Have a Nice Day (17 page)

The Championship Wrestling Association, or CWA, was better known simply as Memphis. Memphis was the city the entire territory worked around, with the MidSouth Coliseum being the site of weekly Monday night cards for a few decades. In addition, the Channel 5 TV studio hosted a Saturday morning wrestling TV show that was a local institution. The show aired live every Saturday in Memphis, and then played a week later in the rest of the towns. The territory was run completely off the angles and story lines on television, and shows were run on a weekly basis in Nashville, Louisville, and Evansville. Other shows, called spot shows, were run on off days in various locations throughout Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, and parts of Arkansas.

At one time, Memphis had been a hotbed of wrestling, with the alumni reading like a Who’s Who of the mat game. Many were the times that a green wrestler came into the territory with nothing to offer but potential, and left as a polished performer. The rapid pace of the television show-made necessary by the weekly shows in the towns-enabled a young wrestler to become immersed in angles and interviews, and most of the time, a wrestler couldn’t help but improve.

For years, the territory was also a great place to make money, as the MidSouth Coliseum was a sellout much of the time, but fate hadn’t been kind to the company in the past few years. Gone were the days of $1,500 paychecks, and it was common knowledge that most of the young guys had to get by on $300 a week or less. Many of the guys established a network of girls to feed them, house them, and physically take care of them just to make ends meet. Still, even with all the drawbacks, landing a full-time job in Memphis was a matter of prestige for a young wrestler, and I was filled with excitement on my 1,000-mile trip.

I pulled into the Channel 5 studio with five hours to spare, so I curled up in the back of the Fairmont for a typical night’s sleep. Unfortunately, the oppressive August heat made it hell to sleep, so I ended up lying in the parking lot until the studio was opening. When I walked into that studio, I might well have been walking into a whole new world, as much of what I had learned was no longer needed and much of what I didn’t know would quickly become exploited.

The show began and aired a replay of Robert Fuller, the leader of the Stud’s Stable, firing Brickhouse Brown. I had never seen anything quite like Robert Fuller (later known as Colonel Parker and Tennessee Lee) and come to think of it, I still haven’t. He was an unbelievable talker, an animated wrestler, and the most avid crazy eights player I have ever seen. During that show I was brought out as the newest member of the “Stable” with very little hoopla.

Later in the show, I was brought back out for my first TV match, against Surfer Ray Odyssey. I ran into a big problem that day because in all my training at DeNucci’s and all my matches around the globe, I had never once been put in a position of having to make myself look good. It had always been about helping the other guy. With Ray Odyssey, this weakness was so obvious that I later learned they were going to let me go because of it. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a bad match, it’s just that they didn’t want the Surfer laying a beating on a Stud’s Stable guy, especially when it was my debut. I learned immediately in Memphis that sometimes selfishness is a necessity.

That night I drove the 200 miles to Nashville for my first house (non-televised) show, which was held at the Nashville Fairgrounds. I teamed with Jimmy Golden against a young Jeff Jarrett, which in case you didn’t know, is spelled J-A-ha ha-double R-ha ha-E-double T -ha ha, and a returning Bill Dundee. Dundee was a fixture in the territory and Jarrett was the boss’s son (who also happened to be a very good talent), so I thought I knew my role in the match. Ironically, the things that had made me look so bad in the office’s eyes earlier that morning suddenly made me look pretty good, as I flew through the air and staggered through the crowd. With that one match, I was given a new lease on life in the CWA.

The next night, Randy Hales got a hold of me at the Motel 6 in Murphreesboro, Tennessee, and gave me a better idea of my job description. “Cactus, we have a pecking order here,” Hales began in his high-pitched, cracking voice, which seemed perfectly suited for his six-foot-five, 190-pound frame. “When you mess up that order, you mess up our plans. We can’t have you taking the same bumps for Ray Odyssey that you do for Jeff Jarrett.” I began to see the light. Then Hales ran by the Memphis philosophy of “getting heat,” which I didn’t agree with then and still don’t today. “A heel has got to cheat to get his heat,” Randy stated emphatically. “If he doesn’t cheat, he’s not a heel.” They more or less didn’t want a heel to do anything that might look remotely gutsy or skillful. That would make the heel a babyface.

I don’t completely disagree with Hales but I think making all the guys fit into one mold takes away from part of what makes a wrestler great-the individuality. A quick look throughout history shows that the great heels weren’t always cowards. Goliath of David and Goliath sure wasn’t a coward; he was a great heel because he was so damn big. Apollo Creed in Rocky wasn’t a coward either-he was a heel because he was the best and he knew it. The shark in Jaws wasn’t a coward; he got his heat by eating people. The mother with the black veil hated the shark because it ate her son, not because it attacked while Chief Brody’s back was turned. Benedict Arnold, on the other hand, probably would have been pushed to the top by Hales, despite his poor physique and weak interview skills.

In general, my time in Memphis was every bit as miserable as it was valuable. No matter what I did, I never could please anyone. I really wasn’t comfortable being a cowardly heel, but still I begged off when the good guy was on the attack, just like everyone else there. When I did play the coward, it was hard to be something else. Frank Morell was a veteran wrestler turned referee, who seemingly made it his goal to torment every college graduate about his decision to wrestle. “What are you doing in this business,” Frank yelled during my first week. “You’ve got a college education, why don’t you use it instead of being in this Godforsaken business?” I guess Frank didn’t realize it but I already had enough things to hate about the company without adding him to the list. Aside from his questionable guidance skills, Frank may also have been the worst referee that I ever worked with. Actually, “worked against” would be more accurate, as he truly seemed like my enemy when I was out there. I had come to Tennessee with a pinched nerve in my right shoulder. Brickhouse Brown had a dropkick that came in high on my face with lots of force-resulting several times in my head being snapped back violently. This would bring about what is commonly known as a stringer, a very innocentsounding word for such a sickeningly painful injury. When Brickhouse planted me with the dropkick, my right arm would literally feel like it was on fire and I would roll out of the ring to try to get my bearings. My physical pain seemed to have no bearing on Frank’s count. However, as he would fire out those numbers. “One, two, three … “

“Frank, I’m hurt, I’m hurt.”

“Four, five, six … ” with a gleam in his eye.

“Frank, help me, I’m hurt.”

“Seven, eight, nine … ” Finally I’d roll in and try to get Brick to help me recover.

At one point, the pinched nerve was so bad that I seriously questioned whether I was physically cut out for wrestling. We were in the main event of the TV show and the “Stable” was beating up on somebody when the babyface cavalry of Brick, Jarrett, and Dundee stormed the ring. With a succession of quick moves, including a Brickhouse dropkick, the ring was quickly cleared of all the dastardly bad guys, who all hightailed it to the back. All except one, that is. The pinched nerve was so excruciating that I had simply rolled onto the floor and stayed there. I wouldn’t feel quite this helpless again until Chyna slammed the cage door on my head at the 1997 Summerslam.

At least the cold tile floor of the Channel 5 studio was of slight comfort, and my goal was to simply lie there until I stopped suffering, which would take about two hours. The triumphant babyfaces were already on their way to the back when a fan stooged off my position. “Someone get this piece of garbage out of here,” the prick yelled, loud enough for the boys to hear too. A moment later, I was back in the ring and being triple teamed, until I finally rolled out and headed for softer ground.

I had tears in my eyes as I cradled my right arm with my left so that it wouldn’t dangle. I really felt as if I’d been shot. Apparently, Randy Hales didn’t think much of my plight, as I later found out from his heartless comment of “Cactus Jack has got to be the biggest pussy I’ve ever seen.” I’m proud to say that in my absence, Jeff Jarrett stuck up for me by saying, “Fuck you, Randy, you’ve never even been in the ring.” I think that was very nice of Jeff, but hey, I’m not a twenty-three- year-old kid frightened for my job anymore-I’m Man F’ing Kind, and I can speak for myself. So here goes. “Yeah, fuck you, Randy Hales, you’ve never even been in the ring.”

Actually, only one guy seemed to have faith in me and that was Robert Fuller. I used to ride to many of the towns with Rob, and it was kind of like sitting under the learning tree, because Rob had as good a head for the business as anyone. I learned a lot about what to do in the ring from Rob, but sadly learned just as much about what not to do outside it.

Rob and his brother Ron had both grown up in the business as second-generation stars, both had booked, both worked, and, for a time, co-owned Continental Wrestling. In actuality, Robert was the better performer and better talker. But somehow, at a similar age, Ron was a multimillionaire and poor Rob lived week to week. I genuinely liked Rob, but his situation depressed me and I made myself a promise that I wouldn’t make the same financial mistakes he had. I believe Robert Fuller was the only guy I ever simultaneously looked up to and looked down on, but I can honestly say that without Rob’s respect and support-and the confidence they gave me-life may have not turned out quite the same for me. One night in late September, I was riding to Memphis with Rob and Jimmy Golden, and Rob was having a hard time thinking of a way out of his match. After hearing him worry out loud for an hour and a half, I kind of sheepishly belted in, “Uh, Rob, I have an idea.”

“Well hell, Jack,” Rob responded enthusiastically, “let’s hear it.”

When I finished, Rob thought about it for two seconds and then replied, “Jack, that’s good-it’s damn good, and I’m going to use it tonight.” With that analysis, Rob helped restore faith in myself-I was getting so used to people calling me stupid that I was starting to believe it.

That night in Memphis, the idea I shared with Rob went exactly as I had envisioned. Other guys might have been getting the pops, but I felt like the proud producer waiting in the wings. Actually, I was lying on the cold concrete floor with a puddle of blood around my head, in what was described as one of the sickest scenes ever witnessed. Jeff Jarrett had gotten hold of Robert’s “loaded boot” and had begun to use it on him. With the Tennessee Stud in trouble, fellow stablemates Gary Young, Phil Hickerson, and Cactus Jack hit the ring. One by one, we all took a shot with the boot, and one by one, we went down. When I got up from my fall, on the outside of the ring apron, Jeff was waiting and laced me one more time with the boot. The impact sent me flying backward off the apron and in what might best be described as the 1970s Nestea Plunge. I landed on the concrete with my back, shoulders, and, to a lesser extent, my neck and head absorbing the blow. I landed with a thud and lay there for several minutes curled up in a fetal position and pushing with my diaphragm so as to squeeze out as much blood as possible from my busted-wide-open head.

When I got to the back, wrestlers were going crazy over what they had just seen. A few veterans, including Robert, said it was the damnedest thing they’d ever seen. Even Randy Hales loved it. “Geez, Cactus, that was great,” he gushed, “we’ll just do it around the loop (in every town).”

Oohh! This was not good news. Once was hard enough, twice was pushing it, and three times was looking for trouble. But four? No way. Even at twenty-three, with only three-and-a-half years in the business, I had a decent grasp on my limitations-and this, I knew, was exceeding it. Still, as a recent college graduate-a fact that Frank had been nice enough to remind me of on several occasions-I was going to give it the old college try.

We started out in Nashville on a Saturday night. Boot to the head, off I flew with a sickening thud, fetal position, puddle of blood. Louisville on Tuesday, ditto. By the time I got to Evansville on Wednesday, I was shot. My back was swollen and discolored to the point that there was actually a hump on my lower back. Truly hideous and, I’ll be honest, it scared me because I really didn’t know what to do about it. It certainly didn’t look like a human back.

That night, I ran into a problem that has become commonplace in my career. It seems that then, as now, people see me do so many things that look inhuman, that they start to believe that I’m not human. Well, I may have a high tolerance for pain and I may have a body that has been conditioned to accept punishment, but my body is just like everybody else’s-just a little less pleasing to look at.

I was sitting against the wall in the Evansville dressing room, and Robert walked by with a cheerful “Same thing tonight, Jackeroo?” I told him that I needed to talk to him and then sadly relayed the tragic news. “Rob, I just don’t think I can do it tonight.”

Rob thought about it for a minute and then spoke some words of wisdom. “You know, Jack, that’s probably a good idea. There’s not a whole lot of people there and you’re not going to make a whole lot of money tonight. You might want to save that bump for a time when you can actually make some money doing it.” Like most of what Robert told me, I listened, learned, and did what I’d been advised to. It was the last time I would take the Nestea Plunge in the CWA.

The territory had a tendency to be quite a bit redundant-if only on a weekly basis. It was a great place to learn because the weekly nature of the shows meant constantly creating new matches. Many times, locker rooms would be on separate sides of the building and the boys would be forced to come up with matches on the fly. Even with a few moves planned, you’d be forced to start from scratch the very next week. This did create one major drawback from a creative and business standpoint, in that shows in Memphis, Louisville, Evansville, and Nashville all tended to look alike. A lot alike.