Hitman My Real Life in the Cartoon World (49 page)

I handed a big, fat joint to Owen and explained that it was probably the last time we’d be able to smoke pot for a while. Owen, so straitlaced most of the time, let his hair down, and we both took a few hits. We pulled up to the strip bar feeling good.

Inside, a bunch of wrestlers crowded around Hulk at the far end of the room. Beefcake was there, having recovered enough from the parasailing accident to come back for limited duty.

Unfortunately, with steel plates holding his face together, he could no longer wrestle in a serious capacity. Standing off to the side were Hawk, Animal, Curt, Bossman and Ray Hernandez, a muscle-bound Tampa powerhouse who worked a Hercules gimmick. I introduced Owen around, spotted Jim and Davey at a table, and ordered beers for us all.

Vince came in around midnight. That was unusual enough because Vince didn’t make a habit of hanging out with the boys. But what really turned heads was that Vince was shit-faced, his tie hanging loosely around his neck. Pat Patterson tagged behind him trying to persuade him that it was a bad idea to be there in his condition, but Vince had decided that he was going to have one last party with the boys before the new drug policy went into effect. Sergeant Slaughter offered to keep an eye on him and act as his designated driver, so Pat fled through the front door, as though he’d been chased out by the sight of all those naked women.

Then I heard Hogan daring a wild-eyed Hawk into doing the L.O.D. finish on Vince right there in the bar. Suddenly Animal crouched behind Vince, stuck his head between Vince’s legs and picked him up off the floor. Vince was laughing as Animal walked him over to all of us. Hawk had already climbed up on the bar, gripping a stripper pole, assuring Hulk that he was going to take Vince’s head off. I thought, Wow, he’s actually going to do it, but at the last second Hawk thought better of it and leapt off the table, gently hitting Vince with his arm. Hulk and Beefcake caught Vince and set him on his feet to a round of golf claps from an assortment of ass-kissers who seemed to materialize on cue. I rolled my eyes at Jim, who boldly declared, “The Hart Foundation would have had the balls to do it!”

“Damn right!” I had a beer in one hand and a shot of J.D. in the other, but was conscious enough to think, My God, what did I just say? Owen’s eyes got big. I considered running out of the place as I watched a determined Jim nonchalantly pick up a grinning Vince like he was jokingly hugging him.

The boys parted before me, and Hulk stared as if there was no way I had the balls to do it. I set my drinks down and before I could even think about it I leapt high in the air clotheslining Vince with a thud! His head bounced off the carpeted floor, his skinny neck stretched out like a turtle’s. There we both were lying on our backs, and I thought, What have I done?

“You owe me a drink, Hitman!” Vince drunkenly slurred.

“Don’t worry, I’m buying.”

“Double Dewar’s on ice.”

We tossed them down.

Last call came and went and the lights came up, but nobody was leaving. Davey had Vince over his shoulders and was running around looking for a place to powerslam him! The police were called to clear us all out. With Owen and an assortment of strippers in my car, we joined a train of about thirty cars about to head downtown for a party in Flair’s penthouse suite at the Marriott. The procession couldn’t get by a police cruiser, parked in front of the strip bar, so Slaughter, with his big chin sticking out, burned the rubber off his tires as he pushed the cop car to the side of the road.

At about 3 a.m., the drunken mob descended upon a young male desk clerk to call Flair’s room. No answer, so Vince demanded a key. The flustered clerk said it was against hotel policy, but Vince cut him off. “I’m Vince McMahon. Give it to me right now!” He got the key.

We all packed into the elevators and headed up to the fortieth floor. We piled into Flair’s room, waking Earl Hebner, the referee, who was asleep on a rollaway bed. Flair hadn’t yet returned from his own night of misadventure, so we made ourselves at home. It was a beautiful suite with a fullsized bar, but the bar was stocked with only one full bottle of vodka. The party was about to die when a bag of dirt-weed mysteriously appeared and joints were rolled and lit. I saw first-hand what the boys thought of Flair when everybody used his king-sized bed as a urinal, even Vince, stripped down to his boxers, black shoes and socks, and his tie. I remember Hercules and Curt laughing as they hosed it down, and for some reason, I thought nobody would have done this to Harley Race!

Then Vince got it in his head to have some fun amateur wrestling with us. When he came for me I was careful and playful with him, as was Curt. Then Vince took Hawk down and pinned him to the floor. When he grabbed Herc, Herc hurled Vince upside down into the air, but Vince somehow bounced off Earl’s rollaway and landed on his feet. Vince gave Herc a sober glance that said, In the morning, if I can remember any of this, I’ll fire you! (In fact, only days later Herc was released.) Then Vince sized up Jim: “Ya big rhino, you’re the only guy I haven’t tried yet!” Jim twisted the tip of his beard and asked Vince whether he’d ever seen that scene in Die Hard where Bruce Willis tackles some villain and they both fall forty floors down to the lobby. Vince nervously glanced at the window knowing that Jim was crazy and drunk enough to do something like that. He decided to leave Jim alone.

By sunrise Flair still hadn’t made it to his own party, and I was drunk and leaning on a stripper as she helped me get my room key in the door at the Crockett Hotel.

That morning everybody had to drive up to Austin for the second day of TVs. Vince was red-eyed and red-faced, still clearly feeling the effects of his wild night. In his office I told him that he could hold his head up high for having the balls to hang with the boys for one last hurrah. And then I promptly went out and drew a big blackboard cartoon of Vince in his boxers pissing in Flair’s bed. It broke everybody up, especially Vince!

A few days later, Owen and I boarded a plane at LAX to go home. I took my usual seat toward the back of the cabin, where I found myself surrounded by an all-girl basketball team out of Chino, California. I was trying to read but was pleasantly distracted by their loud chant: “Who rocks the house? The Hitman rocks the house!” I lowered my book and they gathered around, flirting and telling me they’d voted me the best-looking guy on the plane. I looked over at Owen and he just smiled and shook his head.

We had Sunday dinner up at Hart house three days before Christmas. My mom was still worried about Rhett, who was a long way from being out of the woods. Hart grandkids scurried about the old house, and I wondered whether Rhett would ever be able to race around like them. It warmed my heart to see both my mom and dad smile when they passed me the current issue of Alberta Report magazine, which called me the most famous Albertan in the world.

The following night I fell asleep next to Dallas in his bed, only to be woken by an angry little voice calling out in the dark, “Dad! Dad! Dad!” It was Blade. Julie and I reached him at the same time, at the top of the big stairs. He’d noticed I wasn’t in my bed and thought I’d left like I always did. I felt a pang in my heart hearing him crying out for me. His tears stopped as soon as I scooped him up, and as I held him close I felt his heart beating fast. But on Christmas Day I was gone again.

On December 30, Roddy pulled me aside at the building in Bangor to tell me that he had some big news: Vince had told him that I’d be losing the IC belt to Jacques Rougeau, who now cartooned as The Mountie (the real RCMP had threatened to charge him with impersonating an officer, which grabbed a few headlines across Canada). My heart sank into the pit of my stomach as Roddy explained the angle: I’d supposedly come down with the flu, and despite gallantly trying to defend the IC belt against The Mountie, he’d beat me for it. Then Roddy would fill in for me two days later at the Royal Rumble, challenging The Mountie to an IC title match, and Roddy would win. After that, he’d drop the IC belt back to me at WrestleMania VIII. Roddy said he was giving me advance warning so I’d be prepared when Vince told me at the next TVs.

I hauled my stomach out of my boots: Yes, I was losing the belt, but if Roddy put me over at WrestleMania VIII, it would be the biggest thing to ever happen to me.

The big contest coming up at the Royal Rumble would be Ric Flair against Macho Man. Flair had been working around the United States against Hogan, still wearing WCW’s World Title belt and calling himself the real World Champion. To this day I don’t know why Flair didn’t have more consideration for his old colleagues still struggling in WCW. For Vince it was a chance to stick his thumb in the eye of Ted Turner, but Flair had to know how much the use of their belt would hurt his former wrestler colleagues at the WCW. Vince decided that the winner of Royal Rumble 1992 would automatically become WWF world champion, and the boys assumed it was Flair whom Vince had pinned his hopes on to carry the territory, at least until the WWF’s legal woes cooled off. I thought that if Flair won our belt, it would give too much credibility to WCW. The wrestling talent in the two outfits was comparable, but Vince’s camera crew and post-production work were light-years ahead of WCW’s—which is saying something, because WCW did have Turner Broadcasting behind it.

A week later, Vince finally told me about his plan for me to lose the IC belt and win it back. He also said that sometime in the fall I’d drop it to Shawn Michaels. He asked me whether I had any problem with that and I told him, no, that I had a lot of respect for Shawn. Thanks to Roddy’s heads-up, I was able to tell Vince that his plan for me sounded terrific. He seemed relieved.

So, on January 17, in Springfield, Massachusetts, I walked out to the ring looking as sick as I could and dropped the IC belt to The Mountie. Despite knowing where it was all leading, I flew home feeling dejected about missing Royal Rumble and the payoff that would have come with it. My only consolation was a rare weekend off.

As if all the bad press about steroids in the WWF wasn’t enough, now allegations began to emerge about gay management preying on vulnerable teenaged boys in the ring crew. At one time or another most of us had seen Terry Garvin hanging around these young men, but none of us knew what, if anything, went on behind Garvin’s closed door. Then a former member of the ring crew, Tom Cole, came forward in the San Diego Union-Tribune with the alleged details. Vince was doing all he could to contain the scandal.

On February 16, we worked at Long Island’s Nassau Coliseum. Jim wasn’t expecting that there’d be a drug test, but there was. All evening long he stalled Chief and the pecker checkers by saying he was simply unable to pee. He also refused to put over one of The Beverley Brothers, a new team, and left the building that night having never taken the test. Vince was already pissed off with Jim because he hadn’t paid him back for footing the legal bill in the U.S. Air suit, despite winning a big settlement.

The next day at Tampa TVs, Jim was summoned to see an irritable Vince, who curtly fired him. Jim slammed the door behind him and went looking for Chief. When he found him, he grabbed a TV

monitor and hurled it at Chief’s head like a shot put. When Chief ducked, it hit a WWF television director in the leg. Then Jim burned rubber out of the parking lot.

With Jim gone, they threw Owen together with Koko B. Ware (who had been hired back after his European misadventures) and renamed the team High Energy. Despite it being a lame idea, Owen stayed upbeat and full of that supposed high energy as he and Koko tried to get over as best they could. On the bright side, Martha gave birth to a baby boy. They named him Oje, which was Owen’s nickname when he was a baby.

On March 4, as a result of the allegations of sexual misconduct, Pat Patterson, Terry Garvin and Mel Phillips all resigned, though none of them admitted to having done anything wrong. Vince and Bruno Sammartino ended up de-bating the whole sorry mess on Larry King Live. It was too late to nail that closet door shut, and all sorts of people who’d ever had any kind of a falling out with Vince suddenly brought out their own stories of sexual improprieties.

If I was looking for a vote of confidence, I got it at the HoJo’s in Boston—from Harley Race. The WCW

was in town, and as both crews of wrestlers hung out in the bar that night, the WCW boys hovered around the WWF ring rats like they were in paradise.

Harley had found his footing again as a heel manager to a colossal, red-headed monster of a man named Vader, who wore a red leather mask that looked more like a jockstrap. Vader was now WCW

World Champion and one of the biggest names in Japan too. I admired Harley, having battled back from divorce, intestinal surgery, a bad boating accident and bankruptcy to land a good contract with WCW. I was grateful when he pulled me aside, ordered me a beer—he no longer drank—and asked me whether I had plans to leave Vince any time soon. I told him I’d be crazy to leave now, especially since WCW hadn’t been very professional in their dealings with me thus far. Still I sat listening quietly as Harley told me of WCW’s plans to make a serious run at Vince, using Turner’s money. The timing was perfect, he said, for me to land a big fat contract: “Bret, you’re the best damn worker in the business now.” That was an amazing thing for a man as respected as Harley to say. I told him I’d keep his idea in mind, but the weird thing was that I was actually beginning to sympathize with Vince a little.

Vince had been as cold and ruthless as a man could be, and it was now as though his harsh treatment of his wrestlers had finally caught up with him. I’d been in the WWF for seven-and-a-half years, and in all that time I’d never seen Vince have anything whatsoever to do with what Terry Garvin and Mel Phillips were now suspected of. And the crippling accusations that he “pushed”

steroids on his wrestlers seemed opportunistic. Vince made it clear that he liked his wrestlers to have good physiques, but that how you went about achieving that was your own decision. It seemed to me that all Vince was guilty of was looking the other way, but in that regard he didn’t seem any different than the owner of any major sports franchise, or the Olympic committee, for that matter.