend together. You get up in a hotel that looks like all of the other hotels, drive to the airport in a generic rental car, get on a plane, and don't care where you land . . . because it's always the same. The routine gets old really fast, and it never changes.
Sometimes I'd get lucky enough to get into the town early enough so I go could go to a gym, and maybe find a decent meal. After that, though, it would be just killing time until I had to go to the arena. I couldn't really do much, because fans recognized me everywhere I went. So, most often, I just stayed in my room.
Once I got to the arena, I had to shake everyone's hand. Because that's the unwritten law. As if God himself made it the 11th commandment. I hadn't seen the boys since we all stood around the baggage claim at the airport a few hours before, hoping our bags would come around quickly so we could beat everyone else to the rental car line. But we would always shake hands, and everyone would smile like they were glad to see each other. It was all so insincere and phony it made me sick.
Meanwhile, while I'm going through the motions on the never-ending treadmill that road life had become, all I could think of was getting home so I could see my baby daughter Mya, because she would grow up just a little bit more every day I was gone. I was missing out on all these wonderful experiences with my child, missing out on all the greatest things about being a dad, and was doing the bullshit “shaking-hands routine” with a bunch of people I just saw a few hours ago like they were long-lost brothers. It was insane.
It got to the point that I remember one day looking across the locker room at Ric Flair, who was then in his midfifties, and saying to myself, “That's not going to be me.” I don't mean that as any disrespect toward Ric. He gave his life to the wrestling business. He was truly one of the greats, and he deserves a lot of credit for what he did.
But with all the greatness that his name is supposed to represent, and all the years he had spent on top, what the hell was he still doing there? He got in, but he never got out.
I wasn't going to be the guy missing his kids' birthday parties and graduations.
I wondered how many of his own kids' birthday parties did Flair miss? How many of their graduations? I didn't want to be pushing sixty years old and still wearing tights.
Flair was known as the best, and if the business could break him, it could happen to anyone. Even me. That's why, every time I looked at Flair, every time I saw him climb in the ring and let out his trademark “Wooooooooooooooo!,” I heard Curt Hennig's voice in my head: “Get in to get out.”