Forgiven: One Man's Journey from Self-Glorification to Sanctification (38 page)

Hmmm.

Or how about this gem? When Rena Mero exited the World Wrestling Federation, Ed Ferrera and I shot a series of vignettes with Stevie Richards and the Blue Meanie called,
The Blonde Bitch Project
.

Stevie and Meanie are prime examples of two guys with all the talent in the world who just couldn’t get a break. These vignettes surely would have gotten them over. Keep in mind, at the time
everybody
was talking about
The Blair Witch Project.
The low-budget film was rapidly becoming the highest-grossing horror movie in almost a decade. So I decide to take advantage of this thing while it’s hot.

One rainy night, in the middle of nowhere (the woods next to Ed’s house), we shoot the vignettes. Now anybody who saw the movie would know that the films we produced were nothing short of stellar.

Vince, however, decided against airing them. He said, “Nobody will get it because nobody saw the movie.”

Hmmm.

When Vince said things like that, it was best to not argue with him.

The truth was, because
he
hadn’t seen the movie, he assumed nobody else had. Sometimes I viewed that as a flaw in Vince’s creativity.

Nothing personal, but at the time Vince was in his early 50s and regardless of what he believed or what he tried to portray, he just wasn’t hip . . . no man at that age is. Hey, it’s no different with me.

When I hit the big 4–0, I wasn’t the same ol’ 30-something kid who wrote Vince’s tv. Regardless of what I said earlier, in my 40s, I may not be tuned-in enough to be successful in that way again. But a few years back, I not only had youth on my side, I also had the advantage of my kids. I was constantly looking through their eyes, taking notice of what was hot and what was not. Vince didn’t have that advantage, and that’s where I was a huge asset.

Today, Vince’s product is so uncool, so unhip. Rather than evolve, the wwf has turned back the clock. Just the other day I witnessed one wrestler attempting to get heat on another by whipping him with a belt. In Sports Entertainment 101 you learn that the ultimate objective is to “suspend the disbelief ” of the fan. Please tell me how I am 272

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supposed to believe that two monsters, both over six-nine and 300

pounds, are so mad at each other that they have no other choice but to proceed to beat each other with leather straps? See what I’m talking about? That just doesn’t happen in the real world. That’s like the Penguin poking at Batman with his umbrella in the heat of battle instead of shooting him right between the eyes! The only difference was Batman was campy — it was supposed to be funny. When it comes to sports entertainment, we are supposed to be “suspending the disbelief ” of the viewer, making them believe what they are watching is real. A belt? I think the last time a belt would have suf-ficed as a legitimate form of punishment was when Oliver Twist asked for another bowl of porridge!

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Chapter 47

GAME OVER!

Within 18 months — we had won. The war was over. Eric Bischoff had not only lost the battle, he was “relieved of his duties” in the process.

Eric rode the wave of the nwo story line until it became so watered down that it was nothing more than a warm, old, flat bottle of Coke.

Nobody cared anymore. Over on the other channel, we had revolu-tionized the industry. And we didn’t do it with one thing, we did it with a dozen — complexity, realistic characters, reality-based story lines, breaking the forbidden “kayfabe” and mostly,
heart
. Deep down we all really cared about what we were doing. There was no going through the motions — not on one single night. Man, Eric became so desperate, that he actually challenged Vince to show up at a wcw pay-per-view to fight him. I kid you not. And Vince would have shown up had Stephanie not been graduating from college that very same day.

How interesting would that have been? One thing I learned was, unless you were Shawn Michaels, you did not challenge Vince. His ego 274

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was bigger than his arms, and if Eric wanted to fight, Vince was going to fight — and I promise you it would have been for real. I also promise you, despite Eric’s training in the martial arts, Vince wouldn’t have allowed himself to lose to
anybody
— especially Eric Bischoff.

Man, we were the darlings of the usa Network — and everybody was talking about “Attitude.”

Let me talk for a minute about the usa Network. Those guys were awesome. Unlike the experiences I would have in Hollywood a little later on — usa Network was all about business, money and ratings.

The person who was in charge of handling
Raw
has since gone on to head the Sci-Fi Channel — a woman by the name of Bonnie Hammer.

This gal was sharper then Freddy Krueger’s glove. She was so savvy, so hungry and she knew what sold. The more we pushed the envelope, the higher the ratings got and the more money
Raw
generated for the network — plain and simple. All we had to do was call Bonnie in advance if we knew we were going to be walking the tightrope, just to prepare usa for any phone calls they might get after the show aired. As the ratings began to soar, usa would look the other way.

Beautiful, baby, beautiful.

That’s the way television should be — it’s all about the numbers.

Numbers equal money.

That’s why I had such a difficult time over at Turner. In the first three months, I raised the ratings a full point. The next thing I know I’m sitting in a conference room being told all the things I’m doing . . .

wrong
. But guess what? That’s another book.

Ironically, months before the phrase “wwf Attitude” was coined, I gave Vince a T-shirt that read, “Don’t give me any of your attitude, I have enough of my own.” And we did have attitude. We were in the driver’s seat once more and nobody — no way — was getting rid of us again. The ratings reached ungodly heights. From a 1.9 we grew all the way into the sevens. It was storybook — David versus Goliath —

and the mighty giant, wcw, was left for dead.

Vince was making money hand over fist — and getting into trouble, perhaps, just by wanting more. Merchandising — that was always 275

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Vince Russo

an issue. I don’t know, it always seemed like Vince never made enough money. When is enough enough? At the time,
Raw
had to be one of the most risqué shows on television, yet whether Vince wants to admit it or not the wwf
was
marketing to children. And in time, even though I was as responsible for that as anybody, I was beginning to struggle with the idea. I would tell Vince over and over again that I wasn’t writing a television show geared for kids — I was writing it geared to an audience of 18 and older. Time and time again I would tell Vince that the merchandising was going to get him into trouble.

In business, the philosophy is always to make as much money as you can. I knew Vince hated me harping on this, because in retrospect, it was all about the Benjamins!

I mean, how can you have an episode of
Raw
where somebody is looking to hack off Val Venis’s private parts, Sexual Chocolate is

“exploring” a transvestite and Goldust is goosing his opponent —

and then go to Eckerd’s the very next day and see Stone Cold Steve Austin lollipops on the counter? If that wasn’t targeting kids, I don’t know what was.

I became so concerned I told Vince I wanted to sit in on the merchandising meetings at Titan. Man, they hated me in there. There was this one bald guy, I think his name was Stanley, who used to work on commission. This guy was trying to sell a license for everything and attempting to pass it off as if it weren’t for children!

Remember Dan Akroyd many years ago on

? He portrayed a character named Irwin Mainway, of Mainway Industries, who used to market and sell “questionable” items to kids. One of his best-sell-ers was the unforgettable Bag-o-glass. Well, Stanley
was
Mainway!

For example? The wwf Superstar . . . Slip-n-Slide. Yeah, a bunch of 20 year olds are going to get together, have a few kegs, couple of joints, and have a Slip-n-Slide party! It was flat ridiculous. Remember Pogs? Those small, cardboard circles that children used to collect? How were they not for kids? How many males in their mid-20s play with Pogs? It was a joke, and I knew the heat was going to come back to us — one way or another.

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But back to the winning thing. There were so many individual stories in winning the war against wcw — everybody was stepping up to the plate and bombing ding-dong (my phrase for a home run) after ding-dong after ding-dong. But perhaps the most inspirational story, the story that exemplified courage to a level I had never before seen, came from the veteran of the bunch — the man they call the Undertaker.

You could never fully appreciate Mark Calloway until you’d seen him collapse on the floor of the locker room immediately following a match. Everything hurt on Mark — his back, his hips — the punishment he’d put his body through over the years was beginning to catch up with him. But when that red light came on, you’d never know it. He gave everything he had for the company, regardless of the pain — you just can’t say enough about that.

Mark was the quiet leader in the locker room. Even though he was soft-spoken and didn’t say much, when he did speak, it was deafen-ing. The only way he knew how to lead was by example. If the squared circle was a baseball diamond, Mark would have visited the disabled list more times than Rosie O’Donnell frequents Krispy Kreme. And every match — regardless of the pain — Mark sucked it up and performed as if it were his last.

Courage: that’s what Mark Calloway represented to me. He was on the all-Madden team — in the trenches, digging in, doing what he had to do to win. At times I was even guilty for writing Mark in when he was hurt. On some of those occasions I just didn’t know, but on others I just should have known better. Mark would never say a word; he would just go out there and do it. Sometimes I really have a difficult time looking myself in the mirror when it comes to ’Taker. I needed him and I put him out there, even when I sensed that he may not have been 100 percent. That was wrong — it was selfish. But again, these were the things you did when you were possessed by the wrestling business.

In talking about the Dead Man, I must also mention Bill Moody, a.k.a. Paul Bearer, who was phenomenal in his role as the Under-277

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Vince Russo

taker’s cryptkeeper. Bearer and I worked extremely well together; it was just a kick in the pants to see how excited he would get over giving one of his priceless promos. I always respected Bearer — but on one occasion he was surely second-guessing yours truly. . . .

On one unforgettable episode of
Monday Night Raw
, I decided to wheel out Howard Stern’s “Whack Pack” in an effort to help get over our own Parade of Human Oddities. If you’re unfamiliar with Stern’s notorious bunch, they consist of Hank “the Angry Drunken Dwarf,” who recently passed away, Fred “the Elephant Boy,” who sported an unintelligible speech impediment and Crackhead Bob — no explanation needed. After making their way out to the ring, I positioned myself next to a monitor in the back to witness the train wreck that was about to take place. I noticed Bearer standing next to me with his chin somewhere around the floor. With an “I can’t believe I’m watching this” look on his face, Paul turned to me and said, “Vince — you just slapped all the boys in the face.”

Coming from Bearer, that hurt. I had always considered him a friend — because he was always honest with me. Well, this time his honesty was slapping my bearded puss. But I knew that Paul had no idea how those freaks would help change the business and the success of the wwf forever. It was just another stage in reshaping the industry.

But that’s how it was for me early on — “Who is this guy, and why is he doing this?” There is no doubt that people were laughing at me in the beginning. There is no doubt that some people wanted to kill me from the start. But at the time, I had to stick with my instincts. I just knew I was right. Two short years later, those knives in my back were magically turning into pats.

Today, many people ask, “Vince, because you’ve changed, are you saying that if given the opportunity you wouldn’t put that same brand of television on the boob tube?” The answer is simply . . . no.

In my prime at the wwf, I was aiming to please my boss, my critics and both the fans in attendance and those watching on television. In doing so I would receive some form of praise, which for whatever reason 278

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means everything to human beings. Unfortunately, that entire mindset is wrong.

Today, again with
all
of the glory going to God, I now understand that it is not about pleasing your boss, the fans or anybody for that matter —

it’s all about pleasing God. Gratification shouldn’t go to the “self,” the gratification should go to God. You see, without God, we are
nothing
—

nonexistent. I didn’t realize that until I came to the end of my life and he took over. God is responsible for everything we have. Every action we take should be an action to glorify God and his kingdom. I wasn’t glorifying God with the “Whack Pack” — thus the depression, thus the anxiety, thus the misery.

Remember, you reap what you sow.

As key as the main-eventers were to our success, you can’t take anything away from the “mid-carders” — a term I hate to use. In my opinion, if you made it to the wwf you were a bona fide star. And when those guys in the middle, looking to make it to that next level, were given story lines to execute — they all came through. From D-Lo Brown (A.C. Conner) to Mark Henry to Al Snow (Al Sarven) to Kane (Glenn Jacobs) to Hardcore Holly (Bob Howard) to Ken Shamrock — all these guys ever wanted was a chance. They deserved it, they got it, they did it. I knew it would be a sad day for the guys considered to be on that “next tier” when I left the wwf. When all Vince cared about was what the top guys were doing, I made sure that everybody had a story line. The day I left, I knew the majority of my pet projects would be lost in the shuffle. You see, when you’re writing tv it’s easy to write for the proven stars. The challenge is writing to create new ones. Today, the wwf doesn’t know how to do that, and many talented young men and women are paying the price. I’ve been away from the wwf for a few years now, and during that time only one real new star has been created — Kurt Angle. If that doesn’t tell you something, then your mind is already made up about me.