Hitman My Real Life in the Cartoon World (72 page)

I left for the venue in Berlin with time to spare, but I got incredibly lost in pouring rain. It was still early in the afternoon when I got to the building, but Vince was angry that I was late. It turned out they were doing the first live Raw in Europe that night to air on a tape delay in the United States and Canada, but I hadn’t known this. I had been under the impression that Vince was just hiring a local camera crew to film a house show.

In the dressing room, Jerry Brisco told me that Hunter was going to go over on me: This wasn’t so surprising since Shawn and Hunter had worked themselves onto the booking committee. I calmly said that I didn’t see any sense in Hunter beating the most over guy they had in Europe less than a month before WrestleMania XIII, when Stone Cold and I were being relied upon to carry the pay-per-view. Hunter gritted his teeth while Brisco nervously repeated himself. I said coolly, “I’ll take it up with Vince” and set off to find him. Vince was cool toward me but saw my point and changed the match to a disqualification, with Chyna interfering.

That night Owen and Davey had a rare gem of a match for the European Championship. Owen carried a super-charged Davey, who won when he flipped over and reversed Owen’s small package for a beautiful finish, which tore the house down. Vince had made promises to Davey when he signed him, but he hadn’t lived up to them and was trying to appease Davey by putting the European title on him.

By the time I got home on March 1, there were only three weeks to go until WrestleMania XIII, and I was nearly back to top form.

Before the start of the show in Springfield on March 9, I sat with Vince in an empty dressing room as he outlined a year-and-a-half-long program that would revolve around Stone Cold turning babyface at WrestleMania XIII. He pulled out a sheet of paper with two lists of names on it and handed it to me. The lists compared whom I could work with as a face as opposed to whom I could work with as a heel. I had to admit to myself that the heel list appealed to me more, especially from the standpoint of safety. Most of the guys I’d work with if I was a face were reckless and stiff, whereas the babyfaces were workers such as Shawn, Stone Cold and Taker. But actually turning heel? I wasn’t sold on the idea by any means.

I fully expected to put Steve over at WrestleMania XIII, so I was taken aback to hear Vince tell me that he wanted me to beat Steve instead. He enthusiastically went on to explain that he’d come up with a concept that had never been done before and he was counting on me to pull it off. I would become the hottest heel in the WWF, but only in the United States: the twist was that he wanted me to slag the American fans as rotten to the core. To them I’d become a heel, but to the rest of the fans around the world, I’d still be a babyface. I said I had no idea how anyone could make this work with the worldwide television audience all watching the same shows.

“Everyone around the world loves to hate Americans,” Vince said. “We come across like we’re better than everyone else. This won’t affect your merchandise sales because you’ll be loved abroad for standing up to us Americans.”

Once upon a time I enjoyed being a heel, at least in the ring, but I had no desire to alienate my audience. I admit I’d become accustomed to the adulation. Having a lot of young kids cheering their hearts out for me eased my loneliness, stroked my ego and made it tolerable to get up every morning and go to the next town. I told Vince I’d think it over.

As the evening wore on, I wandered the backstage hallways of the Springfield Civic Center tossing it all around in my head. If I turned heel, I’d have more control in the ring because I’d be driving the car. Not to mention that I wouldn’t have to worry anymore about my babyface character coming across as a whiner. If the reaction I’d just got in Germany was any measure, I could see where my foreign fans might actually buy into me bashing Americans. Best of all, Shawn wouldn’t see me as a threat any more—in fact, he would need me more than ever.

But what about my mom? She was a patriot, and she’d hate every bit of this! I’d traveled Canada and the United States from one end to the other, to every big city and countless small towns, and I loved both countries. I had always seen myself as a North American, equally proud of my American blood and my Canadian heritage. As an America basher, I would be a heel the American fans would truly hate. And the American wrestling audience had already changed, booing the babyfaces and cheering the heels. In a very real sense it was the American fans who were turning heel, not me.

Before the night was over, I had sold myself on the idea. After ten strong years as a baby-face I definitely needed to do something to pump some kind of new blood into my character. I talked myself into it, even though I couldn’t shake the feeling there was something not quite right about Vince’s plan.

I called him early the next morning. “As long as it’s done smartly and I have my hands on the controls of what I say and do, I’m in.”

“You won’t regret it.”

Vince told me to keep my upcoming heel turn to myself, so I did.

38

THE LION AND THE HYENA

ON MARCH 23, I arrived at the Rosemont Horizon in Chicago at about 10 a.m. for WrestleMania XIII.

Vince had just let Stone Cold in on my heel turn and our role reversal, and he and I sat on the ring apron blankly staring at each other. Steve appeared anxious about how we’d go about telling our respective stories. I started tossing out ideas, and together we began piecing our match together. I told him if my new heel turn was going to seem for real, we had to go toe-to-toe right off the bell, onto the floor, over the barricade and up into the stands. Such an approach would make it all feel like a shoot. The fans would be close, so we’d have to keep our work tight. I looked him in the eye and said, “What would really make this a great match would be for you to get a little juice.” Steve uneasily admitted that he’d never done that before, but he offered to try.

There was too much at stake for him to start practicing at WrestleMania. “Steve, I’d be the first guy to tell you never to let anyone cut you, but in this situation you’re going to have to trust me. I’ll do it right.” Steve quickly conceded that if we were going to get away with it, I’d better be the one to do it.

The plan was that he was going to pass out in the sharpshooter but never submit, and we both needed to figure out the best way to do that. I smiled at Steve and said, “Have you ever seen the scene in that movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest where Jack Nicholson’s character tries to pull that heavy, bolted-down sink out of the floor and throw it out the widow so he can escape the nut house and go watch the World Series? You want him to succeed so badly, but as hard as he tries, he simply can’t. That was the scene that made him, and that’s what we’re going to do with you.” Steve was relying on me because he knew he could trust me.Vince had finally hired Ken Shamrock, a move I had suggested, and he was going to referee our match, lending the credibility he brought with him as champion of the brutal world of Ultimate Fighting.

As I came out like a lion, Steve was pacing the ring like a pissed-off hyena. I really felt like I was going out to have a fight after school with a kid I hated. I got a strong cheer, but there were enough angry signs and boos for me to see that my days as a babyface were truly over. Steve tackled me full force when I came through the ropes and the bell clanged.

As we brawled up the stands, I took a hard smack into the hockey boards, and Steve took a back drop from an attempted pile driver right onto the cement steps. I remember this part of the fight in slow motion. Shocked, amused and angry fans leaped and yelled all around us. The cheering was so loud I couldn’t hear a thing. My fists bounced perfectly off Steve’s head, and he never stopped fighting back. Ken Shamrock, wearing a sleeveless zebra-striped referee shirt, looked amazed at how close our work was, and how totally believable.

I eventually derailed Steve and started to work his leg. I dragged him over to the corner, dropped out to the floor and slapped on my figure four around the post. Steve sold it like I was breaking his legs! I let go and nonchalantly grabbed the ring bell, then left it on the apron as if it was a weapon abandoned while I sought a better one. Like a cool killer I grabbed a chair, but it was padded, so I put it down and picked up a metal one. I could see Julie and the kids in the front row. Beans was covering her eyes, sitting next to a grim Stu and a startled Helen. I prepared to break Stone Cold’s ankle, as the fans remembered he’d done to Pillman a few months earlier, by methodically threading his shin bone through the back of the chair and stomping on it. I climbed up to the top corner to jump off and cripple him, but Steve was up to greet me and smacked me across the back with the chair, knocking me to the mat. While I was on all fours he cracked the chair across my back again, leaving me writhing and twitching in the ring. My heel turn was in motion.

Vince, commentating with Lawler, announced to the masses watching on live pay-per-view, “What excuse will Bret Hart come up with this time?”

Then Stone Cold attempted to put the sharpshooter on me as Lawler said, “Wouldn’t that be the greatest thing of all time? For Bret Hart to submit to his very own hold?”

Steve had put the sharpshooter on wrong, and I raked his eyes breaking the hold, fighting back with a hard gut punch. I took off into the ropes, but he sidestepped me and threw me out to the floor. I spat out the blade from where it was tucked between my upper lip and gum. As we slugged it out on the floor, I said, “It’s time!”

I faintly heard him say, “Maybe we shouldn’t.”

I reversed his throw and told him, “It’s too late!” I hurled him crashing hard into the timekeeper, and he barreled into the steel barricade. I calmly stepped over Steve, with Vince looking right at me and screaming fans only inches away. I grabbed his head and beat him with my fists like rubber hammers. Then I cut him perfectly, less than a half-inch long and as deep as a dime slot. No one saw a thing. The blood spurted out of his head as I gave him a serious thrashing. Despite all the vicious attacks he’d put me through, the crowd was now cheering for him as he fought to hang on. I retrieved the chair I’d discarded earlier and repeatedly smashed him in the knee, like I was bent on destroying him. I was actually doing the best I could to hit his knee brace every time.

I managed to beat the bloody but defiant Austin back to a corner, but like a school bully with his back against the wall, he kicked me full force in the balls. A total work. I clutched my crotch and sank backward. The tide had just turned.

Now a furious Stone Cold did all he could to put The Hitman away. The crowd seemed torn between us at times, but when he suplexed me off the top corner into the ring, Steve had the fans totally behind him.

After twenty minutes we went into the finish, but Steve threw me out on the wrong side of the ring—I needed to be near the bell I’d left on the apron. Steve went for the mic cord, while I subtly maneuvered to where I needed to be. He quietly sighed with relief that I’d fixed the mistake, and as I leaned against the ropes from outside on the ring apron, he came from behind me and wrapped the mic cord around my neck several times, pretending to choke the life out of me. I sank to my knees, gasping and struggling, then grabbed the ring bell, desperately smashing the top of Steve’s bald, bloody head. I untangled the cord from around my neck to find Steve flat on his back. It was time for this son of a bitch to pay! Twisting him into my sharpshooter, I wrenched backward with all I had.

Blood gushed out of his forehead, but Stone Cold refused to give in and somehow found the will to resist me. The crowd joined with him in one long, groaning gasp! He slowly forced me to topple to the mat, but could he kick out of the hold that had never failed me? No! The Hitman held on with unyielding determination!

The fans cheered him on, but like Jack Nicholson in Cuckoo’s Nest he just could not lift that sink.

When I steadied myself on my feet and clamped the sharpshooter on even tighter, I broke every heart that Stone Cold had just won.

In the end, Austin didn’t submit but was rendered unconscious. Shamrock stopped the match and raised my hand. The bell sounded. I coldly began to attack his knees, then stepped into the sharpshooter to give him some more, but before I could, Shamrock gripped me around the waist and threw me down hard to the mat. I was right back up and furious, with the taste of blood on my lips, and Ken and I squared off with fists clenched. He challenged me to bring it on, and the Chicago crowd came unglued. For him, a seed was sown for some other day. As for me, I stood alone but defiant, proud and unbowed, that remorseless pink soldier on his dark bloody battlefield.

As I dropped to the floor, signs danced in my face: “Bret who?” and “Go back to Canada!” But kids still pulled out the front of their Hitman shirts as they high-fived me to show me that they were with me. I touched hands of support that reached out, but one frothing-at-the-mouth, irate fan gave me the middle finger. I thrust one right back and mouthed, “Fuck you too!”

I loved it. The match. Everything. If I ever wanted my fans to remember just one picture of me, it would be that moment, as I was walking back to the dressing room.

As I headed past Taker, he smiled and said, “Helluva match, man, not a chance in hell me and Sid are ever gonna top that!” He said this respectfully, from one worker to another. I was numb with pride as I waded into my fellow wrestlers to handshakes and praise. When Steve came in, we shook hands as he beamed, all the while pretending to be up-set about his cut head.

In The Wrestling Observer, Dave Meltzer wrote, “It was expected to be a one-man show. And fortunately for the name WrestleMania, the one man delivered to match of the year caliber. . . Hart and Steve Austin more than saved the show with a match phenomenal in work rate, intensity and telling the story.”

The next day Vince pulled me into his office as soon as I got to the Rockford Civic Center and asked me whether Steve and I had taken it upon ourselves to get juice. Steve had denied it. So did I. Vince never said another word to me about it.