Hitman My Real Life in the Cartoon World (89 page)

On January 9, I worked in State College, Pennsylvania, wearing my work-out gear. That night I got a phone message from Martha letting me know that a judge had been picked and the trial date was set for February 5, 2001. She could at least see light at the end of the tunnel now.

I also got a message from Stu telling me that he and my mom agreed completely with everything I’d written in my column in that week’s Calgary Sun. I’d written an impassioned piece about the state of the business and how, when a fan asked me if wrestling is real, I realized that I didn’t even know the answer to that question anymore! It once bothered me when people thought wrestling was fake, and now it bothered me that they thought we were really hurting ourselves and one another: The sad part was that we were! In the column, I wrote that the colossal pulverizing that Goldberg gave me had been real, and so were Jerry Flynn’s stiff kicks. When The Hitman tried to kill Sycho Sid with a monster truck, that was fake, but when I careened out of control and nearly crashed my rental car into the television truck, that was real. I’d written about how my match in Kansas City with Chris Benoit was the ghost of what wrestling used to be, but what I had always thought it was meant to be. And I asked myself, in the column, how far I could bend without breaking in order to help WCW

beat Vince McMahon. Maybe I’d gone too far already. Maybe the whole wrestling business was fucked up now, including me.

I didn’t know when I got up on January 10, 2000, that this would be the day I’d have the very last match of my twenty-three-year career. My head ached miserably and it was a long drive from State College to Syracuse, where I caught an early morning flight to Buffalo. I dropped my bags on the floor at the Avis car rental counter and made small talk with the lady working there. I happened to glance over my shoulder and caught Nasty Girl poking her head out from behind a cement pillar across the street. I was tired, fed up and sick of the threat of her doing God-knows-what to me. I matter-of-factly asked the Avis lady, “Have you ever seen a real-life stalker be-fore?”

She couldn’t help but notice this large girl poking her head out from behind the pillar over my shoulder, and she began taking me more seriously. “You’re not kidding, are you?”

“No, I’m not.”

She asked me if I’d mind if she called the airport police and I told her that not only would I not mind, I would greatly appreciate it. Within a few minutes, three policemen showed up and we had a brief chat. Two of the officers walked me to my car, while one headed over to ask Nasty Girl a few questions. I drove off to my hotel.

I called Julie when I got to the hotel, and we’d opened up our next round of peace talks when we were interrupted by a knock at my door. I set the phone down and found one of the policemen I’d just said good-bye to standing there. He looked a little rattled, and asked me if I’d come make a statement. Nasty Girl had attacked a cop with a knife. I told Julie I had to go, and I’d explain it all later.

Sitting at airport police headquarters, I couldn’t help but hear loud wails from a not-too-distant holding cell, followed by the thuds of Nasty Girl’s powerful kicks. The officers around me kept shaking their heads in amazement at the sheer power and volume of her rage. An exasperated cop finally came out of the holding cell, slamming the door behind her. She told her fellow officers, “If you want her wig off, you’ll have to do it yourselves!” Apparently they’d needed to remove her wig to check whether she was carrying a concealed weapon in it! The cops then gathered in a circle and drew matchsticks to see who’d be the lucky one to take the wig off. Finally the cop who’d lost burst out of Nasty Girl’s cell letting out his best war cry while shaking a long black mane above his head, “I got it! I got it!” I signed my statement; the policemen whom she’d attacked would ensure that she didn’t bother me for a while.

When I arrived at the arena for Nitro, I found that Russo had concocted a storyline around me being forced by Terry Funk to wrestle a title match against my own nWo team member Kevin Nash. I’d hoped to be off that night, but instead I had to hurry away to buy black skater shorts, new running shoes and knee pads and change in time to air live clips of me and Kevin getting worked up and dressing for the match. With my head thick and thumping and that stabbing pain in my neck, I taped my ankles, wrapped my broken-down knees and smeared my lower back with gobs of Icy Hot. Just another day in my pain-filled life.

Kevin had read my last Calgary Sun column and told me: “You shouldn’t be too hard on yourself, it’s not your fault the business is so fucked up.” He promised me we’d take it real easy and then he surprised me when he said, “The match I had with you back at Survivor in 1995 was the best damn match I ever had. You’re the best worker this business ever knew. And that’s the God’s honest truth.” I smiled and thanked him, wondering all the while why Kevin had put so many rocks in my path at WCW if that was the way he truly felt.

I made my way out to the ring, WCW Champion of the World, with the big gold belt hung on my shoulder. I felt less than myself in a sleeveless nWo shirt and runners. If I’d been able to foresee the future, I would have strutted out there in my pink and black tights and my shades, and I’d have climbed all four turnbuckles taking in the faces of the fans who loved me in those final moments. I was Humpty Dumpty about to fall and never be put back together again. I’ll forever imagine how it could have been, with fans, young and old, slowly rising, proudly standing and clapping and waving signs. In my mind’s eye, I read them: HITMAN YOU WERE THE BEST; WE’LL MISS YOU. But I was the last one to know that this would be my last dance.

The bell rang, and Kevin and I worked hard and well together. He protected me as best he could. I chopped him down at the knees, and we let Russo’s silly storyline unfold; it wasn’t long before Kevin dropped me hard with a punishing sidewalk slam. I was rocked, and the next thing I saw was Arn Anderson on the floor cracking Kevin across the back with a rubber lead pipe, which was my cue. I forced myself up to fend Arn off with a steel chair, when suddenly Sycho Sid was behind me. As I turned, he mistimed his frontal kick, but somehow I still managed to clunk myself on the head with the chair anyway. Sid snatched me by the throat, hoisted me up over his head with one hand and held me, then drove me down into the mat with a choke slam. He pulled me right back up and proceeded to give me his powerbomb. I tucked my chin to protect myself as I?floated to the mat in slow motion, but I landed flat and hard. Lying on my back staring up at the lights, I saw millions of tiny silver dots everywhere, a galaxy of stars. Like a TV falling from a high shelf, my tube smashed and I lay there not moving. I couldn’t help but think, This must be what you see in the seconds before you die. I thought of Owen and tears filled my eyes. Then I managed to roll out of the ring to see Terry Funk racing out, brandishing a flaming branding iron and pretending to burn Kevin with it.

By the time I sat down to unlace my boots, I’d already forgotten enough of what had just happened that I complained only about the pain in my neck.

The next day, in Erie, Pennsylvania, for Thunder, I told Russo again that I was hurt. He replied with a confident grin that I wasn’t to worry—I didn’t have to wrestle. Instead he had a storyline built around me turning babyface, appearing to be taken hostage by a hostile nWo, only to swerve everyone by the end of the show when I’d double-cross Funk and turn heel again. I hated it, but at that point I’d have done anything not to actually have to wrestle. I was so foggy it didn’t occur to me that I could have just told them I was hurt and gone home, but maybe I stayed because it had always been so ingrained in me to keep going no matter what. Besides, Russo was on such thin ice I wanted to do whatever I could for him. I don’t know why. It was just my nature, I guess. With hindsight, as soon as I told my WCW bosses I thought I had a concussion, they should have sent me home.

I opened the show coming out in a T-shirt and jeans for a heartfelt in-ring interview. I apologized to the fans for taking the wrong road and told them I was so disgusted with myself that I didn’t deserve their respect. The camera cut to a fan holding a sign that read, RESPECT BRET HART! I saw one older woman in the bleachers cheering and jumping for joy, and I hated the thought of seeing their faces when I turned heel again at the end of the night. Then I challenged the nWo, and when they came out, Kevin declared, “Tonight, Hitman, your career will be finished, maybe even your life!”

All through the show there were clips of me being held hostage, choked and bullied with baseball bats by Nash, Steiner and Jarrett for my disloyalty to the nWo. They even burned some pink tights—

not mine but they said they were—in effigy, setting them alight in a trash can. At the end, I made my escape, limping out into the ring holding a bat, and I again challenged the nWo to fight me. Seconds later, we were all taunting one another with bats and chairs. The three-to-one odds were too much for Terry Funk and a cavalry of WCW babyfaces to take, and they charged the ring to rescue me. I saw the old lady in the bleachers clapping and cheering like a schoolgirl.

Then Arn tossed a pail of water in my face so everyone could see that my blackened eyes were only make-up. Unfortunately for Russo, nobody understood it. So I smashed Funk with a rubber bat to reveal the double-cross. I felt like a total piece of shit as the nWo beat all the baby-faces down with bats. And my heart filled with shame at the sight of the old woman in the stands now sobbing like a baby.

On Thursday, January 13, I sat in Dr. Meeuwisse’s office in Calgary, telling him about Goldberg’s ferocious kick to my neck while he felt around with his fingers. I told him about taking the choke slam and seeing silver dots. He noticed that I was slurring my words and asked me if I thought I had a concussion. I told him maybe a slight one. He probed me with questions and then recited some numbers and asked me to repeat them back to him backwards. I couldn’t. Then he gave me five random words that he’d ask me to remember in a few minutes. I couldn’t. He studied me, then asked me again if I thought I had a concussion. I told him again, a slight one.

He asked me what I was taking for my headaches and when I told him, “Four Advils every three hours,” he shook his head and told me they’d eat a hole in my stomach as he wrote me a proper prescription.

“I can feel a hole in the back of your neck the size of a quarter.” He felt around the back of my skull.

“This part here feels like hamburger.”

“I have a pay-per-view on Sunday. I’m the main event.”

With a dry smile, he said, “You’re not going anywhere. The problem with people that have concussions is that you think you’re okay, but you’re not.” He paused and crossed his arms, looking me in the eye. “I hate to be the one to have to tell you this, but your career is probably over.”

“What happens if I don’t stop?”

“The boxing world likes to pretend that Muhammad Ali’s problems today are all related to Parkinson’s disease, but the simple truth is Ali kept on boxing after being concussed. All those blows to the head cost him. You’re no different than him, and I’m sure you don’t want to end up like him. I don’t want you doing anything. It could take up to a year before we can even determine how bad this is. No working out, no flying, no watching TV, no listening to loud music.”

“When I call WCW, what should I tell them?”

“You tell them your doctor has diagnosed you with a severe concussion.”

“Yeah, but who are you?” I meant, Why would WCW believe him?

“I’m the chairman of the NHL injury committee. Tell them to call me.”

Driving home, tears came to my eyes as I thought about calling J.J. Dillon with the news. After twenty-three years, I didn’t want to go out like this. What would I do now?

By that weekend, Vince Russo had been sacked and WCW rewrote their storylines without me; it was like I had never been there. I had been erased.

I sat home staring blankly at the walls with the TV off and the lights dimmed. I couldn’t even read, my head hurt so much. Julie was pissed off and wasn’t talking to me again. For comfort, I relied on the steadfast loyalty of a pug dog named Coombs, which Dallas had given me. He rested his head on my lap doing his best Jim Neidhart impression with a face that looked even sadder than mine.

I didn’t want to lose myself to brooding, and Dr. Meeuwisse told me to find a hobby. When I was chosen by Calgary’s Glenbow Museum as one of six guest curators to help design an exhibit paying tribute to Canadian heroes, I really put my heart into it. One of my choices was Tom Longboat, one of Canada’s most famous long-distance marathon runners in the early 1900s. My mom surprised me with a story about how Longboat had run against her father, Harry. “My father impressed upon me that a mara-thon runner never, ever turns his head to look back,” Helen said. “It’s just not done. It throws off the timing. But in a big race one day, my father could hear footsteps behind him, always there, and so, for just a moment, he turned and his gaze was caught by the brown eyes of Tom Longboat, only a step behind him. Then Longboat edged past him! I don’t know who won the race, but my father never forgot the speed and grace of that kid or the look in his eye.”

WCW desperately needed me to make a tour of Germany in February: I was the headliner and it was sold out. I’d only step into the ring to say a few words to the fans. Reluctantly, Dr. M cleared me to fly, mostly because I was afraid I’d be fired if I didn’t. Duggan, Sting, Knobbs and Liz all reached out to me with supportive arms. A big, young, white-haired kid from Philadelphia named Jerry Tuite, who worked as The Wall, insisted on carrying my bags for me. Still, I couldn’t help but see that most of the other wrestlers didn’t believe I was hurt. When I slurred my words, they grinned at me like I was putting them on, which hurt because I had never faked an injury in my “real” life or missed a match on purpose. But there were so many worked injuries in WCW that when somebody got hurt for real, hardly anybody believed it.

On the bus in Hamburg, I had a talk with Jeff Jarrett, who had been one of Owen’s closest friends. He told me he was offended when Martha’s lawyers pressed him about any possible philandering Owen might have been doing, and had refused to even call them back. I told him that they were just doing their job, checking out every aspect of Owen’s life—and for the sake of Owen’s kids, he needed to talk to them. He told me how he and Debra McMichael, his valet, had been up next after Owen’s match in Kansas City and backstage everyone was running around in a panic, as Jeff stood at the Gorilla position. Owen’s dead body was wheeled past him at the same time as two firm hands shoved him hard through the curtain, “Go! Go! Go!” He told me he was sorry he went out to the ring that night and that he bawled his eyes out the whole time, as he did again just telling me about it.