Forgiven: One Man's Journey from Self-Glorification to Sanctification (21 page)

I think it was on the same day that Mr. Blue moved down to the second floor and into Tom’s office that I got word that he wanted to see me. Was I nervous? Not really. What, was this guy going to write the magazine, too? No matter how arrogant and uninformed he was, he needed me — I knew the product. Plus, how could I be fired? I’d just moved my whole family across the water from Long Island to Connecticut. So I walk into his office, and this is what I’m told. . . .

“Louie’s fired, and you’re lucky you still have a job, because I had no plans for you. Now, go get Louie.”

You ignorant !@#$%, I thought. You clueless !@#$%. You didn’t have plans for
me?
At the time, I didn’t care whether I was fired or not. I knew then that even if I was kept aboard it was going to be a nightmare. But to have to fire Louie? You miserable !@#$%, this guy was the heart and soul of the magazine. This guy was the wrestling business. He knew more about running the publication than this accountant ever would. !@#$% you, the horse you rode in on and the cavalry behind you!!!

Telling Louie was one of the toughest things I ever had to do. I just knew how much he loved working at Titan. It was his whole life.

Man, this is the company politics I’ve been telling you about— at its worst. Screw the little guy who makes the least and does the most.

When I walked into Louie’s office, the kid, he just knew. Maybe it was because I was whiter than Edgar Winter (the albino who was a one-hit-wonder with “Frankenstein” back in the ’70s). The truth was, I 145

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was sick to my stomach. This was so wrong. Louie had never done anything to anybody. Where was he going to go from here?

Being street-smart, Louie wasn’t surprised. I think he may have been expecting it. Like a man, he just walked out. I remember he once told me: “Vince, you see this office here? You notice I have nothing on my walls? You know why? Because every day could be my last day working here. That’s just the way the business is. And when I go, I want to go the same way I came in — with nothing.” Louie indeed left with nothing. From that day forward, I never forgot his words. It was the most important thing anyone in the wrestling business ever said to me, including Vince himself. (Today, his words carry even more weight.) From that moment on I treated every day at Titan as if it were my last. And I didn’t care. Why would I want to work at that kind of place anyway?

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Chapter 29

“HEY, LOOK AT ME — I’M 13!”

The title of this chapter is a famous line from
The Honeymooners
.

And it summed up the situation best. Mr. Blue was serious about his children’s books featuring wrestlers. Not only that, he brought the same philosophy to the magazine! His model was
Sports Illustrated for
Kids
. He wanted to turn the
wwf Magazine
into
Sports Illustrated
for Kids
. What a poor, clueless general manager. . . .

At this point, there was no doubt that the wrestling business was going in the other direction. ecw (Extreme Championship Wrestling) was on the rise, and the fans were into hardcore reality. The writing was on the wall. The millennium was just around the corner, and sports entertainment was about to change. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it a million times — you’ve got to
evolve
the business. All sports evolve, as does entertainment. Remember the old days of college basketball?

No shot clock, the players weren’t allowed to dunk. Can you imagine that game today? Same with the nba — the three-point arc has 147

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changed the face of the game. Then there’s baseball, with its designated hitter. You’ve got to
evolve!

Entertainment is no different — it too has evolved. Today it’s all about sex. Halle Berry flashed her chest, and a bomb of a movie,
Swordfish
, made millions at the box office. It’s all about T & A in the entertainment business.
American Pie
,
Sex and the City
, Austin Powers, Gwen Stefani, Lil’ Kim, adolescent language, nudity — people eat that stuff up! At the time, the wwf was going in the wrong direction.

Doink the Clown was a major player. Things were bad, and Mr. Blue was set on making them even worse.

We would have department meetings — with women from the department involved who had no business even being in the building

— and we would brainstorm ideas for the upcoming issue. I’ll never forget this one time where the art director suggested we do a story about the wwf superstars . . .
gardening!
Man, what a cluster. We even put Bret Hart on the cover of the mag with Bart Simpson. It was an absolute disgrace. And, day by day, minute by minute, the wwf was losing money with no idea why. The ratings were going into the out-house, house shows were down and merchandise was sitting on shelves. Vince was in trouble.

Yet another pet peeve — yes-men. Back then, I didn’t know what was worse — yes-men, or suits, though you could argue they’re all one and the same. Vince was surrounded by yes-men, telling him everything he wanted to hear whether it was right or wrong. Vince’s yes-men were killing him. There was nobody in that company at the time who would tell Vince like it was. And that’s what he needed.

For months, the magazine continued to go down this path. What could I do? I can even remember when Sid Eudy, a monstrous no-good heel, was brought back to the wwf and I asked Mr. Blue, “Sid isn’t kid friendly, how can we represent him in the magazine?” Mr.

Blue simply said, “Don’t.” Vince had just invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring Sid back to the wwf in an effort to gain viewers, and this
jabeep
(an Italian slang term for somebody “slow-minded”) is telling me not to promote him in our own magazine.

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With thick, permanent black spray-paint, the graffiti was on the wall. I wasn’t going to last. I thought every move this guy made was asinine, and it was only a matter of time before my big Italian mouth would go off. The fact is, I really cared about the welfare of Titan Sports and the wwf. I liked and respected both Vince and Linda McMahon, along with Shane and Stephanie. Plus, there was a part of me — as corny as this sounds — that really wanted to repay Vince for all the years of entertainment he gave me as a child, teenager and adult.

This is where Corporate America really gets dangerous. My future, my career, the well-being of my family, was in the hands of an accountant who wanted to send Mankind (Mick Foley) up the hill with Jack-’n-Jill, just to make sure they “didn’t do anything adult-like” while they were up there. On top of that, the money man had a chip on his shoulder that would fill the Snake River Canyon. He used to walk with this swagger that just killed me. With my fate sealed, I knew I had to do something quick to gain as much leverage as possible. So, at this point, I made an effort to form some kind of a relationship with Vince’s two top guys, the two guys in the know —

Bruce Prichard and Pat Patterson.

Let me say this — I love Pat Patterson, flat out love him. I haven’t seen Pat in about three years, and I really miss him. A former wrestling legend in his own right (and the first wwf Intercontinental Champion I might add), Pat served as Vince’s “Tom Hagen” (Robert Duvall’s role in
The Godfather
), more or less the family advisor. Pat had been with Vince since the ’70s, and the boss trusted him more than anyone else. Pat was one of the most colorful, energetic, enthusi-astic, funny, caring and understanding individuals I’ve ever known.

That Canadian accent just floored me. Pat always had a smile on his face, and from the moment I met him I was drawn to him. You never had to worry about Pat screwing you for personal gain — he just wasn’t that way. He was always honest and sincere. I learned so much from him, and I think back then he was drawing from my energy. Pat and I always use to bounce ideas and angles off each other. To this day, I don’t think he realizes what a thrill that was for me.

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My relationship with Bruce Prichard was a bit more suspect.

Bruce and I were better “friends” per se than Pat and I were, but call it instinct, I was always leery of him. From the beginning, for whatever reason, I never trusted him. You see, Bruce had been working for Vince for years, mainly writing television. Let me put it bluntly —

whereas Bruce’s ideas might have been okay for the “good ol’ days of rasslin’,” they weren’t in tune with 1996. Time may have passed Prichard by, and here I was, the new kid on the block, with fresh ideas that would change the business for years to come. In my opinion, Bruce may have known that; he also may have suspected that I was perhaps a bit more creative than he was. So in an effort to play the game, he “took me under his wing,” almost as a defensive strategy, to hide my talents from the big guy himself.

But let me go on the record here to say I learned a lot from Bruce Prichard, and I genuinely liked him. Bruce and I spent a lot of time together, as did our families. It’s tough to write about it, because to this day I still don’t know . . . was Bruce Prichard ever sincere? Did he truly want to be a friend? There’s a part of me that says yes, and another part of me that says how can I still be that naïve? It’s the wrestling business.

It’s so sad to say, but there aren’t “true friends” in wrestling. I learned that quickly when I was on the outside looking in. You see — when you’re in that good spot everybody calls you, everybody is your buddy.

But the minute you can no longer do anything for their careers, they forget your name. That’s just the way it is. It was a hard pill to swallow

— but then you realize, it is what it is.

So now I was positioning myself around a few guys who have some clout. I wasn’t kissing up or looking to get anywhere — I was simply trying to save myself from getting fired by Mr. Blue. You see, the more I knew, the more he needed me. He was clueless when it came to what went on behind that curtain. I, on the other hand, was getting all the dirt from Prichard. He also had to be careful about the way he treated me, because Prichard and Patterson were Vince’s right-hand men at the time. Suddenly I had some protection.

Man, I’m so bad with times, dates and places. I’ve made a habit of 150

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only storing in my mind information I need to know
now
. Some guys can tell you what match took place at what arena, what day of the week, what happened and what color the guy’s jock was that night.

Me, I block it out immediately. I remember the big stuff — but those little details, dates and things, escape me. What’s past is past — I don’t think about it. But at some point I found out that a decision was being made by Mr. White and Mr. Blue to farm the magazine out. In other words, to no longer do it at Titan Towers, but hand it over to a third party. In the transition, everybody would lose their jobs and the magazine would suffer greatly, but the bean counter insisted it would save the company a few bucks. This was wrong —
all wrong
. Handing the magazine over to a third party would only mean that we would lose control. At that time, Vince was still keeping angles and story lines close to his vest. I don’t think it would have been in Vince’s best interest to turn that inside information over to non-Titan employes.

Like me, Vince is a control freak, a hands-on kind of guy who feels that when push comes to shove, he can do the best job. Truthfully, at that point the last thing I was really thinking about was my job. I felt my newly formed relationships with Prichard and Patterson weren’t going to be enough. Whether or not the magazine went out-of-house or stayed in, I felt I was done.

The deal was literally days from going down. Still, something inside me made me feel so committed to the McMahons. What it came down to was they were the ones signing my paycheck — my loyalty was to them. Having run my own business for six years, I’d always looked at things through the owner’s eyes. If an employee felt that there was something drastically wrong, I think it would be his or her duty to inform me. This situation was no different. Could it backfire? No question about it, but it was the right thing to do. So, without almost any contemplation, I scheduled a meeting with Linda McMahon.

• • •

Prior to writing this book, I told myself that if I was going to put the time and effort into doing it, it was going to be 100 percent truthful, 151

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unlike the other sports entertainment books I’ve read. Not to take a shot at the Rock, Mick or Joanie (Chyna) — three individuals I have the utmost respect for — but their books were published in conjunction with the World Wrestling Federation, so there was only so much they could say, regardless of what they might have really wanted to say. That being said, nobody is governing this book, so I can say what
needs
to be said. This book is based on what happened to me during my tenure in the business, and how I honestly viewed various situations and certain individuals. In many ways the truth hurts, but the truth is the only way I know how to tell my story.

So with that in mind, let’s talk about Linda McMahon.

Okay, here’s the “dirt” you’ve all been waiting for — there is
nothing
negative that I can say about Linda McMahon. Deep in my heart, I will always admire Linda. Business aside, to me she was and always will be the backbone of the McMahon family; the calm of the big top.

A strong woman, perhaps one of the most honest human beings I’ve ever met in a world populated by con men, Linda McMahon was someone you could always trust. Face-to-face, she was always honest with me — always — and that was probably what I admired about her the most.

There were some people, both inside and outside of the Tower, who used to say that Linda had no right being in the position she was at Titan Sports. Some said she was only a vice-president because, obviously, it was Vince’s company. To me that statement is ludicrous.