Hitman My Real Life in the Cartoon World (74 page)

Here’s Shawn:

“Everyone is asking, Why is Bret Hart all of a sudden a ‘bad’ guy? Well, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I’m not gonna lie to ya. Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels loathe one another. Whether it be out here or back there, make no mistake about it, Bret Hart hates my guts. And to be perfectly honest, I hate his. Now, we’re gonna take the gloves off here. Bret Hart has not just recently turned into a bad guy; he has always been a bad guy. He comes out here and he talks about how . . . the World Wrestling Federation exploited his family. Well, I’ve got news for ya, ladies and gentlemen, Bret Hart is the one that asked his mother and his father to be on TV. Bret Hart is the one that drags his sister and his children out on TV. The World Wrestling Federation exploits Bret Hart’s family because he allows it . . . and the reason he allows it is very simple . . . for Bret Hart’s own financial gain. If Bret can make a buck he’d sell his mother. That’s the truth!”

Shawn was only just getting warmed up.

“Bret Hart has an obsession with Shawn Michaels and the World Wrestling Federation Championship. Last year I won the World Wrestling Federation Championship fair and square. But I want to digress to six years ago. When Shawn Michaels first started his singles career and became the Intercontinental Champion, that’s when Bret Hart also became the World Wrestling Federation Champion. I ran support to him. I told everybody, including himself and his family, that I supported him. And I was second fiddle to Bret Hart for years here, and I did it with a smile on my face, because that’s what a man does when it comes to business. But then, when it came for Bret Hart to return the favor, oh yeah he did it, but he did it kickin’ and screamin’ every inch of the way. And then, Bret Hart takes time off . . . he says, ’Cause he needs rest. What he did was take time off to see if Shawn Michaels and the World Wrestling Federation would fall flat on their face without him. Well, guess what, we didn’t fall face flat anywhere! As a matter of fact the World Wrestling Federation did the best business it has done in six years.”

Then Shawn turned to Vince, who’d been standing silently beside him all this time. “You’re the boss, am I right or wrong?”

Vince smirked as he replied, “You’re right.”

What else could Vince say at that moment, with Shawn on a roll on live TV? But the fact is that when I began my first title reign, the WWF was in the midst of the steroid and sex scandals, and business dropped off because of negative press—not because I was champion. In fact, I carried the championship during the darkest days in WWF history, and any wrestler who was there at that time knows that. Vince knows that, I told myself.

Shawn carried on:

“Bret Hart, he sat in Calgary and passed judgment on Shawn Michaels and he told everybody about my faults. And believe me, folks, I have got a truck-load of faults. But I have never, ever lied about that to any one of ya. He talked about my dancing. How could the fans of the World Wrestling Federation cheer a wrestler who dances? Who has long hair? Who pierces his navel? Who has tattoos? How could the fans of the World Wrestling Federation support something like that? Well, it’s real simple, they like it, you idiot!”

But every one of those comments I made was about his ring character, not about him as a person. If I’d been taking personal jabs at Shawn Michaels, I’d have talked about how he was a drug addict and how insecure and neurotic he was—and I never did. As for the fans? Male WWF fans left for WCW in droves when Shawn got the belt.

“And Bret Hart . . . talks about his loyalty to his WWF fans. And that’s ultimately what made him return to the World Wrestling Federation. Well, that is a load of horse shit. The reason Bret Hart returned to the World Wrestling Federation, after using a rival organization against this man and the company that made him what he was, he stabbed the World Wrestling Federation in the back! Why?

For his financial gain! Bret Hart did not come back to the World Wrestling Federation for his fans, he came back for the almighty dollar!”

Hogan, Roddy, Razor, Diesel, Kid and even Curt Hennig had all abandoned Vince’s sinking ship. I stayed loyal to him and to the WWF and walked away from $2.8 million a year to take Vince’s proposed $1.5 million. But did Vince say that?

“Now we’re all wondering, why are you obsessed with the World Wrestling Federation Championship? I’ll tell ya, I wanted to be the World Wrestling Federation Champion since I was a little kid. It was a dream. Bret Hart is obsessed with the World Wrestling Federation Championship because he was born into it. If Bret Hart wasn’t a World Champion he would feel like he had fallen short. When he goes home to Calgary he is still Bret The Hitman Hart, former World Wrestling Federation Champion. Shawn Michaels, when he goes home, he’s not The Heartbreak Kid, he’s not Shawn Michaels, he’s just plain old Shawn. Bret, you’re The Hitman twenty-four hours a day. And the reason for that is Bret Hart cannot separate all of this from his real life. That’s why he brings his family in it, and that’s why he brings his friends in it. Bret Hart is obsessed with being in the limelight more than I could ever possibly imagine! Bret Hart, your obsession with me and the World Wrestling Federation Championship will ultimately be, and I want you to read my lips, it will ultimately be your destruction.”

Marcy told me that when Shawn was done, he took his suit jacket off to do his Chippendale dance and humped Vince’s leg.

I called Carlo, and he said he didn’t like the interview either. Carlo was in such a full panic, fearing for his job and not trusting a soul, that I had to shout into the phone to calm him down.

Next I called Vince. Without a moment’s hesitation he told me that Shawn’s behavior was inexcusable and that Shawn would be dealt with. Thinking back on it now, I am astonished that I believed him: No one just went off like Shawn had done on a TV rant without Vince orchestrating every bit of it. I guess I just wanted to believe him. I asked him, again, whether he had any problem with our contract, and he reiterated that he didn’t. I reminded him that I turned down a hell of a lot of money to stay loyal to the company, and that this was something Shawn should know. He agreed.

How could Shawn have forgotten that I put that torch right in his hand?

The Kuwait tour offered some relief and distraction. Owen and I had the privilege of spending a day and a half with the 7th Cavalry Regiment “Garry Owen” tank division. The soldiers took us for a helicopter flight out to Camp Doha on the Kuwait Iraq border, where we sat down to a hearty meal with all the soldiers in the mess tent, including the general. The chaplain, Corporal Ken Sorensen, who was a dead ringer for Father Mulcahey on M.A.S.H., told me the men loved to watch wrestling; many of the soldiers said they couldn’t believe we’d come all the way out there to visit them.

They drove us in a Bradley tank to remote outposts where sentries stood guard. What impressed me most about these soldiers was their guts and their fear; they had the guts to take on anyone and they lived with the fear of knowing they might have to at any moment. I found the camaraderie of these men not very different from the camaraderie between the wrestlers. In the army they need to trust and respect one another and support each other, whether they like each other or not, which was no different than the bond between wrestlers working in the ring. As we were leaving, the general told us our visit had been great for morale and I told him, “Ours as well as yours.”

On the ride back to the base Owen, Davey and I found ourselves flying through an azure blue sky over golden desert sands in an open military helicopter, happy to be alive and bound by our optimism that the new Hart Foundation would really get over!

As a parting gift the chaplain handed me a coin with an inscription that read “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and he delivers them. Psalm 3:4:7.” The men of the 7th Cavalry gave me a Garry Owen pin. From that day on, even as I bashed American wrestling fans, I proudly wore the pin on my ring jacket as a way of letting them know how I really felt about Americans.

On April 11 Vader made the mistake of going bonkers on Good Morning Kuwait. He and Taker were appearing together on the show and had been warned in advance that the host was going to ask them the predictable question about pro wrestling: Is it fake? Taker diplomatically answered that wrestling is entertainment with athleticism thrown in. But Vader had worked a lot in Japan, where pro wrestling was still taken very seriously as a shoot, and where wrestlers put a scare into talk-show hosts all the time. So Vader grabbed the host by his tie and threw him down backward over some chairs and a table, swearing that such questions were “bullshit!” He was immediately hauled off to jail, and threatened with three months’ incarceration, mostly because it was illegal in Kuwait to swear on TV. Despite Vince’s efforts to get Vader out, for a time the authorities wouldn’t budge.

They finally settled on house arrest at the hotel. When I finally saw Vader again, he looked like a big, bad dog who tore up the fence. As much as the business had changed in the twelve years since the David Schultz and John Stossel fiasco, some things never change.

On my second-to-last night of the tour, I carried a Kuwait national flag out to my match with Taker, which was being taped to air on TV back home. I ducked under him, like I’d done so many times before, but caught my boot in the canvas and felt something snap in my right knee, like a small fan belt breaking. I limped slightly for the rest of the match and right through to the following night, when the vocal crowd popped as I defeated Stone Cold in the final to win the Kuwaiti Cup.

When I got back home, I was gratified to read in The Wrestling Observer on April 21:

“Reality break, folks. It goes without saying that in the ring Michaels did a super job in 1996 . . .

however, let’s not rewrite history to say Shawn’s reign was Hogan-like from a business standpoint, because nothing could be further from the truth. TV ratings collapsed in June of 1996 on Shawn’s watch, not Bret’s, and reached company all time lows for the rest of the year. Not just Monday night ratings due to Nitro—ratings across the board. Syndication died. Shawn’s work in the ring can’t be denied . . . but the buy rates fell through his reign and it was during Shawn’s reign, for the first time in a decade that WWF in both ppv and TV ratings fell to no. 2 in the U.S. And when it came to house shows, while WWF had a strong year in 1996, its best months were February and March and who was champion at that point? The summer was good but there was a serious decline in the fall, at which point Vince threw everything he could to get Bret back, including promising him the belt. Let’s not forget that there were numerous cases of Michaels throwing unprofessional hissy fits throughout his title reign in the ring.”

I was still deeply hurt and pissed off though—and had no idea what to do about it.

39

“NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS, I’M LOYAL TO YOU”

WHEN I GOT HOME TO CALGARY, my doctor told me that my sore knee was serious: I needed surgery. They would have to do a scope and then shave the bone down in my knee, which could keep me out of action for up to six months. Even though I was protected by my contract in case of injury, I called Vince to let him know I’d do my best to be back as soon as possible. The week the surgery was scheduled I was supposed to do an In Your House match with Sid, but Vince told me Sid was injured too. He desperately needed me to do the match with Stone Cold instead, or the pay-per-view was in danger of bombing. Looking back now, I wonder about myself and my desire to please him at significant cost to myself: it couldn’t have been all about being worried about my livelihood.

Without hesitating I told him I’d schedule the surgery for after the show. In less than a minute we formulated a new storyline in which Steve and I would carry our war through In Your House and onto Raw the next night, where we’d square off in a street fight. Steve would “injure” my knee, putting me out of commission. I’d have the surgery and do my best to get back for King of the Ring in June. As an incentive, Vince promised that if I came back in time, Shawn would put me over at King of the Ring. It was quite a thing to throw out to me, considering that Shawn and I hadn’t sorted things out yet.

Vince told me he was grateful for my dedication and that he, too, was fed up with Shawn. But he was reluctant to discipline him, maybe out of fear that Shawn would end up in WCW with his old pals in the clique. For my part I offered to sit down with Shawn man to man and bury the hatchet, for the good of the company. I hung up the phone relieved that everything seemed sal-vageable and that my position was still solid.

During my match with Stone Cold on the April 20In Your House pay-per-view from Rochester, New York, no fan could tell that my knee was blown. In a nice irony I viciously worked Steve’s knee, even ripping off his knee brace and bashing his unprotected joint with a chair. When I finally softened him up enough to go for the sharpshooter, I intentionally stepped through backward so he could reverse it. Steve managed to reach back and find his knee brace and crack me over the head with it, gouging a deep, two-inch cut in the top of my head. I fell back and my momentum flipped Steve perfectly up to his feet so he could step right into the sharpshooter. Feeling my scalp with my fingers I knew I’d need stitches, and the last thing Steve and I needed right now was another bloody match. Luckily the blood caked in my thick hair and was unnoticeable. By the end of it, Owen and Davey hit the ring to make the save, and I limped back to the dressing room leaning on their shoulders, which set the stage for a big blow-off the next night on Raw in Binghamton.

The first thing I did when I got to the Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena on April 21 was ask Shawn to talk with me in private out by the ring, as a handful of technicians did sound checks. I told him I wanted peace. I didn’t lay everything on him as being his fault, and listened without protest as he told me that morale among the boys was better when he was champion than when I was. I almost felt sad for him: he didn’t seem to have a clue how wrong he was. Shawn said that his recent animosity toward me stemmed from my remarks about his knee, which he maintained was really hurt. What was I to make of that? Every-body in the dressing room was skeptical about his injury. So I referred to my own hurt knee, and conceded that it was hard to tell from the outside just how damaged a knee was.