Hitman My Real Life in the Cartoon World (73 page)

Then he asked me whether I was ready to give the interview of my life, and told me the points he wanted me to cover. The set-up had begun the week before WrestleMania, when Vince had encouraged me to go berserk on camera and curse him out over the injustices I’d suffered, then shove him violently to the mat. He promised that they’d use the three-second delay to edit out my curse words, but they didn’t bleep out a thing, and my crazed bout of rage had gone out everywhere except Canada, where the show didn’t air live.

The interview I was to do that night would turn out to be the longest in the history of the business to that time, a twenty-two-minute live rant that I think was the best of my career. I wore black gear with a new black leather jacket that signaled my intentions: It had a menacing skull framed with a pink triangle on the back. (None of the fans would have ever guessed that the illustration was originally drawn by Jerry Lawler as a possible logo for the Hitmen hockey team.) I started by apologizing to my fans all over the world for the foul-mouthed outburst they’d witnessed. And then I took a deep breath thinking, Here we go, this is it:

“. . . to my fans across the United States of America, to you I apologize for nothing. No matter how much I try to win, when I walk back to the dressing room, you treat me like I’ve lost. Even though Stone Cold lost, you cheer him as though he won. . . . You cheer on a pretty boy like Shawn Michaels.

You let him screw me out of the World Wrestling Federation belt, but the WWF needed a hero, a role model, not somebody with earrings and tattoos posing for a girlie magazine, which is actually a gay magazine. . . . I thought I had a calling to come back and set the record straight and clean up the WWF—so I did. I came back and beat Steve Austin at Survivor Series. When I had my first chance to win the belt back, against Sycho Sid, Shawn Michaels interfered and cost me the belt. Nobody cared.

. . . But then I was told, don’t worry, you can fight twenty-nine other guys in the Royal Rumble and if you win that you’ll get a title shot at WrestleMania. Twenty-nine guys later I won. I was the last legal man standing, but somehow it’s justified that Steve Austin won. . . . Gorilla Monsoon and Vince McMahon begged me not to quit. To think of my fans. So I did. I was told if I won the final four I’d get a title shot at WrestleMania. Sounds good to me. I accept. I come back. All of a sudden, your champion, your hero, Shawn Michaels, comes up with this life-ending, career-ending injury and forfeits the title so he can go back and find his smile. . . You talk about me crying, I saw everybody crying in the audience for that one. . . .

“I’ve got one thing on my mind after being screwed over by everybody in the WWF—and being abandoned by all you good fans across the United States—I decide I’m going to go into this submission match and give Steve Austin exactly what he deserves. A good old-fashioned ass whipping.

So when I do it, when I take that dirty, rotten, stinking hyena, Steve Austin, and beat him to a bloody pulp, you find it in your hearts to abandon me and cheer for him.”

Most of the fans in the arena stood in stunned silence, not quite able to absorb what was happening.

But there were those Hitman fans so loyal to me they believed that I had every right to feel the way I did because the WWF had, in fact, screwed me, and they were just as sick of it as I was. In their minds, I was addressing the segment of the American wrestling audience that had changed, and they hadn’t, so they actually supported my heel turn. Lawler defended me too. So to stress to the TV

audience that I was now, in fact, a bad guy, Vince proclaimed, “The poison is spewing from Bret Hart,” as they cut to a sign that read, “Bret get a life!”

Hatred seemed to burn from my eyes as I ranted on along the lines Vince had suggested:

“I’ve proven myself so many times here in the WWF. I’ve tried to be everything you wanted me to be, but it seems to me you don’t seem to understand what it means to have dignity, poise, to bring prestige . . . to be a man that brings a little class . . . because you’d rather cheer for heroes like Charles Manson and O.J. Simpson. Nobody glorifies criminal conduct like the Americans do. All the other countries I go to around the world still respect what’s right and what’s wrong.”

Contemptuously, I sneered, “Respect” and took a deep breath, diving in past the point of no return.

“Now that we’ve made everything really clear with our-selves here tonight, it’s obvious to me that all you American wrestling fans from coast to coast, you don’t respect me. Well, the fact is, I don’t respect you. You don’t deserve it. So from here on in the American wrestling fans can kiss my ass!”

And then Shawn appeared at the top of the ramp and made his way to the ring so we’d be face to face as he had his turn.

“Yo, Hitman! Nobody knows better than me, you have to have a handwritten note from the Lord Almighty to get the belt from you. I’ve tried and tried to take the high road. Now, Bret, I’m in no shape to wrestle. I know you’re tougher than me. Blah blah blah. I admit that. That’s fine. I don’t have to be number one. I don’t obsess like you do. I do this cuz I like it. You do it because in your mind, Hitman, you really think all of this is yours. What you need to understand, every time these fans reach into their pockets to watch you, me, or anybody else, they have the right to cheer or boo anybody they want. Now, you don’t have to tell me, they’re cheering me now, but they booed me before. But you didn’t see me get all bent out of shape.”

At that moment, one lone disgusted fan shouted out to Shawn, “You are a liar!”

Shawn went on to tell me all about the first amendment. “I don’t want to get on my high-and-mighty roller coaster. Bret, my friend, you want to go? Let’s go! We’ve got a saying in the United States of America. It’s called, America, love it or leave it.”

“Boy Toy,” I said, “go back to the dressing room. Just get the hell out of my face.”

“How’d you know I was in that gay magazine? You just had to flip through the pages, didn’tcha?”

The crowd popped. Shawn turned his back on me to play up to the fans. Quick as a cat I came from behind and went straight for his supposedly injured knee. I dragged him to the nearest corner, dropped out and slapped on my figure four on the post. As realistic as both our interviews were, we were both still working: he protected me by holding my foot so I could ease myself to the floor without whacking my head, which was the only dangerous part about putting that hold on.

Shawn’s response was as carefully scripted by Vince as my rant was. He was a master puppeteer playing with a couple of marionettes.

On March 25, we taped Raw in Peoria, to air the following Monday. That night Owen and I concluded our three-year war, fulfilling the promise we made to each other when we started our brother-against-brother angle. Davey and Owen had a rematch for the European title, even though they were still the reigning WWF Tag Team champs. In the heat of their battle, I suddenly hit the ring and broke up the fight, like a big brother dealing with a couple of unruly younger siblings. I restored order long enough to get to a mic, and then launched into a monologue about family values. Angry fans booed me, but I appealed directly to Owen and Davey: “What are you fighting for? Americans don’t understand family, they’ve based their entire history on brother against brother.”

When they tore into each other again, I got between them and broke it up, pleading with Davey,

“We fought each other at Wembley Stadium. We fought like two men and we hugged each other when it was over.” He appeared to be moved by my words, especially as I pointed out how Diana had been used to drive a wedge between us. I turned at long last to-ward Owen, my embittered little brother.“Who was there for you more times than I was?” I pleaded with Owen, whose eyes glistened bright as his lower lip quivered in an Academy Award–winning performance. Despite the boos, I could see fans in the front row beginning to tear up too.

“Americans don’t understand family! Davey, Owen—I’m asking for your help. Owen, look me in the eye. Hear me loud and clear, I don’t care about these people. Owen, I love ya.”

Tears streamed down Owen’s face as he fell into my arms. The three of us embraced in the middle of the ring as the arena rained boos down on us. As Owen tousled Davey’s flat-top, I nearly cracked up, but I was able to glare coldly into the camera with chilling hate for all those who opposed us. The new Hart Foundation was born!

Later in the show, Stone Cold did an in-ring interview with a white bandage covering the tiny cut on his forehead, seething about how he never said, “I quit!” I appeared on the giant screen telling him he just got his butt kicked by the real king of the jungle, and that I was finished with him. He hotly fired back, “No you’re not. You’ll have to kill me to be finished with me.”

That night had one more wrinkle: I was slated by the booking committee to challenge Rocky Maivia for the Intercontinental title, and Hunter was insisting I beat him. I didn’t see any need for me to beat Rocky; it wouldn’t build heat for my new heel turn, and would only undermine a real talent. I insisted on a DQ instead, which infuriated Hunter. He and Shawn disliked Rocky intensely and were too myopic to see that Rocky was destined to become one of the all-time greatest megastars in the history of the business, The Rock. Looking back, I’m glad I got to work with him at least once.

Our match was nice, quick, simple. In the end, I pulled his legs out from under him in the corner, slid out under the bottom rope and locked him into the figure four around the post. Several referees later I still hadn’t released the hold and was disqualified. Stone Cold charged out to save Rocky, but he was bushwhacked by Owen and Davey, and I joined in by pulling Stone Cold’s shirt over his head, like I’d done to Shawn, and then pretended to beat him senseless. The Legion of Doom came to the rescue, squaring off with Owen and Davey, just as Steve battled back. In a rare act of cowardice, the Hart Foundation fled over the barricades and into the crowd to a chorus of boos.

It was working. Every night now, hostile fans waited outside the buildings for my arrival. I was finding out that the one thing that pissed off wrestling fans more than anything else was to attack their patriotism. By the time I got to the ring, I was covered in gobs of spit; coins, drinks and garbage dangerously bounced off my head as fans cursed and pelted me. It reminded me of the kind of heat Sergeant Slaughter had when he wore Saddam Hussein’s boots during the Gulf War. After the shows I needed a police escort to get out of town. Even then, I often found myself speeding to outrun fans who chased me, hanging out their car windows, shaking shotguns and half-empty beer bottles while trying to run me off the road.

After six days at home at the beginning of April, I took off on two foreign tours, to South Africa and then to Kuwait. Promoters in both places demanded that Undertaker and I headline their shows or they’d cancel the sold-out tours, and though the dates overlapped, we both agreed to do double duty as a sign of our commitment to Vince during his time of financial struggle. Before I left I got an unexpected call from Eric Bischoff to say that he’d been blown away by my match with Steve. He wanted me to know that if things didn’t work out with Vince, the door was always open for me at WCW.

My flight from Calgary to South Africa was the most luxurious trip I ever took, and that’s saying something. I could truly say to myself that this is what it felt like to be a superstar. I made my connection in Heathrow, where I checked into a room at the Hilton right at the airport, which was included as part of my ticket. I enjoyed a comfy eight-hour sleep before boarding a British Airways flight direct to Cape Town. I dined on roast shoulder of lamb and slept flat in an egglike seat that curled out like a bed. I felt so rested when I landed that I rented an Aston Martin and took off from the airport to find the hotel where I’d hook up with the rest of the WWF crew. Driving through Cape Town, the rolling clouds tumbled over Table Mountain and my heart beat contentedly in my chest.

How could I know this would be my final world tour as a wrestling hero? How could anyone know, but for a handful of conspirators who met behind closed hotel room doors in the wee hours, long after the fans had gone home, long even after the boys had gone to sleep.

I spent the following day on a sightseeing drive around the Cape, thinking about how desperately I wanted to get home for good. Taking inventory, I had to admit that the aches and pains never went away anymore. There was increasing stiffness in my joints, and I could barely bend my right wrist at all, as much from working out on the weights as from wrestling. But I told myself I could still deliver that one beautiful story, of a character who always stayed true to himself and fought hard for what he believed in, and who had a fierce loyalty to those who, in turn, believed in him.

That night I drove to the building unsure whether my loyal Cape Town following was up to speed on the new storyline. I strode out to a huge pop, waving a South African flag: the Cape Town fans ate it up. (Of course, the sight of me flaunting the South African flag on Raw was intended to heat up the American audience even more.)

That night, and for the rest of that blur of beautiful little towns, Taker and I had some great matches.

It was important for him to always be the monster, which allowed me the opportunity to save face and stride out to the ring every night as a good and steady hero. Those few days in Africa have endured for me as lasting memories of a vanishing time in a business that was drastically changing.

I was tanned and refreshed when Taker and I arrived in Kuwait on April 8 to hook up with a completely different crew. Owen and Davey had just come from a live Raw in Muncie, Indiana, and they told me about an in-ring shoot interview Shawn had done that was so over the line they were both livid on my behalf. I didn’t realize the full impact of it until I called my friend Marcy, who was so pissed off about the interview and disappointed in Shawn that she played the whole eighteen-minute rant to me over the phone. Shawn started off level enough, working, talking about how I’d put him in the figure four around the post a couple of weeks before and he wasn’t going to say when he’d be back in action. After that, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Remember, this was a time when pro wrestlers didn’t go on TV to speak openly about the business or what happened behind the curtain. You spoke only about a guy’s wrestling character, not his character as a person.