Forgiven: One Man's Journey from Self-Glorification to Sanctification (14 page)

But wait, from there it got even better.

That Sunday night, when he opened the “Pro Wrestling Spotlight,” John was on an adrenaline high. The Vince story was all over the media, and John and his underground had had a lot to do with it.

They were talking to anybody who would listen and give them print.

It seemed John would stop at nothing, as he soon proved within the first five minutes of the show. John immediately went into the news of the announcement of the wwf Steroid Symposium that would take place later that week. In his opening monologue, John stated, 90

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and I quote, “Not one person from the wrestling media was invited to attend.” John’s point was that Vince could work (lie to) the mainstream media, because they didn’t have a clue as to what was going on, but he couldn’t work the wrestling media, which is why they weren’t invited. If this had been true, John would have had a point.

But the fact is he flat-out lied, live, on the air. Meltzer had told me himself that he’d been invited; he was just declining to go. John knew that, but in stating that
no one
from the wrestling media had been invited, he gave our listening audience the idea that perhaps Vince McMahon did have something to hide. When those words came out of John’s mouth I was livid. McMahon’s guilt or innocence was one thing, but to spin a web of lies in order to swing the pendulum to guilty was a crock.

The strain in our relationship was growing by the minute, the tension so thick, you couldn’t even carve it with the amazing Ginsu.

Something had to give — it was just a matter of when and how.

During the week John and I kept our distance from each other — he stayed home with his mother, while I was nickel-and-diming my customers to death at Will the Thrill’s Video. Business was slow, to the point of being ridiculous. I knew I had to make my transition into professional wrestling sooner rather than later, but with John as my partner, I realized the whole plan could cave in at any moment.

Whether I was ready or not, it was time for me to break away from John and give the wrestling business a go on my own. If I’d continued to follow his lead, I’d have been finished before I even started.

Without John’s knowledge, I contacted the wwf Headquarters, located in Stamford, Connecticut, in the hope of getting into the steroid symposium which was now just a few days away. More easily than expected, I was able to get through to the head of their public relations department, Steve Planamenta. Oddly enough, John had known Planamenta before either of them got into wrestling, but any personal connection they may have once had, had since been brutally squashed by John’s determination to take down Planamenta’s boss —

Vince McMahon. In his early 30s, Planamenta appeared to be your 91

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typical wrestling geek — balding, heavy black horn-rimmed glasses, the whole shebang. But the one thing I always respected about him was the fact that he
was
a huge wrestling fan and he wasn’t afraid to admit it. Even though he was sitting in the Taj Mahal of professional wrestling, the palace they call “Titan Tower,” Steve Planamenta was one of us. During my five phone minutes with him, I had to give the selling job of a lifetime. First and foremost, I had to separate myself from John, which wasn’t an easy thing to do. The bottom line was I had guilt by association written all over me. Planamenta went on and on about how John had lied about this, and how John had lied about that, and whenever he gave me the chance to get a word in edgewise all I could say was, “I’m not John!” I begged Planamenta not to judge me based on John’s actions. All I’d wanted to do was present the facts to our listeners — minus the spin — and let them decide for themselves. I didn’t want to read about the wwf Steroid Symposium courtesy of Phil Mushnick in the
New York Post
the following morning — I wanted the facts first-hand! I wanted to be as responsible as I could be to both the wwf and our listeners. After giving Planamenta the pitch of a lifetime, I hung up the phone with him saying, “Let me get back to you.” That told me that Planamenta had to get the okay from somebody above him. That somebody had to be either his boss, Basil DeVito, or
the
boss — Vince McMahon.

For the next hour I paced the back office of my video store like Wile E. Coyote awaiting the appearance of Road Runner. Don’t forget, to me this was a vital piece of the puzzle. To reach the next step of my master plan, I had to be invited to that symposium. I had to gain some kind of credibility with Steve Planamenta. It wasn’t about kissing his butt, or kissing the butt of the wwf, it was about taking a non-jaded, journalistic approach. I wasn’t going to be anybody’s judge or jury. First of all, I didn’t know what the truth was; I was trying to find out just like everybody else. Oh yeah, and one more thing

— don’t think for one minute that a chance to meet Vince McMahon wasn’t lodged in the back of my mind.

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To me, meeting Vince McMahon was about reality — not a dream. That’s the way I always perceived it. If I was to succeed in the wrestling business in the capacity I envisioned, Vince McMahon was going to be involved one way or another. Otherwise I was going to be nothing more than an employee working a job. But you see, looking back now, I can fully understand that my encounter with Vince wasn’t my doing. In the first draft of this book I took full credit for the chance meeting. I made it happen — me. Now think about that. How many people are there who want to get into wrestling actually get the opportunity to meet Vince McMahon? What are the odds of a guy running a video store getting the opportunity to not only meet, but to later have a tremendous impact on somebody he had admired from a distance since he was a teenager? It just doesn’t happen to everyone — but, it happened to me. Luck?

Coincidence? Or divine intervention?

Having been born again, I truly believe that our plan was laid out for us from the minute we poked our heads out of our mothers’ wombs. You have to remember — if you believe in God, then you believe he created us. If he created us — it was for a reason. In reading the Bible you will find that the reason God created us was to glorify his name and his kingdom. In other words, I’ve gone from a crazy mother, to being a kiss fanatic, to a controversial student journalist in Evansville, to meeting my soulmate, to deep depression, to crooked professors, to being a father, to owning a video store, two video stores, Vicious Vincent’s World of Wrestling, Vince McMahon, the Rock-’n’-Sock Connection, to surviving a tragedy, to being in the middle of a screw job in Canada, a taste of hell (wcw), post-concussion syndrome, being sued, opening my own business — again, to a two-year turbulent relationship with a friend, leaving tna/Total Non-Stop Action, coming back to tna, leaving tna, coming back to tna, to glorifying God’s name right here in this book.

That’s where every story is supposed to lead, every single one. If it doesn’t — it’s by your choice, not God’s. God gives us the freedom to choose. To put it bluntly, we can chose life or death. I chose life in the name of my Lord, Jesus Christ.

As God led me to my calling — without me even realizing it at the 93

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time — I came across many make-it-or-break-it situations. When you reach that point, you’ve got to be willing to go for it and trust the outcome either way. If it’s God’s will, you will pass the test — if it’s not, you won’t. But remember, if it doesn’t turn out your way, you didn’t fail — it just wasn’t part of God’s plan for you. When everything was on the line for me in wrestling, God put me into the situation fully loaded, with everything in my favor, but you must still have absolute faith in his lead.

God gave me the self-confidence in every instance to succeed. It was just meant to be. God gave me the power to believe in myself in those situations because that was his will. That’s what a lot of the guys in the wrestling business have a hard time understanding today. Many of them don’t make it as wrestlers simply because they weren’t meant to be wrestlers. If it were up to me I’d be pitching for the Giants right now. But it’s not up to us — it’s up to God. He created us for a reason — one purpose — to glorify his name. When and how we get to that point is different for each of us. If we have complete faith we will reach, then walk, the path he paved. If we don’t, it’s because we decided to take a different turn on his road. We tried to force something that God just didn’t have in the cards. Please, take it from experience, don’t attempt to force anything — hand your life over to God today and he will take you to where you need, and want, to go.

It’s funny, but while I was on my quest, when the video store was quiet

— which was most of the time — I was inspired to read a book that somebody gave me by Napoleon Hill. It was called
Think and Grow
Rich.
The book contained a story, from the early 1900s, about a nobody named Edwin C. Barnes, who envisioned himself working side-by-side with Thomas Edison. Barnes had a dream, as we all do, and with hard work, persistence and most importantly, confidence, he saw it through.

Remember, Barnes envisioned working
with
Edison — not
for
him.

Well, as I read that book sitting in my dead video store, in my mind I was Barnes and Vince was Edison. I didn’t know Vince McMahon from Adam, but I’d made up my mind that, when all was said and done, I was going to be working
with
him.

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But obviously, before I could work with him, I had to meet him.

I know, my story is beginning to sound like a fairy tale, but believe me, at the time it was far from it. So much was at stake. If I didn’t reach my ultimate goal, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had no plan B. This was it — the whole kit and caboodle. And keep in mind I had a family. It wasn’t just about me anymore. I had a wife and a son at home who were depending on me.

After what seemed like a decade the phone rang — it was Planamenta. “Vince would love to have you attend the symposium,” Steve said. That was it. At that point, I knew I was on my way.

Now all I had to do was break the news to John.

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Chapter 18

MEETING VINCE

During our conversation, Steve Planamenta made it clear that John was not welcome at the symposium. I had an open invitation, but only if I came alone. Personally, I didn’t have a problem with this. John had been so blatantly negative towards the wwf that I couldn’t blame Planamenta for not extending the olive branch. John dug his own grave. Getting into the wrestling business was John’s dream, but I’ve got to tell you, his approach was questionable. Now, I’m not saying that if Vince McMahon was guilty we should have kissed his ass or covered for him — not at all. All I’m saying is that the jury was still out. John and the wrestling smarts (wrestling fans who think they know more than they do, and perhaps take the business a bit too seriously) had turned this into a witch hunt. Vince already had a noose tied around his neck; all they had to do was drop the floor beneath him. There was just no other side of the story being told. Whether it was Vince McMahon or Joe Blow from Bensonhurst, not only was it unfair, it 96

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wasn’t right. In my opinion, whether he was telling the truth or not, Vince had the right to be heard. That’s why I wanted to attend the symposium. I wasn’t a seasoned journalist by any stretch of the imagination, but I was at least trying to show some integrity. That’s why I accepted Planamenta’s invitation and was going without John.

Needless to say, when I broke the news to Arezzi he wasn’t a happy camper. As strange as this may sound, he couldn’t understand why Planamenta would invite me and not him. To be honest, if I had been in Vince’s shoes it would have been difficult for me to reach out my hand in a gesture of peace to John. I wasn’t naïve — I totally understood that my being invited might have been a way for Planamenta to divide and conquer — get the mark away from Arezzi and we’ve got

’em. I wasn’t stupid, I knew both what John was thinking, as well as the wwf. Though John was upset, he was going to have to live with it

— I was going. So, on March 24, 1992, I drove to the Lake Ronkonkoma Station and boarded the Long Island Railroad en route to the Plaza Hotel in New York City.

I’m not sure why, but I was extremely nervous walking into the Plaza. In hindsight, I think the reason was twofold. First, I felt as if I was jumping right into the eye of the storm. Forget storm, this was Kansas and there was a tornado brewing. “Auntie Em — Lock up the dog!” But, unlike the so-called wrestling experts — my colleagues at the time — I was the only one looking for the facts. I was distancing myself further and further from them, solely because I was trying to do the right thing. Who was I to slant this story? Did I see Vince McMahon pressure his wrestlers into taking steroids? Had I seen
any
wrestler inject himself with growth hormones? Did I see Pat Patterson come on to midgets? No — I wasn’t witness to any of this. There were so many allegations, and so few facts. The whole controversy was really getting serious, and the wrestling media was getting in deeper, loving every minute of it, thriving on the mainstream media attention.

A second reason to be nervous was that I knew I was going to the Plaza Hotel to meet Vince McMahon. I didn’t know exactly how I was 97

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going to swing this, but I knew that it was going to happen.

Remember
Think and Grow Rich.
If I was to make a go of the wrestling business, this was my make or break opportunity. In life, these were the situations you needed to take full advantage of. Times like these are few and far between, so when they present themselves