Hitman My Real Life in the Cartoon World (51 page)

The bigger news hitting the dressing room was about Liz flying the coop on Randy. She’d apparently become fed up with Randy’s controlling nature, and had gone into hiding. Randy was fluttering around like a broken-hearted peacock. He really loved her, maybe too much, and we all felt for him.

To the best of my knowledge, he’d been true to her all these years. I remember envying Randy for being able to bring his pretty wife on the road, but in hindsight it seems to me that never being out of each other’s sight contributed to the demise of their fairy-tale romance.

By the time I got to TVs in Hamilton, on June 1, it was official: SummerSlam would be at Wembley Stadium in London. Davey was back on the road, and Vince was going ahead with my idea to drop the IC belt to him.

A big black wrestler by the name of Charles Wright had just joined the WWF. He was bald and covered with tattoos; management gave him a voodoo gimmick and called him Papa Shango. That night in Hamilton, Vince started an angle between Shango and Warrior that was so cartoonish that it would have been funny except that it was evidence of one of the few times that Vince was embarrassingly off the mark. The fake blood and flash-paper fire were so phony that the fans laughed when it wasn’t intended to be funny. Meanwhile Warrior was selling it to death. Clearly Vince was missing the balance that had come from Pat Patterson’s contribution of wrestling smarts.

Another perfect example of that loss of balance was Vince’s idea to reunite The Legion of Doom with a ventriloquist’s dummy named Rocco, which was supposed to be a long-lost childhood toy that had some kind of power to lead them on. The gimmick drove Hawk, in particular, crazy.

And there was Owen, making the very best of being tagged up with Koko, who clapped and sang like he was in a gospel revival tent. Owen danced and clapped along, smiling through clenched teeth, wearing ridiculous, baggy, fluorescent-green pants held up by suspenders, because it was better being a funky white boy than taking hip-tosses from old Germans.

Macho Man was the WWF world champion, and he was still working with Flair. Randy had been stuck with the big belt with the hope that he could carry a company that was sinking fast. At least he and Flair were having reasonable, credible matches, in contrast to Warrior and Shango. But nobody was over anything like Hulk, who was now doing TV commercials for Right Guard deodorant. It infuriated Vince that Hulk had cut him out of the deal. Hogan still remained the biggest name in wrestling, even when he was gone!

I managed to get back home for my thirty-fifth birthday. While I was home, Vince sent up a camera crew to shoot vignettes revolving around fictitious tension in the Hart family, which was part of the storyline to build heat for my match with Davey at SummerSlam. (Wembley Stadium was completely sold out—more than eighty thousand tickets went in less than ten hours!) In some of the vignettes my mom was portrayed as being so emotionally distraught by the family friction that she couldn’t finish the interview; in others, Bruce was told to knock me for having a big ego, which he did a little too persuasively!

On July 20, I shot an angle with Papa Shango, and it wasn’t anywhere near as phony as the voodoo angle he did with Warrior. Charles Wright was a tad green, but he was big, strong and eager to improve, and I was happy to help him any way I could.

The following day I arrived early at the building in Portland, Maine, to make sure that the fifteen-foot ladder for my match with Shawn Michaels could be climbed up on both sides and that it was sturdy and safe to work with.

I was dog tired. I’d been working hard to build up my cardio, and the three matches I’d wrestled the night before could only help, as long as I didn’t get too beat up. Early that morning, I’d worked out at a local gym and was amazed to see Ric Flair blazing a trail on the StairMaster next to me, despite being hungover from his usual night of hard drinking. Flair was easily one of the fittest wrestlers I have ever seen. As he sweated out his poisons, he didn’t show any sign of slowing down.

Later on Shawn came and found me in the dressing room, scratching his head as he tried to figure out what this crazy idea of a ladder match was all about. I knew how successful this type of match had been in my dad’s territory, and I could just imagine its potential in the WWF.

That night, Shawn and I put on a decent trial run. Unfortunately, Vince missed it.

After the TV taping there was the usual party atmosphere at the hotel, but I was careful not to indulge. As part of my training regimen leading up to SummerSlam, I cut back on drinking and late nights. Davey, however, had no trouble throwing them back. So we were all surprised the next morning when he was suddenly in severe agony. He’d injured his knee during his match the night before but the handful of Demerol he’d taken afterwards had numbed him enough to convince him he was okay. Then, in the wee hours of the morning, the drug wore off. Davey was rushed home to where he and Diana were living in Florida and ended up being off for the rest of the summer, which made me worry about our upcomingmatch—and about him.

A few days later, Owen also injured his knee; he would be out of action for the next few months.

As the summer slipped away, I spent my time training and working on another big cartoon drawing of all the wrestlers, this time for Vince. I couldn’t help but feel indebted to him. I constantly phoned Davey down in Florida, but all Diana could tell me was that he was out with Jim somewhere. I finally tracked Jim down just hours before I was leaving for England and was shocked when he told me that he’d just taken Davey and Diana to the airport. Davey was high as a kite when he caught his flight, Jim said, because he’d been up all night smoking crack with him! Jim told me that Davey had a gorilla on his back and he was worried about him. I wished Jim would take a good look at himself.

I couldn’t have been more disappointed in Davey, and feared he would end up making us both look bad. I remembered Vince asking me, back in Binghamton, if I was sure I could go on last in the main event.

“I can promise you nobody will be able to follow us!” I’d said. And when I asked Vince whether he wanted me to run the finish past him, he told me, “I don’t want to know; surprise me.” I’d never, ever heard him say that to anyone else before—or after—but now I truly had no idea what surprises the match was likely to have in store.

When I arrived in London, hundreds of fans poured out of the hotel lobby to chant my name in the streets. I set out to find Davey, but he was off somewhere with Diana and his family. I didn’t see him until the required entrance rehearsal at Wembley Stadium the night before the show. When I asked him why he hadn’t returned my calls all summer, he wasn’t able to look me in the eye. He fessed up that he’d been smoking crack with Jim for weeks and was now terrified. He’d gone back to being that same helpless kid I’d rescued from Dynamite ten years earlier.

“Trust me, Davey, and I’ll do all I can to get you through tomorrow, okay?”

He nodded, and I sat him down for a crash course, going over and over our match and making him recite the moves back to me. It was now completely up to me to save our match.

The following day we arrived at Wembley early. The sun hid high in an overcast sky, but there was a collective sigh of relief because it looked like it wasn’t going to rain.

Shortly before the show was to start I was summoned to a meet and greet with a room full of fans, most of whom had been given British Bulldog T-shirts as part of a promotional contest. There was one little boy wearing a Hitman T-shirt confidently arguing to some of Davey’s grown-up supporters that I was going to win. As he held his dad’s hand, he politely asked me whether I could give him my glasses when I came out. I tussled his hair and said, “If I can find you, they’re yours.”

In the dressing room Hawk gave me a sour smile as he casually popped three Placidyls into his mouth and hung his tongue out where they stuck just long enough for him to wash them down with black coffee—I guess Rocco the talking dummy was getting to him even more than I’d thought. Why anybody would do that was beyond me. I liked Hawk and sensed in that instant that he was at some personal breaking point on his own road to self-destruction.

Once the show started I worried and waited, fearing that the other wrestlers would run too long, leaving me and Davey with not enough time to tell our story. If we ran out of time, it would be my tough luck, since if Davey beat me in a short match, it could ruin me in England. One positive note was that the referee was Gorilla’s boy, Joey Morella, who, in my opinion, was the best WWF ref. I knew he’d do his best to help me communicate with Davey once we got out there.

I was amazed to see Hawk, who was nearly out on his feet, climb onto a rented Harley-Davidson and wobble all the way out to the ring, behind Animal and their manager, Paul Ellering, who were also on bikes. Not that this should be recognized as some kind of amazing feat in itself, but the truth is that it was. Considering that he was barely conscious from bell to bell, the fact that Hawk—with the help of his opponents, Mike Rotundo and Ted DiBiase, and of Animal—somehow had a match, is a testament to all of them. But it mattered little, since Hawk upped and quit the next day, leaving Animal to fend for himself.

Warrior and Randy had a decent World title match, but their ongoing angle never made much sense and only got more convoluted when Ric Flair, managed by Mr. Perfect, was the one to cost Warrior the belt.

The sky was a beautiful purple-blue by the time our match was called. Davey went out before me to a huge ovation.

I was banking on my sense that the British fans truly loved me, but would feel they had to support their fellow countryman. To all the fans watching via satellite I’d be a huge underdog. Today I’d break all their hearts and win their undying loyalty: I was betting my career on it.

The aisle was so long that my usual entrance music played twice as I made my way to the ring, the picture of confidence in my leather ring jacket. English football horns trumpeted through a crowd of all ages while Union Jacks fluttered in the soft breeze. I was eased by the sight of numerous pink and black signs, and I had the distinct sense that God was with me as I silently vowed to show Vince, Davey and the world how good I was.

As I stood nose to nose with Davey he appeared to be every bit as determined, both of us unflinching warriors refusing to give way before battle.

While a thunderous “Bulldog” chant reverberated through the stadium, I unbuckled the belt, held it up to my lips and kissed it. I handed it to Joey, who held it up to the crowd, while I dropped out to the floor to give my sunglasses away. To our mutual surprise I was able to place them on the little boy I’d promised them to earlier. His dad smiled, impressed that I was a man of my word.

Back in the ring, Joey gave Davey and me the rules, the three of us momentarily awestruck by the size of the crowd. We pushed off with Davey looking strong and serious. The crowd was ours and the bell sounded. At first Davey outmaneuvered me with simple and realistic wrestling, but after only a few minutes, he was breathing hard.

“Bret, I’m fooked,” Davey panted as I had him clamped in a side headlock. “I can’t remember anything!”

“Davey, just listen to me, I’ll carry you.”

Joey shot me a worried look. This would be the test of my career.

So, that’s how it was, me calling out every single high spot for Davey, sometimes even the necessary facial expressions, helping him conserve what little stamina he had for a comeback that was still more than thirty minutes away. Every time Davey picked me up, I went up like a feather. He went up for me like a full refrigerator.

I made sure I didn’t overdo it as a heel, knowing the fans would forgive me in the end when I lost.

Twenty-five minutes into the match I locked Davey in a sleeper hold, and the crowd immediately got behind him, cheering him on to revive himself as he crawled to the ropes gasping for air. I snapped a beautiful boot straight into his face, grazing the tip of his nose like I’d snapped it hard with my finger to wake him up.

The drama built, layer upon layer, as every move that came followed a logic that never detracted from the story. I hit Davey with my whole arsenal, finally locking on the sleeper again. As he sank to his knees, I called the spots into his ear, and he rose up to his feet with me on his back. Staggering backward, he rammed me into the corner with all his weight, nearly snapping my neck in half on the top rope for real! But there was no time to sell as I slapped on the sleeper one more time. Again, Davey sank to his knees, as Joey muttered, “Do you guys hear that crowd? This is unbelievable!”

We went into a beautiful sequence of moves, ending up with an old Hart Foundation–-Bulldogs spot where a groggy Davey went for a press slam but lost his balance and accidentally crotched me on the ropes, to the roar of the crowd.

I’d carried him as far as possible, and now Davey took over for his long-awaited comeback. I called out all his big moves for him, and after I’d taken them all, Davey dragged me to my feet by my singlet straps, revived enough to signal with his hands that it was time to finish me off with his running powerslam! Always incredibly strong, Davey easily twirled me over his shoulder and charged across the ring, flattening me to the mat for the one . . . two. . . but this time it was me who astounded the crowd by barely kicking out! Clutching his face, a tearful Davey only half feigned amazement as he finally realized that I’d put together a masterpiece.

I dragged myself to the ropes and fell out to the apron. Davey suplexed me back in, but I dropped behind him, gripped him tightly around the waist, and jerked him into a perfect German suplex. This time Davey kicked out!

As we got to our feet I attempted a front suplex, but Davey didn’t budge. Instead, he blocked it, lifted me straight up, and dropped me painfully hard on the top corner strut, nearly castrating me. A half-inch over and the match would have ended right then and there!

Davey climbed up to the top corner and, before he had time to think about it, we did a standing vertical suplex off the top, crashing to the mat below. This was considered the most high-risk, breathtaking move in the business at that time.