Hitman My Real Life in the Cartoon World (59 page)

Sometimes he’d be sprawled out on the carpet in the dressing room, and if either Owen or I made the mistake of walking past him, he’d hook an ankle and pull us to the floor, doing his best to stretch us while we did everything in our power to stop him. Luckily, Scotty was always pretty playful with us. One time in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Scotty had Curt Hennig tied up like a pretzel after Curt had ribbed him. For over an hour Scotty threatened to shove his thumb up Curt’s ass, and the scary thing about it was there wasn’t a damn thing Curt could do to stop him, until finally Scotty let him go.

I brought Dallas and Blade to Royal Rumble ’94. Owen and I decided that we didn’t want our kids thinking there was any real problem between us, so we pulled the boys aside in the dressing room to smarten them up. I felt like I was explaining the birds and the bees. Dallas was both relieved and surprised to be in on the secret; I made them both promise not to tell anyone. It was important that they understood that Owen and I didn’t really hate each other, because the business was never more important than family.

When Owen and I went out against The Quebecers, Dallas and Blade were in the front row, and I was soon placing my shades over Blade’s head. He accepted them like he should have been the kid to get them all along. The storyline called for The Quebecers to badly injure my knee, and then the referee, Earl Hebner, would abruptly stop the match, declaring The Quebecers the winners. Owen acted like he was furious because I hadn’t tagged him in. As I struggled to my feet, Owen booted me hard in my injured knee, sending me crashing to the mat. The incensed crowd booed him out of the building because it looked to them like I wouldn’t be able to take part in the rumble.

I limped out second to last, to a huge pop, and Lex and I eliminated the last two heels before facing off in a buildup that the fans had been waiting to see. After a flurry of punches, Lex picked me up with his back to the ropes and attempted to dump me out. I fought to free myself, but the two of us toppled backward over the top rope. It was critical to the storyline leading into WrestleMania X that our feet touched the ground at the exact same second, even when watched on instant replay and in slow motion by fans around the world. Lex controlled how we went over, and it was a testament to his skill and professionalism that it came off so well.

For the next several minutes WWF officials debated who was the real winner of the rumble. Vince’s popularity contest culminated in this moment. Pumping my fist in the air it was obvious to me the crowd was mine—though the refs declared it a draw.

When we left the Providence Civic Center afterwards, Dallas and Blade hid Owen under some jackets on the backseat so the fans on the back ramp couldn’t see him.

We drove to Stamford that night so we could shoot promos first thing Sunday morning. That’s when Vince gave me the news: “I’m putting the belt on you at WrestleMania X. Because of the tie finish last night, we’ll have a three-way tournament. Earlier in the show you’ll have to wrestle Owen first, and Owen will go over. But then Yoko gets past Lex, and you’ll take the strap from Yoko at the end of the night with Piper guest refereeing.” It’d been fifteen years since Vince had said I didn’t have a big enough name to wrestle at Madison Square Garden. I’d already won the Intercontinental belt there, and now it was sweet vindication to hear this very same man tell me that I was going to regain the World Heavyweight Championship there too.

Over the next few weeks Owen and I did intense, realistic interviews in which I did my best to sound like a big brother who was sorry it had all come to this, while Owen came across as a jealous hothead trying to knock his older brother off his perch. With Taker off (the storyline was that he’d died in a much-hyped coffin match, but in fact Vince had given Mark time off because his wife was pregnant) and Yoko spent, our angle took the forefront of Vince’s booking. The card for WrestleMania X was shaping up to have fewer celebrities than previous years; with the negative press about Vince’s steroid trial, the WWF had become a dirty word. Vince lost significant sponsors and TV slots in major markets, and WCW, with financial backing from Turner Broadcasting, could afford to gobble them up—and did.

February began with a tour to Austria, Germany and Israel. I knew from the mood on the flight over that somebody was going to screw up and lose their job. The Steiners had been trying to get out of their contract so they could go back to WCW, where a better paying deal with a much lighter schedule was on the table. Vince wouldn’t release them, so they began intentionally roughing up some of the TV job boys, forcing him to change his mind. It looked like this European tour would be the last hurrah for The Steiners in the WWF.

On the first day of the tour, Marty Jannetty locked the driver out of the bus and was about to drive off with all of us. Many of the boys cheered him on, but when Marty looked at me for encouragement, all I could say was, “Not one of those guys will help you when they fire you again, Marty!” He immediately put on the brakes. He shook my hand and thanked me, then opened the door for the driver and took his seat.

Everywhere we went hysterical fans beat on the windows and ran alongside the bus, chanting,

“Hitman! Hitman!” I saw what it meant to these fans for me to be their hero, which caused it to mean even more to me. I couldn’t believe that somehow I was bigger than ever in Germany. That year I was paid the tremendous compliment of receiving my third Bravo award in as many years for being their number-one sports hero. I was grateful for the special amenities from the European promoters and tour managers, who made sure I had the best hotel suites. There was often a complimentary bottle of red wine or chilled champagne waiting for me when I walked in. In Dortmund I had a marble whirlpool, antique brass bed, a splendid balcony view of the city, and temptation knocking at my door. One of my regular Fräulein was standing there looking sexy as hell in high-heeled black boots, tight blue jeans and a black leather biker jacket. But the bus was leaving the hotel really early the next morning; I was simply too tired. I went to bed alone and then lay there staring at the ceiling. I knew Julie would have a hard time appreciating that I had just said no to a stunning, black-haired twenty-two-year-old vixen with pouty lips and long legs.

While checking out of the hotel at 4:30 a.m., I saw the tour manager, an efficient, serious little Scotsman named Jake, doing his best to sort out the wrestlers’ unpaid bills. Marty Jannetty, drunken and red eyed, was barely able to stay standing as Jake tried to go over his bill with him. Scotty Steiner steamed across the lobby, ripped the bill out of Jake’s hand and slapped it on the front desk, pinning it with one finger of his right hand while with his left hand he put a finger to his nostril and blew a nasty green snot across it. By the time we landed in Rome to make our connection to Israel, Marty had been fired again and was already on a plane home.

After clearing the heavily secured airport in Tel Aviv, I spent most of the day sleeping in my room at the Holiday Inn on Hayarkon Street. That night I had a cold bottle of Goldstar beer in my hand at a cool disco built in the ruins of a building that had been hit by a Scud missile during the Gulf War. It had no roof, and I felt like I was back at the Alamo. A moon-lit sky and a balmy Mediterranean breeze made for a perfect night. I downed a long gulp. It was impossible not to notice how bold, beautiful and direct the Israeli women were. I hung out for a while but left early so I could be rested for an early-morning guided tour of Jerusalem that the promoter had set up for me.

Dorit, my guide, quickly figured out that I have a fascination with history. I was amazed that she’d never even heard of pro wrestling: We came from two completely different worlds. Accompanying us on the hour-long ride to Jerusalem were a driver and two security guards who wore several pistols each, strapped to various parts of their bodies. Dorit was an expert on the history of the region based on historical facts, not religious teachings. She told me that Jerusalem means “city of peace” in Hebrew and described it as the center of the civilized world, the promised land, with a history going back four thousand years.

As we got closer to Jerusalem I studied the rounded gold dome I could see off in the distance, against a pale blue sky dotted with white clouds. The Dome of the Rock is the holiest place for Muslims after Mecca. As I entered I was abruptly snatched by the wrists by a long, tall gangly Arab version of Abe Lincoln with bushy black eyebrows, thick, muscled forearms and huge, strong hands.

He bared his white teeth: “Come, you, wrestle me now!” I had a tough time getting free and suspected that this wiry old fellow had milked a lot of camels in his day. I had an unsettling image of the two of us rolling around, a tangle of arms and legs, Arab Abe putting me in a camel clutch. This was his home turf, surely Allah would side with him. It was a serious standoff, and I didn’t take it lightly, because wrestlers were expected to be as tough as they were on TV at all times. I was relieved when a stunned Dorit snapped at him to leave me alone and shooed him off. So much for his dream of beating The Hitman!

Soon I was looking up at the high white stone of the Wailing Wall. I scribbled a small prayer on a slip of paper, “Please God, get me home.” I stuck it up high, next to thousands of others, in the cracks between the huge stone blocks. Then we made our way across an open plaza, and I looked up to see a group of Israeli soldiers with machine guns slung over their shoulders casually leaning against a couple of parked Jeeps. Dorit and my security guards froze with fear upon hearing what sounded like a small stampede behind us, and the soldiers jumped to attention, cocking their guns. A sigh broke out across the plaza as I was suddenly mobbed by forty or fifty Israeli schoolchildren who couldn’t believe it was me. Some were on their knees kissing my hands as the rest chanted, “Hitman!

Hitman!” The soldiers recognized me too. I signed autographs and posed for photos with the soldiers next to their Jeeps. It made me uncomfortable to be idolized in such a holy place, and Dorit simply couldn’t believe what was happening.

At our next stop, we retraced the path along the Via Dolorosa that Jesus took as he carried his cross to the place of execution. Dorit said that when astronaut Neil Armstrong visited the city and was told that these were the very steps that Jesus climbed on his way to Golgotha, Armstrong said that it was harder for him to climb these steps than it was for him to walk on the moon. I was particularly amazed by the imprint of a human hand in a white stone wall. Dorit told me it was said that Jesus leaned there while carrying the cross. My hand fit inside that imprint.

We went on to the Dead Sea. We all stripped down to our underwear—even the security guards—

and waded in, with Dorit cautioning me not to get the salty water in my eyes. I floated like a cork, awkwardly at first, but then I realized it really was impossible to sink in the waist-high water—it felt like I was floating in an invisible chair. The water burned and tingled my little scratches and mat burns, and especially my skinned-up shins, which had been scabbed up for years from all the front turnbuckles I’d taken. Smearing the mud from the sea bottom on my cuts healed them almost instantly.

We then went for a drive high into the rocky cliffs that overlook the Dead Sea, with the desert of Jordan visible on the other side. I took a position along a ledge of rock where below me three beautiful brown eagles crisscrossed the sky. As I sat there I remembered the time Julie’s sister, Sandy, asked me what animal I would be if I could choose. After much deliberation, I told her a lion, because they were certainly the toughest, being the king of the jungle. They’re agile and they love their cubs. She asked me for a second choice, and I told her an eagle, for much the same reasons.

The third choice? After much thought I said a polar bear, because of their perseverance in surviving the fiercest cold, and doing it all alone. Sandy explained that my first choice, the lion, was how I wanted people to see me. The second choice was how they did actually see me. The third choice, however, was what I really was inside. Thinking on that, I stared down into the cavernous rocky cliffs with the soaring eagles, and I prayed to God to help me hold on for just a little longer. With his help I would not end up as a polar bear, cold and lonely, or as a wrestling tragedy, bitter and broken.

That night as I took on Yoko, Jewish and Arab kids sat together cheering me on. Yoko accidentally came down too hard on me and my nose spawned a river of blood that I defiantly wiped away. I made my comeback with poor old Mr. Fuji taking forever to climb up on the apron with his bad knees, clinging to his Japanese flag on a pole. I grabbed Fuji by the collar of his kimono and waited for him to say “Now,” so I could magically move out of the way of the charging Yokozuna, who was coming at me from behind. One . . . two . . . three. Jerusalem. My heart was full as I looked out at all the happy faces.

I arranged for all the wrestlers to take a similar bus tour the next morning while Dorit took me back to Jerusalem. After another inspiring day spent exploring the city, I arrived at the building in Tel Aviv to wrestle Yoko again. When I saw Randy and Owen, they looked like someone had turned a light on in the back of their heads. Randy shook my hand, thanking me over and over for telling him to go on the tour. And Owen told me he wrote a prayer about getting home safely to Martha and Oje and put it in the Wailing Wall. I told him I’d done the same thing.

After the show I went to a hotel bar right on the beach, where I struck it rich with an enchanting beauty. To her I was a welcome distraction from the never-ending violence. We strolled along the beach, lit by a full moon; the beach still bore the scars of being pounded with Iraqi missiles. It was a warm night. Salty green waves rolled up to our feet. She walked me to my hotel room and eagerly pinned me to my door with sweet kisses. I thought, I could fall in love with this girl. Thou shalt lead us not into temptation was floating around in my head. I settled for one last kiss. As she walked slowly away down the beach, my heart pounded with regret. “I’ll be back,” I called out. She turned for a moment and smiled at me.