Forgiven: One Man's Journey from Self-Glorification to Sanctification (7 page)

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Forgiven

spending a lot of my time counseling some of the wrestlers about problems they are having both inside and outside the business. Whether those problems are job-related, relationship-related, or money-related, I find the same pattern over and over again — they’re doing something in their lives they shouldn’t, and know they shouldn’t, be doing. From drugs to alcohol to adultery to not giving in to forgiveness, they are not living their lives according to God’s will.

Put this theory to the test. The next time you are having a problem, stand in front of the mirror, take a long look at yourself and see if you can find that problem within — see if it may come back to something you are doing. We must all point the finger at ourselves, because none of us are perfect — we’re human. So, the only thing we can do is to ask God for forgiveness of our sins, and try to live our lives every single day, minute and second as Jesus Christ lived his.

I also discovered something about myself during those
Shield
days —

I thrived on controversy. I think it just came from getting real bored, real fast. I always needed something going on around me, something exciting, something I could sink my teeth into. Again, acting the role of Lou Grant, I soon found my real-life Watergate, the situation that would give me my 15 minutes of fame (even though I’ve had at least 15 more since then).

It all began my junior year at Indiana State. An avid basketball fan, I was following the season of our Screaming Eagles rather closely. My fraternity was a big supporter of the team, and a few of the players were even frat brothers. Over the course of the year, a strange pattern began to develop. Two of the best players on the team, Clarence James and Thurber Davis, were confined to the pine for the majority of the games. Nobody could understand why, but the players thought it was obvious — they were black, and the coach was white. Being the “journalist” I was, I loved a juicy scoop, but the fact remained that this could have been nothing more than a case of sour grapes from two players who weren’t getting the playing time they thought they deserved. So, in trying to live up to the standards of the profession I was training 35

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Vince Russo

for, I interviewed head coach Creighton Burns at length. Being a New Yorker, I didn’t know how to beat around the bush, so I went right for the meat and potatoes. I told the coach that James and Davis were accusing him of being racist, and that they felt the color of their skin was the only reason they weren’t playing. Without hesitation, Burns called the idea ludicrous. He informed me that his former college roommate was baseball Hall-of-Famer Rod Carew, who happened to be a black man, so how could he be labeled a racist? I must admit, Burns was rather convincing, perhaps as convincing as James and Davis. So, even though I wanted to break “the big one,” I had nothing more than a case of he said/she said. That was until my Deep Throat came forward.

With the story all but dead, I was approached in the strictest of confidence by one of the white players on the team. The guy confirmed everything James and Davis had told me. He even went as far as to say that Coach Burns had told his white players to stay away from James and Davis. The player than added that if the coach ever found out that he had come to me with this information, his schol-arship and college career would be over. What was a young journalist to do? Well, again, controversy being my middle name, I went with the story. Without revealing my source, the headline of the next issue of
The Shield
read, “Creighton Burns — Is the Final Curtain Falling?” Only 21 at the time, I had no understanding of the implications of my story. Living in the Northeast all my life, I had little idea of what the black/white issue was. But in the Midwest, I soon learned it was serious business.

Reliving for a moment my first real brush with racism, I’m immediately filled with hurt when I think of a person who, while working in World Championship Wrestling, publicly labeled me a racist simply to gain leverage in a lawsuit against the company. I have never spoken about this situation until now, but the accusations broke my heart. I was so hurt by the remarks, I simply didn’t know what to say. There was no way I was going to defend myself, because the fact was, I wasn’t a racist, and God 36

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Forgiven

knew that as well. This is what I’m talking about when I cite individuals looking to gain at any expense necessary. In time, people like this will be dealt with — not on my clock, not on their clock, but on God’s Timex. My role in working with Christ is simply to forgive . . . and I have.

Let me clearly state that in my
Shield
article, I never at any time suggested that Coach Burns was a racist. That wasn’t for me to decide. I simply presented the facts, both sides of the story, and let the readers decide for themselves. Call me naïve, but I really had no idea what I was getting myself into — to me it was
just
a story. Well, before I knew it, it was all over the local radio and newspapers — it was
huge
news for the small city of Evansville. People from all types of media were calling me, and I swear to you I had no idea what the big deal was . . . nor did I know that the story was going to get even bigger.

A few days after the story broke, three white basketball players from the team knocked on my apartment door. They said they wanted to talk about my article, so I asked them to step into a nearby laundry room off the hallway so that we wouldn’t disrupt my roommates. Well, as soon as I set foot in the room, one of the players hauled off and coldcocked me — punched me square in the face. I never saw it coming. It was the first, last and only time in my life I have ever been hit. I think I went down, I honestly don’t remember, but as soon as I gathered myself I dragged myself back to my apartment. There, my four fraternity brothers were waiting, and it was on!

In the days that followed, the fraternity as a whole decided to boycott all the men’s basketball games. It was getting really ugly, and eventually the Dean had to step in. In the end it all worked out, but I’ll never forget the feeling — I loved every minute of it! It was such a rush. I don’t think it had so much to do with being in the spotlight. It was the controversy that was exciting — it was unpredictable. Years later I would realize it was that one incident that forever instilled the “flair for the dramatic” in my very being.

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Chapter 7

IT’S ALL ABOUT WINNING

As I stated early on, even though much of my original manuscript has remained intact — certain things had to be “revisited.” God, my father, turned my life upside down, changed me at the very core of my soul.

Looking back now, it saddens me to see the person that I was, and how I chose to live my life. I tell my kids this on a daily basis — if I knew then what I know now, my life would have been so much simpler. I didn’t, but I do believe that I had to take that journey to my final ending . . . and his beginning. God was there from the first step, I just chose to ignore him.

I wake up every morning thanking God for allowing me, after more than 40 years, to allow him to take over my life — mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally. Every ounce of Vince Russo belongs to him.

Unfortunately, for you to fully understand that transition, I need to talk in detail about the old Vince.

For me, it had everything to do with winning and losing, and noth-38

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Forgiven

ing to do with how you played the game. I’ve always wondered —

who really believes it’s how you play the game? I’ll tell you who —

losers. It was all about winning and nothing else mattered. The more you won, the stronger you became. The more you failed, the less you were. Sounds heartless? It was, and so was I. But at the time, I was being truthful.

I remember my father asking me, “Vin, don’t you have any compassion in your heart?” Well, if I did, I certainly never let it out for air.

To me, it was always about the “truth.” Telling it, living it, no matter how much it may have hurt others.

I was clueless to the fact that at that point in my life, the real “truth” was light years away. My motto was, if you weren’t man enough to tell the truth 100 percent of the time then you’d never be true to yourself.

Whereas there might be some meat to that wisdom, I now understand that the truth, at that time, may have not been the truth at all, but rather the way I looked at the world. Back then I never looked at losing as a way of growing; today I do. I had to lose the battle, my battle, and face the reality of “I’m not” in order to understand and accept the fullness of the Lord’s “I am.” I also now understand that maybe a loss isn’t a loss at all

— but rather a gain. The truth is that sometimes things didn’t turn out the way
we
planned because that wasn’t
God’s
plan. You see the difference?

I’m now certain that I was confusing truth with honesty at the time.

Why? Because I saw “my opinion” as the truth. Today, I consider that ridiculous. When I stated, “If you aren’t man enough to tell the truth 100

percent of the time . . .” I understand now that I should have said, “If you aren’t honest with yourself 100 percent of the time. . . .” It was, and still is, important for me to look myself in the mirror regardless of what I might see. At the end of the day, you have to be able to live with yourself. There have been times in my life when I absolutely buried myself by being honest. But you know what? I can look in that mirror — I can look my children in the eye and know that I did the right thing.

Unfortunately, I can’t say the same thing about a lot of individuals I 39

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Vince Russo

encountered in the wrestling business. But I do understand that it’s the nature of the beast. I’m not condoning it by any means — it’s just the way the business was built. You see, from day one, the wrestling business was controlled by promoters who were interested in only one thing: making all the money. As a result, they never “hired” any of the wrestlers — providing them with health care, dental care, insurance, death benefits, that kind of thing. Instead, they gave them jobs as “inde-pendent contractors,” which to me means you can work anyplace else

— but the catch was, you never could. What the promoters created was a wrestler-eat-wrestler world. Everybody was in competition to get that illustrious “spot.” So, with the “boys,” it was always about doing whatever you had to do to keep your spot. That meant lying, cheating, stealing, hurting and lying some more. That’s why the majority of the wrestlers I’ve known are sick with paranoia. They are always looking in the rear-view mirror to see who might be serving them up for lunch.

That’s what the wrestling business was built on, and is still fueled by today. I’ve always said, “It’s tough to be a regular guy and exist in the wrestling business.” But I had to be honest for the sake of my own self-respect. If you don’t respect yourself, you will respect no one.

That’s the one thing I can say for Vince McMahon — the guy never lied to me. He may have been insensitive at times, but he never lied.

That’s why I always had such great respect for him. He said things to me even when they hurt. Perhaps he would not be truthful 100 percent of the time for business reasons — dollars and cents. But I’m not taking about that — I’m talking about man-to-man, when it’s all on the line, looking another human being in the eye and shooting straight. Any heat that I had, or have, with any of the boys (the wrestlers) today is for that one reason alone. I was always honest with them, and on occasion that was not always what they wanted to hear.

But guess what? I can live with that. I’d rather somebody be hot with me over the truth, than over a lie.

Just for the record, back in the day, I didn’t always practice what I preached. I didn’t win all the time. The truth is, during my wrestling 40

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Forgiven

career I lost on several occasions. As a matter of fact, there were many times when I was done in by the politics of the business. But on every occasion, I knew exactly what was going on. All I had to do was glance over my shoulder and see the huddles in corners quickly breaking up. I got it — especially in World Championship Wrestling. But my mindset was that I was getting paid to do a job, so I was going to do the best job I could. I made it my policy to never get caught up in the politics, because I just wasn’t interested. If politics were going to be my downfall, then it just wasn’t meant to be in the first place. Again, with God now clearly running my life, I understand that he always looked after my best interests. It was in my best interest to leave my position with wcw just three months in, fully realizing that I could be breaching my lucrative contract. And everything turned out okay. I can look at my children and know that one day they will be able to appreciate that their old man stood tall and stuck to his God-given values regardless of the circumstances. In the end, when the last fan leaves the arena, all you’re going to have is yourself. At that point, you’re either going to be able to live with yourself . . . or not. It will all depend on how you chose to live your life — by your rules, or by God’s.

I want to make one thing clear — when I talk about winning, I’m not talking about winning a game. In life, you play a lot of games. You’re going to win some, and you’re going to lose some — it’s the law of averages. When I was 13, my team won the Little League World Series, when I was 14 we lost it — no big deal. What I’m talking about are the
big
battles, the ones that really make a difference in your life. The ones you can’t afford to lose.

I won my first big battle when I was about 17 years old. It was on a battlefield that every guy knows — dating a girl who thinks she’s better than you, and trying to humble her. Her name was L (I’ll use the initial in an effort not to get sued for defamation of character —