Straight from the Hart (29 page)

A few weeks later, I flew out to Saskatoon with my dad for Bret’s coronation as champion and to discuss the booking gig with Big Mac.

The first day there, I was told by one of the agents (or “stooges,” as my old buddy Harley Race used to call them) that Vinnie was tied up finalizing details for Bret and Flair’s title bout and that he couldn’t see me until Tuesday night in Regina, at the TV tapings. No big deal, or so I thought.

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As for the big title tilt that night between Flair and Bret, for whatever reason, it never really seemed to live up to expectations. In fact, in his autobiography,
To Be the Man
, Flair described it as “the shits” and even though it was a historic occasion with a hometown hero — Bret — becoming the first Canadian ever to win the WWF world title, the crowd reaction was pretty subdued. It was almost like when Buster Douglas beat Mike Tyson for the heavyweight boxing crown. Despite all that, I still was pretty happy when they presented my brother with the world title, as it was, in its own way, an affirmation of what Stampede Wrestling had been all about. One thing that was kind of hard to fathom was that, for some reason, the WWF chose not to show the match on television; that made no sense to me, considering the magnitude of the belt at that time.

After the show, my dad and I were back at our hotel, in the lounge having a beer with Owen and Davey Boy, when one of the WWF agents, J. J. Dillon, who’d worked for my dad back in the ’80s, dropped by to visit. He and my dad were discussing Bret’s match with Flair and my dad — who wasn’t really being critical just frank — said he thought the title change should have been on TV

and that it didn’t make any sense why they wouldn’t have shown it.

My dad also said that while it was nice to see Bret win the strap, he was kind of disappointed in the match itself, as it never seemed to get off the ground, as he put it. Davey Boy, who was half out of it due to his usual post-match mix of Jack Daniels and Percodan, interjected and described the match as a “fooking abortion.” He knocked both Flair and Bret and said that since he’d already beaten Bret at SummerSlam, it would have made a hell of a lot more sense if they’d put the strap on him instead. At the time, I was engaged in a conversation with Owen and had already been around the block enough times to know when not to be knocking people, so both of us pretty much stayed out of things.

The next day, we all flew to Regina for one of those interminable TV tapings that the WWF used to shoot in those days. They spent about five hours shooting promos for every town the WWF was going to in the next month or so, which was about as exciting as watching paint dry. I was hanging around the back with my brother Owen, waiting for my summit meeting with His Royal Highness King Vincent II, when one of the agents approached me and told me that I needed to call home, urgent.

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In the past couple of years, I’d flown down twice to WWF shows to meet with Vince and each time I’d been called to the phone: the first time I was informed that my brother Dean had died; the second, I’d been told that my pregnant wife had been rushed to the hospital and likely wouldn’t survive. With a great deal of trepidation, I found the nearest pay phone and called home. My wife, who was quite upset, tearfully related how she’d taken our son Rhett in for his twelve month evaluation at the Children’s Hospital — which I hadn’t anticipated to be anything to be overly concerned with — and that the prognosis wasn’t good. She said that after having undergone cat scans, MRIs and whatnot at the neuromotor clinic, the doctors had informed her that he had suffered brain damage — likely due to oxygen deprivation during birth and, as a result, he would be confined to a wheelchair and would be severely handicapped.

This all was, as you can imagine, pretty disheartening, because even though Rhett had been slow developing, I’d always been under the impression — or perhaps wishfully thinking — that it was mostly due to him having been born so premature and that, in time, he’d catch up and would be okay. After receiving that devastating news, the big meeting with Vinnie Mac suddenly seemed quite trivial and I, honestly, would rather have not even bothered with it, at that point.

My brother Owen was standing nearby when I was on the phone and could tell by my expression that something was wrong. He came over and asked and when I mentioned the grim prognosis for Rhett, he seemed genuinely troubled and gave me a supportive hug. He said if there was anything he could do to let him know. I trudged back into the half empty arena, watching an endless series of squash matches and promos, preoccupied with thinking about Rhett, but also, in the back of my mind, wondering when my meeting with Vince would finally take place. I ended up spending the rest of the afternoon and damn near the whole night, sitting up in the stands, being ignored and treated like some kind of fucking mark, happy to just be hanging around the superstars.

Near the end of the night, Owen came up to me and asked me if I’d spoken to Vince yet. I told him that I hadn’t and that by this time, I didn’t really give a damn whether I spoke to Vince anyway. Owen seemed quite pissed off and stormed off into the back, behind the curtain, where I could hear him tearing
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a strip off Vince. He told him to stop playing fucking games and that if he had no intention of meeting with me, then he should say so and stop dicking me around.

Vince then had one of his flunkies come out and told me that Mr. McMahon

— as all the ass-kissers actually call him (and is probably why they parody that name on TV) — would see me now. I, frankly, was in no mood to discuss wrestling at this point, but went back anyway.

I was escorted to Vince, who was standing by his limousine, making out as if he was in a hurry. He asked, “You wanted to see me?” I tersely replied, “No, I was told, by Bret, that you wanted to see me about taking over the book, because of Pat’s legal problems — which is why, I presume, you flew me out here.”

He made out as if he now remembered having sent me the ticket, but said that since he was in a hurry to catch a plane, could I perhaps send him my resume and he’d look it over and get back to me. At this stage, given all the games and bullshit I’d already incurred, not to mention the decimating news about Rhett, I, frankly, felt like telling him to go fuck himself, but because Bret, Davey and Owen were still working for him and also because I was in no mood for any confrontations at this point, I kept my mouth shut and just left

— wondering to myself why Vince, Bret and whoever else continued to play all these fucking games.

I saw Bret on the plane, when we were flying back from Regina, and asked him what the hell was going on. He informed me that the reason why Vince had been such an asshole was that J. J. Dillon — the WWF agent/stooge who’d dropped by our table in the bar the night before — had told him that my dad, Davey and I had been criticizing the WWF for not having broadcast the title and that we’d also been knocking his match with Flair, claiming that it had been “the shits.”

I rolled my eyes and said to myself, “here we go again.” I then told him I’d barely spoken to Dillon and that my dad and Davey had been kind of outspoken about the match not being on TV and whatnot, but even so, it was true and they shouldn’t be so thin-skinned or immune to criticism. Bret, however, was impassive and gave me this sanctimonious sermon that I should have known
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better than to be knocking the office. He said that I’d likely blown my chances of getting hired.

I was a bit pissed with that but had far bigger things on my plate, what with the distressing prognosis about Rhett. When I arrived back home in Calgary, I found myself indulging in a bit of self-pity — the old “why me” lament. I suddenly put the brakes on though and cursed myself for being such a narrow-minded jerk, because it occurred to me that I had no right, whatsoever, to be feeling sorry for myself as it wasn’t me who’d been dealt the lousy hand, it was Rhett. I made a pledge that I would endeavor to do everything in my power to make his life better and to help lighten his load — which is what I’ve strived to do ever since.

Even though Rhett has had to deal with a lot more than most of us can even conceive of, he remains one of the happiest, most fun-loving kids I’ve ever known and has been a source of inspiration to me and everyone else in our family. Anytime my kids or I have had a bad day or are feeling sorry for ourselves, all we need to do is to take a look at Rhett, who’s still smiling in spite of everything that’s on his plate, and our spirits suddenly are brightened. This may sound like bullshit, but I feel truly blessed that he’s graced my life.

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In the spring of 1993, I got a call from Davey Boy, who’d been canned by the WWF — I’m not sure if it was for having knocked the office or for drug abuse.

This was not long after the Saskatchewn trip and Davey Boy was now in the WCW. He informed me that the WCW had just fired their booker, Bill Watts, for having made some ill-considered racial remarks on television and they were looking for a replacement. My name had come up and the Turner Broadcasting brass wanted to fly me down to discuss it.

The WCW flew me down to Orlando where they shot their television show.

The day that I arrived, my sister Diana (Davey’s wife) picked me up at the airport and drove me to the beach at St. Petersburg where the WCW was doing a television shoot involving Davey Boy, his partner Sting (Steve Borden), Van Vader and his manager, Colonel Parker (Robert Fuller). They were setting up the story line for their upcoming Summer Slamboree pay-per-view.

I’m not sure what the ostensible story line was supposed to be, but while Davey and Sting were playing beach volleyball, they had a midget wearing a shark fin on his back sneak onto their boat, which was docked nearby, to plant a bomb on it. Shortly thereafter, just as Davey and Sting were about to start up the engine to go for a ride someone came running up and informed them
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that a dwarf dressed up as a shark (I’m not making this shit up) had planted a bomb on the boat, at which point Davey and Sting then both jumped into the water — which was only about two feet deep. Sting nearly broke his neck and Davey landed on some bed of coral and badly gashed his hands. There was then a deafening explosion, with the boat being blown to smithereens.

Since this was on a crowded public beach and the public apparently hadn’t been forewarned, there were people running for cover and little kids screaming, while toxic fumes were billowing all over the place. All the while, Eric Bischoff, who was directing this fiasco (later described by Dave Meltzer as the worst angle in wrestling history) was congratulating everyone and making out as if he was the second coming of Steven Spielberg.

Davey and Diana later told me that Bischoff had recently done another equally lame skit in which Mick Foley was cast as a homeless person in the ghettos of Atlanta out begging for nickels and dimes, at which point Teddy Long and a limousine full of black heels, made out to be pimps and drug dealers, pulled up and mugged him. Davey said that since about eighty percent of WCW’s fan base was black, there was a huge outcry of protest from the NAACP, which was threatening to boycott Turner Broadcasting, because the angle was racially stereotyping.

The TV tapings at Disney World were a Mickey Mouse performance — pun intended. Before the show started, the ring announcer told the audience — most of whom were tourists who’d been bribed with free T-shirts to come into the taping — that they were supposed to boo or cheer on cue, depending on which sign this moron wearing a clown outfit held up. As Davey Boy and Sting (who were WCW’s top two faces) were coming out, the clown — who must have got his signals crossed — was holding up the
Boo
sign, so all the fans started booing them. One of the WCW flunkies then came running out and was dropping F