Have a Nice Day (53 page)

“This is one screwed-up place” is how I started my farewell speech. “To give me this type of reaction after all the things I’ve said about you makes it all worth it.” I looked down and saw my friend who was always willing to lend his trusty crutch, John Owen. I stepped out of the ring and took off my new Cactus T-shirt. When I handed it to him, he hugged me tight and wouldn’t let me go. I tried to pull away, but he had a hell of a grip. I looked at his face, and I could see tears streaming down it-he was embarrassed by his show of emotion. I gently assured him that it was okay and climbed back into the ring. I then continued, “There are two guys that I have to mention here by name because without them there would be no more ECW. One of them is a business visionary, who knew what he wanted and went about creating ECW. The other is a creative genius.” I could hear people yelling at Todd Gordon and Paul E. by name. “I want to bring them out for you right now … Dancing Stevie Richards, and the Blue Meanie.” Meanie and Richards, who were kind of like comedic heels for the company, came running out, pumping their arms in the air and jumping around like little kids. We hugged in midring and the music-only version of “New York, New York” began to play.

To understand the significance of “New York, New York,” you have to understand the wrestling industry’s habit of referring to every wrestling promotion by its nearest major city. A wrestler going to work in the World Class group would say, “I’m going to Dallas,” and a wrestler heading for WCW would say, “I’m going to Atlanta.” Even though the World Wrestling Federation was located in Stamford, it had always been known as “New York.” The packed house picked up on it right away and actually started singing the words as I did a terrible Rockettes kickline routine with my two cronies. After the music died down, I got on the mike again and said that, as a last request, I wanted to strut out of the ECW arena. So, as Stevie Richards’ music kicked in, I did the worst Fargo strut in history-all the way up the aisle and out of the ECW arena. I believe it was the greatest wrestling sendoff I’d ever seen.

The next morning I flew to Corpus Christi, Texas, for my first match as Mankind.

I was nervous and deprived of sleep on my way to Corpus Christi. It just seemed like such a big, scary world in the World Wrestling Federation. Two of their stars had just signed big money contracts with WCW, which had begun trying to win the wrestling war in earnest. WCW’s Monday Nitro was heavily promoted on their television stations, and the show had been running neck and neck with the World Wrestling Federation’s Raw. Nobody knew what type of impact the departures of Kevin Nash and Scott Hall would have, but it had created a poor feeling among the wrestlers. I looked at my booking sheet and realized I knew at least two-thirds of the guys already, but I still had great apprehension about the coming day.

I arrived at the building early and ran into my old WCW teammate, Jake the Snake. Jake was a part of the creative process (he was on the booking committee) in addition to being a wrestler, and we caught up on old times before Jake went back to his hotel and slept through the entire TV taping. As other wrestlers arrived, I met and spoke with people I’d never met and BS’d a little with the guys I did know.

I saw Jim Cornette and ran over to talk about my vignettes, which had already begun airing. “Jimmy,” I called, suddenly feeling refreshed at the prospect of the glowing words he would no doubt be sending my way. “What did Vince think?” I asked.

“Well,” he started, “everybody from [TV director] Kevin Dunn to [TV writer] Vince Russo loved it. They can’t stop talking about it.”

That was nice to know, but I was more interested in what the big cheese thought. “What about Vince … what did he think?”

Jimmy was thinking, and I knew this was trouble. It was the same feeling I’d had when I talked to Neil Pruitt about my Cleveland vignettes. Jimmy’s words did little to assuage me. “I’m not sure Vince understood them,” he sadly stated.

I was really confused. Vince had told me he loved my Cactus Jack interviews, and these were not all that different. I told this to Corny, and he had to stop and think some more-not a good sign coming from a man who was one of the greatest speakers in the business. “Cactus, I’m not sure that Vince has ever seen your interviews.” Ohman, it was hard to get happy after that. Corny continued his gentle assault on my ego and confidence by saying, “Vince is really too busy to watch matches from Japan and interviews from ECW. The reason he told you your promos were great is that we told him they were.” He could see that his words had staggered me and was quick to try to straighten me out. “Look, Cactus, don’t let that worry you. Once Vince sees you and gets to know you, he’ll be your biggest fan of all!” I left our conversation feeling as if I’d just watched three Al Snow matches.

I actually dozed off a few times during the evening. This was back in the days when they used to tape four one-hour shows in one night, and the tapings had a tendency to burn out an audience. Steve Austin had just become Stone Cold and was featured in every single taping. By the time I made my Mankind debut, most of the fans no longer wanted to be there. I was sent through the curtain to the accompaniment of a somber-sounding dirge, which I later found out was called “Ode to Freud.” I listened to Howard Finkel as he made the announcement. “Coming down the aisle, at a weight of 287 pounds-MANKIND.” Hey, there was a surprise-not only did they go with “Mankind,” they had also shelved “the Mutilator.”

To say that my reaction was lukewarm would be generous. As I stumbled to the ring, trying to look like a psychologically abused former piano player, I couldn’t help but think about what a difference a day made-from the height of popularity to the depths of apathy-all within twenty-four hours. A few people called out “Cactus Jack”; the rest just stared. Wrestling audiences can be fickle, and they don’t always have a great appreciation for the past. Also, the World Wrestling Federation audience in March 1996 were not the same people who were, by and large, watching WCW in September 1994, when I’d last been featured nationally.

I had an untelevised match with Aldo Montoya that night and got the win when my claw pierced the defenses of his yellow jockstrap mask. As the bell rang, I heard something comforting. It was beautiful piano music, just as I’d asked for in Vince’s office. I hadn’t wanted to believe too much of what I’d heard, but Vince McMahon was sure proving to be a man of his word, even if he didn’t really know much about me.

I called home after my match and was not exactly abuzz over my future as Mankind. My mask especially was an subject that bothered me. It was hot, moved around when I worked, and was tough to breathe in. “Maybe I can just wear it for a few months,” I said to Colette. “Maybe then they can do an angle and I can just lose the mask and be myself.” Ironically, I’d be given the choice to do just that two and a half years later and would turn it down.

I came back for the next set of TV tapings in California at the end of March. The tapings would take place after WrestleMania, which was the biggest show of the year. As was tradition, all the boys arrived a few days early to help promote the show and bask in the hoopla. As a masked wrestler who had not even officially started yet, I was unable to take part in either the promoting or the basking. Instead, for three days I sat in my room at the Hilton (the World Wrestling Federation springs once a year for WrestleMania week) and looked out across the parking lot of Disneyland. I could see Matterhorn Mountain beckoning me with its majestic snow-covered peaks, and I grew weaker by the day. Finally, I couldn’t take it, and on Saturday, March 30, during the peak of spring break, I took the solitary walk across the street and stepped into the hallowed haven of Disneyland.

The place was packed to capacity, to the point where I didn’t even consider getting on a line-but worse than that, I had an unbelievable sense of guilt. I felt like an adulterer, except I was cheating on both my wife and my kids, and I couldn’t take it. I called home and confessed my sins and was immediately forgiven. I came back later that night and actually did get to go on a few rides.

I sat through Mania the next day and got ready to go to San Bernardino when Vader, my nose-bleeding, eyebrow-busting friend from my past, yelled, “Hey Cactus! I’ve got a Caddy and trans is free-I’m just looking for a bit of company. What do you think?” A free Caddy was nothing to sneeze at, so I accepted his offer. I was sitting in the Caddy taking in all the plush amenities that were somewhat lacking in my Lumina, when Leon handed me his hotel bill and his sunglasses. “Hold on to this,” he grumbled, as he walked away to grab his luggage. With all but the incidentals such as food and phone paid for, I figured his bill would be somewhat low. I mean, after all, how much can one man eat and talk in three days? My bill was $48. I turned over Vader’s bill and glanced at the numbers. I couldn’t have been more surprised if I had discovered thirty-two bodies in John Wayne Gacy’s crawlspace. The figure was astronomical. Two thousand, five hundred big ones! There were $100 meals and $200 bar bills, $50 tips and $300 sunglasses. I asked him about it, and he seemed nonchalant. “Is that more than you spend?” he asked. I got the feeling right then that this Vader/Mankind union wasn’t going to last. You would think that two men who shared the intimate bond of beating the crap out of each other would know each other a little better, wouldn’t you?

I was nervous about TV, knowing that this one day could mean the difference between success and failure in the World Wrestling Federation. In my years in the business, I had often seen talented guys screw up once and never get a second chance. I really didn’t want to be one of those guys. I was scheduled for a match against Bob Holly-a tough, former racecar driver from Mobile who hadn’t had any victories in a while. I know most guys’ mentality when it comes to a new guy, and I knew that there was a good chance that Bob wouldn’t want an ECW guy to look good at his expense. As it turned out, there was no incident, as Bob did his job and I picked up my victory. I can’t claim that the victory was memorable, as I was trying to iron the wrinkles out of a new style, but the episode to follow certainly was.

The Undertaker had a scheduled match against Justin Bradshaw, who would later become one of his “Acolytes,” or followers. I watched with anticipation, waiting for a tombstone pile driver. When I saw it happening, I felt my body tense. Thud! Undertaker dropped Bradshaw’s inverted body on his head. The referee bent to count, but I was already on my way. One, two-I broke up the count with a forearm across the back and sent the Undertaker to the steel steps, which he hit with the upper part of his thighs, sending him spinning over the top. I climbed the ring apron, measured my opponent, and took off. The footage of the diving elbow would be shown countless times, as my feud with the Undertaker had just taken off. I then backed off and waited for the ‘Taker to stand before sinking in the mandible claw.

I had performed for less than two minutes, but I was completely exhausted. When I got to the backstage area, I was literally gasping for breath. More important than my nerves was the fact that we had just done some captivating television. A few days later, DDP, my old WCW buddy, called to say, “Bro, I’m tellin’ ya-I even told Bisch that thing’s gonna draw!”

Also of interest on this taping was that it was Marc Mero’s first taping. Unlike me, Mero had come into the World Wrestling Federation with considerably more than just the promise of an opportunity. This fact would both annoy me and drive me over the next several months. Marc’s actually a decent guy, who at one time was a good friend of mine. But business is business, and the fact is that Mero didn’t draw. He sure did know how to make money, though.

After the taping, I rode with Vader to San Diego. Vader had broken his eardrum during the evening and asked me to drive. I was happy to, as Vader could quite possibly have been the worst driver in the business. He would look at you while he drove and was quite fond of physically going over his matches in the car. “I’d go boom, boom, boom, boom,” he’d say, all the while throwing forearms at me that, although slow, would still connect. He was also the worst car singer I’d ever heard. Everyone sings in the car, but Leon actually thought he was good. He’d close his eyes, lean his head back, and proceed to ruin songs that I had grown up loving. I still can’t bring myself to listen to Cat Stevens’s “Wild World” to this very day. “Who sings this?” I’d always ask Leon as he started to butcher a popular recording. “The Beatles,” he’d reply, or the name of whatever group happened to be singing at the time. “Let’s keep it that way,” I would admonish him, although my remarks never did stop his lyrical rampage.

My main concern about Vader, however, was financial. That $2,500 tab he’d built up was still fresh in my mind as we headed for San Diego. I was compulsive about saving money in those days, especially because I had no idea how much of it I was going to make. I knew that to save money on the road, I was going to have to split rooms, but I had heard that Vader liked to have his own room at Marriotts around the country. This flew in the face of everything I had been brought up to believe. Going back to the days when we used to jam eight people in a room to see Springsteen, I had always split rooms. But with Vader, I was starting to have my doubts.

By the time we arrived at the San Diego Marriott, Vader had his shirt off, with potato chip debris all tangled up in his chest hair. He had been drinking and was mumbling his words while alternating gaseous emissions between his mouth and his ass. I had to speak up, money or no money. “Leon, you usually like to get your own room, don’t you?” I asked. Leon didn’t answer but nodded his head and burped. “Me, too,” I said, while thinking of the sanctity of my own private bedroom.

Actually, I’ve lightened up quite a bit in my money-saving obsession over the years and will often spring for my own hotel and car. With wrestling as popular as it is, it seemed like a pretty good investment in myself to get a good night’s sleep. I will not, however, under any circumstances, pay more than $80 for a hotel room. Most of the time, I try to stay in the $50 range. The only time I’ll make an exception is when my family travels with me. This sudden transformation didn’t happen overnight, as I bounced around with different travel mates for the next three years.