THE STONE COLD TRUTH (14 page)

I
remember when Stephanie, my first daughter, was born. It happened in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1992, when I was with WCW. It was going to be a C-section delivery.

I was right there, I had a Polaroid camera around my neck and I had a movie camera and a 35-mm camera too, because I was going to document the whole damn thing. Everything came out fine. The baby and Jeannie were completely healthy. Everything went great and we all got lucky.

Afterward, Jeannie was all drugged up and there wasn’t a whole lot I could do for her or the baby. They took Stephanie and put her in the baby nursery. There she was, behind the glass. I could see her, but she didn’t know who the hell I was.

And I couldn’t talk to Jeannie, because she was still out of it. So I called up Rick Rude. Then I put all my guns in my car and we went down to the shooting range, and shot pistols for a couple of hours.

That’s what I did after Stephanie was born—went and shot pistols for a couple of hours with Rick Rude. After that, I went back to the hospital and checked up on everybody. They were fine.

That was when they let me hold our baby, and that was really cool. I was someone who never, ever wanted to have kids. I love kids, but I didn’t want to have any of my own. I was sure wrong in that regard. But it was cool holding my daughter, one of the absolute best days of my life.

Holding Cassidy, just after she was born.

Some people are a little squeamish about changing diapers and all that. I did it all. I remember when Cassidy, my second daughter, was born in 1996, I was in the New York area on tour with WWE. All of a sudden, I got the call that Jeannie’s water had broke. The next morning I was on the first flight back to Georgia. I got to the hospital and twenty minutes later, Cassie was born. It’s like she was waiting on me. I was there for only twenty minutes and it was like, “Okay, she’s ready.” and Cassie came into the world.

This time it was a natural birth, and everything happened as smoothly as anyone could ask. The baby was perfect and Jeannie was fine. We had gotten lucky again. We took Cassie back into the room and I fed her first bottle to her, and handed her back. Another great day in my life. My girls are my greatest blessings.

My next-door neighbor from over in Douglasville was there with me, and I said, “I gotta go, man. I gotta wrestle in Pittsburgh tonight.”

I caught a flight out and wrestled in Pittsburgh a few hours later. I was red-eyed and tired, but I wasn’t going to miss a show. I only miss shows if I’m injured. So I worked in New York, then flew to Atlanta and watched Cassie get born, flew back up to Pittsburgh and worked that night and never missed a shot. That was cool. That’s the old-school wrestling business.

Now, with the divorce, Jeannie has unfortunately moved the kids to England. That part sucks. I try to be the best father I can. It’s not like I’ve seen them lately, but I enjoy being a dad.

Jeannie wasn’t supposed to leave a fifty-mile radius area from where I live, much less leave the country completely, so she broke the divorce decree. However, we’re on good terms and working on the situation. Maybe one of these days Jeannie will move back to the States. It would be nice. I’d love more than anything in the world to see my girls grow up. I really love those girls.

Not too long ago, my daughter Stephanie gave me a call. I had just talked to her a couple of weeks earlier, but I was happy to hear from her again. Then all of a sudden I realized that she had a British accent! She had always talked the same way I do, with the same Texas accent, and all of a sudden she had a British accent!

I remember that when I hung up the phone, I started crying. It broke my heart that Stephanie had this new accent. She wasn’t supposed to be from there! But I talk to my girls all the time and we e-mail each other regularly.

The funny thing is Stephanie has a real normal-sounding, nice girl’s voice. She’s ten. But Cassie, she’s got my raspy-sounding voice. Oh, my God, it’s the funniest damn thing to listen to her talk, because now she’s got that English accent too.

When I first heard it, she was a little shy on the phone, because it was so long since I’d seen her. She started out real quiet, and then as she started talking more and more, this real raspy voice with this British accent came out. It was funny as hell.

I really love both my girls. They are the best things to happen in my life.

I also adopted Jeannie’s daughter, Jade, who she had with Chris Adams. Jade was fifteen at the time I adopted her, so she was at an age where I wasn’t really going to be her dad. I was a stepdad, and besides that I was usually on the road.

Jade’s a lot like Chris Adams—a headstrong girl, if sometimes in the wrong ways. But I’m always there for her if she wants my opinion or someone to talk to.

Some friends have asked me if I would let my girls get into the wrestling business. The answer is I’d let my girls do whatever they wanted to do, and I’d support them to the Nth degree. I’d rather they not get into pro wrestling. But if that was their dream, to get into pro wrestling, I’d stand behind them one hundred percent.

That’s kind of what my folks did with me. They didn’t really understand the wrestling business or have any friends or family in the wrestling business, but that’s what I wanted to do. They said even when I was sending those postcards about not having any money and eating
potatoes every day. I’m sure they were worried, but they never discouraged me. I thought that was pretty good. Sometimes you see parents who want to live their kids’ lives for them or live vicariously through them. “I want my boy to be a doctor.” And you ask the kid, “Why do you want to be a doctor?” and he says, “Well, that’s what Dad wants.”

Then you ask them, “Well, what do you want to do?” and they say, “I’d really rather be a cop.”

12
The Hollywood Blonds

I
n February 1993, 1 was promised a big singles push from WCW, with Harley Race as my manager.

Harley was a legendary, seven-time NWA World Champion, which was a record for many years (Lou Thesz had held the title only six times). Race was a legit tough guy and had wrestled all over the world, including Japan, for the NWA, and for WWE as “the King” Harley Race (this was before Jerry Lawler came to WWE).

Then Harley suffered a serious injury in a boating accident. He returned a few years later in WCW—this time as a manager, and a damned good one. He quickly got Lex Luger to the WCW World Championship. Later on, Big Van Vader won the title as well, with Harley as his manager.

Harley Race was real popular with the young WCW talent, and I was no exception. I
could
have learned a lot from him.

I was still flying high about having Harley as my manager when I showed up in Columbus, Georgia, for a TV taping. Suddenly I saw Brian Pillman, who I barely knew, walking up to me.

Brian said, “Hey, Steve, how’s it going?”

I said, “Hey, what’s going on, Brian?”

He said, “We need to think of a finishing move since we’re a tag team now.” I said, “What are you talking about?”

He said, “Yeah, Dusty just made us a tag-team.”

And I went, “Damn!”

So I went and harassed Dusty Rhodes, the booker, telling him, “I was going to be with Harley Race—you know, a World Champion manager.”

Dusty said, “Yeah, baby, we changed our mind. Now we’re going to make you and Brian a tag team. Just trust me, baby. This tag has legs.”

So I just said, “All right.” In all reality, what choice did I have?

I didn’t argue. And that’s how Brian and I got together.

We started out wearing different color trunks, using our old attire. Then we began coming up with some ideas for our team while we were out riding on the road.

Brian said, “God dang, kid, if we’re going to be a tag team, we gotta have a name. Every good tag team has a cool name and some matching outfits and stuff like that.” We had to at least “look” like a team. Scotty Flamingo, aka Raven, was traveling with us and was real creative about this stuff. We started kicking around names and ideas for trunks and jackets, and things like that.

That’s when we came up with the Hollywood Blonds idea. I think
Raven came up with that name for us first. J.R. told me that in the early seventies there was another Hollywood Blonds tag team consisting of a veteran wrestler named Jerry Brown, who once swore he’d shoot “Cowboy” Bill Watts, and Buddy Roberts, who was to become known as a member of the Fabulous Freebirds. Those guys had some good heat going with the fans. J.R. thought we were a good update on that concept.

I had just ordered a hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of new ring wear, which I could barely afford, from a lady in Texas … and Brian wanted to order all new stuff? Damn! I was a cheap bastard back then, and for good reason.

But we
were
in desperate need of a look. Brian had his little Bengal-print trunks on and I was wearing these horrible-looking red-and-black trunks that looked like an independent worker’s hand-me-downs. We didn’t look like a tag team. We looked like we were just two guys thrown together.