Have a Nice Day (54 page)

Al Snow and Marty Jannetty were the first guys I hooked up with after my driving divorce from the man they call Vader. Marty had, at one time, been one of the hottest prospects and best young wrestlers in the business, but his love for the night life and a tendency to get himself in trouble had led to various hirings and firings, each of which resulted in a smaller role in the company. Marty’s role at this point in 1996 was his smallest ever-as half of the New Rockers tag team, along with Al Snow. At this point, Al had been forced to change his name to Leif Cassidy, a combination of two seventies heartthrobs. At one time, with Shawn Michaels as his partner, Marty had been a part of some of the World Wrestling Federation’s greatest matches. Michaels had gone on to be one of the Federation’s biggest superstars, while Jannetty seemed to drift aimlessly. His only joy in life, it seemed, was tormenting poor Al. He would ride Al at any opportunity. When Al was in a public toilet, Marty would wad up wet paper towels and throw them at him. When he was in the shower, Marty would throw cold water on him. He would put pitchers of water on top of doors, and tilt garbage cans in front of them. Life was never dull when Marty was around. He was funny, too. One time, while driving back to Montreal, he had us laughing so hard with Verne Gagne stories that we had to pull the car over to keep from crashing.

Verne Gagne was an old-time wrestler and promoter who, like a lot of old-timers, didn’t care for modern-day wrestling. He also promoted the Minneapolis area, which prided itself on its technical wrestling emphasis. By doing a dead-on Verne impression and substituting the word “fuck” for “wrestle,” Marty had us on the verge of crying. “Jesus Christ, kid, where’d you learn how to fuck? Not in this territory, because in this territory, fucking comes first! Back in my day, kid, we knew how to fuck. After all, that’s what the name on the marquee says-Fucking.”

Al is one of my favorites to ride with. I know that I’ve poked fun at Al several times in this book, but it’s not out of any malice toward the Crown Prince of Hardcore, but rather the continuation of a longstanding tradition of insulting each other. The insults actually started out innocently, but soon came to be judged in much the same way a boxing match is. A decent joke was considered a jab, a good quality joke, a straight right, and the big daddy of all insults would result in a knockout. Knockouts were rare, but in all honesty, I scored them much more frequently than Al could ever have hoped to.

Throwing in the (false) accusation of homosexuality was also highly valued in our contest-in fact, for quite a while, it dominated the competition. For example, when I was in the midst of a series of matches with Austin, I would tell Al, “Hey, it’s probably unfair that I get all the title shots with Steve, so I’ll tell you what … tonight I’m going to let you go a couple of rounds with my bald-headed champion.” Definite knockout. Part of the rules were that no bodily action or orifice could be referred to by a vulgar or offensive word. It just showed a lack of imagination.

Bob Holly was actually disqualified for his lack of ingenuity. I mean, why use a common word like “cock” when I could tell Al to “go fish for my one-eyed, blue-veined, purple-headed trouser trout” instead? As it turned out, a road trip with Al and me could be pretty overwhelming. After five days in Canada, Too Hot Scott Taylor returned home to his wife, who asked him how he’d enjoyed traveling with us. “It was fine,” he told her, “except all they talked about was hammering each other.” Scott was not the only one who stopped riding with us after one road trip.

After a while, I was able to use a valuable weapon-the fake laugh. We began to take our feud public, and the fake laugh buried Al. I would tell a joke, and it would be met by howls of fake laughter, while Al’s attempts were met with total silence. “I hate you,” is all he could manage to say before leaving, a defeated man. When I combined the fake laugh with the growing influence of the Internet, the knockout ratio really started to explode. If I saw the roving camera they used for the World Wrestling Federation Internet show during lunch, Al was as good as done. “What’s the difference between me and Jack in the Box?” was the lead-in to just one of my verbal knockouts. “Well,” I answered “Jack in the Box serves up a jumbo jack between two buns, and I serve up Cactus Jack between Al Snow’s buns.”

“Oh, ho, oh, ho, hoooo, ho, ho” (big group laugh). It was a beautiful part of my life, but like many things in life, I took it too far. Al was a remarkably good sport about all this until I overstepped the boundaries of fair play and took my brutal power and displayed it on national television. First on a pre-WrestleMania party, where I told the audience that “in addition to visiting the Liberty Bell and seeing the original Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, I also went to a very small museum, where up on the third floor, under heavy security, I had found a very rare tape of Al Snow’s last good match.” A few weeks later, I upped the ante with a knockout so stunning, it made Butterbean-Bart Gunn look like a fifteen-round technical battle. Al felt like he was under pressure to retaliate and nearly ruined his career by launching a five-minute verbal assault on Mankind, while doing guest commentary on the next evening’s Raw. Besides the fact that it was both unfunny and unimaginative, Vince had personally hated it, and as a result, I felt the need to apologize. “Vince, I’m sorry that I used your show as a forum to push my little rib with Al. It was unprofessional, and I apologize.”

Vince then hit me with words I never expected to hear. “Mick, I don’t mind when you do it, but Al ruined an entire segment by talking about you.” I basically had carte blanche from the boss to ruin Al, to embarrass him and make him suffer. I don’t think I will, but it’s nice to know I can. Oh, by the way, I invented the whole “head” thing.

Heading into June, Mankind was gaining momentum. The office had pushed me hard, and people were responding. I was getting a chance to cut some pretty decent interviews, and my matches with Undertaker had been stealing the show around the country. I sometimes think about where my life would be if the Undertaker had chosen to be an asshole. I had seen guys put a wrestler in a hole that can be damn tough to dig out of. Shane Douglas had been living proof. He’d come to World Wrestling Federation with huge hopes and had been miserable right off the bat. His lame Dean gimmick didn’t help, but neither did opponents who went out of their way to make him look bad. Undertaker had been completely the opposite. His professionalism had been beyond reproach and, as a result, both of our careers had benefited.

I arrived in Milwaukee for the King of the Ring Pay-Per-View, not knowing what to expect. I was hoping for a continuation of the quality work we had put out, but beyond that, I really had no idea. Shane Douglas had been real critical of my decision to join the World Wrestling Federation and didn’t seem impressed when I told him of my imminent feud with ‘Taker. “When push comes to shove, Cactus,” he had warned me, “whose shoulders do you think are going to be on the mat?” Well, Shane, in this case, they weren’t mine. In what had to be considered a major upset, Mankind clearly defeated the Undertaker in seventeen minutes of one hell of a match. I think this match was actually a corner turner for the Federation, as it applied liberal use of chairs and outside-the-ring brawling that actually enhanced a rivalry instead of blowing it off. The match also featured the amusing guest commentary of Owen Hart.

I have been trying to think of the best time to speak about Owen. As I write this, it has been eight days since his tragic death in Kansas City. I have been writing every night, usually between the hours of 10:00 P.M. and 4 A.M., and often when I put my pen down, it seems for a few fleeting seconds that the whole thing was a bad dream. Unfortunately, it wasn’t, and I usually walk over to a photograph of me, Owen, and Terry Funk and say a prayer for Owen and for his family. I am, as of this writing, on a plane from Calgary, where earlier today I attended Owen’s funeral. I told a story on Raw a week ago about how my son felt so proud to look like Owen Hart after they had both gotten matching crewcuts three years ago. “Dad, guess what,” Dewey had asked me during a long-distance phone call. “I look like Owen Hart.”

Colette got on the phone and said, “Your son is so happy to look like Owen.” I went on to say that I would be proud if my son could grow up to be a man like Owen.

Several of the Hart family mentioned how touched they were by my words, as they knew they had come from my heart. I had the privilege of meeting Owen’s wife, Martha, and she told me how much Owen had thought of me, and how I was one of his favorite people. I will always treasure that brief meeting with Owen’s wife and will truly hold her kind words within my heart for the rest of my life.

Owen was an excellent wrestler. He had won an athletic scholarship to the University of Calgary as an amateur wrestler, where he went on to compete in the Canadian national championships. He left after three years to compete for his father Stu’s Stampede Wrestling company. Stu himself was a legendary wrestler but was perhaps even better known for training wrestlers in his basement “dungeon,” where screams of pain were as much a part of the home as the furniture. Owen was at one point the greatest flyer in North America, and with his added knowledge of amateur wrestling and Stu’s dungeon knowhow, was one of the best all-around wrestlers in the world. Even after injuries grounded his aerial skills, he went on to be a big star in the World Wrestling Federation, where he was a four-time tag champ, two-time InterContinental champ, and European champion as well. I had watched Owen for years before meeting him and had been greatly entertained by many of his classic matches. Little did I know upon meeting him that I would enjoy his bad matches even more.

I had been with the Federation only a few months when we came to Scranton, Pennsylvania. We were working at the Catholic Youth Center, which is a great building for atmosphere but a terrible building for morale, because of the low payoffs that the tiny gym always resulted in. There was a little hallway by the wrestlers’ entrance where you could see the action, so I walked out to take a look. Owen was in the middle of a match with Marc Mero and had just shot the Wildman into the ropes. Mero hit Owen with a shoulder tackle, and instead of taking a crisp flat back fall, which is the norm, Owen slowly fell as if he were a tree. “Man, that’s terrible,” I thought, especially for someone as good as Owen Hart. It got worse. Mero shot Owen into the ropes and prepared for a hip toss. Owen took off across the ring using three giant, slow, high steps and then took a hip toss, which could more accurately have been called an ankle roll. It was horrible. I was in the middle of thinking, “Man, maybe he’s having a bad night,” when I heard the British Bulldog laughing. “Look at Owen, look at Owen,” Bulldog hooted in his thick English accent. “Oh, that’s too much. That’s too fuckin’ much.” Now I understood. Owen was definitely stinking up the place, but he was doing it on purpose. I had done that a few times myself, but, unlike me, Owen wasn’t doing it as part of a story line or to anger the fans. He was doing it simply to amuse the boys.

There was nothing like a bad Owen Hart match. The strange thing is, most fans didn’t pick up on it. He was subtle enough about it that only the other wrestlers knew. Sometimes, however, when I was actually a part of these hideous performances, it seemed like the whole world could tell. In addition to an offense consisting of multiple rakes of the body, kicks in the ass, horrible-looking karate chops that were always preceded by a loud “hi-yah,” and cocoa butts (the big, fakelooking version of the popular head butt) so fake that they made Lou Albano look like Carl Gotch, and he was equally terrible on the defensive. For example, a few months later in Kuwait, I was teaming with Owen and Bulldog against the Undertaker, Barry Windham, and Owen’s brother, Brett “Hitman” Hart. Barry had Owen in a rear chinlock and was really arching up on it. I didn’t think anything of it until I heard Bulldog’s familiar cry. “Look at Owen, look at Owen.” I did indeed look at Owen and immediately began laughing. While Barry was going through a series of grimaces and growls to accentuate his hold, Owen’s face was completely motionless. He wore not the slightest facial expression, and his body moved not a bit until he casually lifted his arm to smoke an imaginary cigarette. “He’s too much, he’s too fuckin’ much,” the Bulldog said, laughing. I had to agree.

Later in the match, Brett was tagged in and made a comeback that culminated in his sharpshooter submission hold. The sharpshooter is a legitimately painful hold that places a great deal of stress on the lower back and quadriceps, but if Owen was in pain, he certainly wasn’t showing it. As Brett cinched up on the hold, Owen, who had his head facing away from Brett, looked to be in about as much pain as a clam in deep sand. He rubbed his eyes sleepily and checked his wrist for an imaginary watch. Brett cinched up further, and Owen yawned. Finally, Brett rocked back even further, and Owen finally yelled out in pain. But Owen had pleased his biggest admirer. “Oh, that’s too fuckin’ much,” Bulldog repeated.

I was reminded of just how much Davey Boy Smith (Bulldog) had revered Owen when my son rented a video of the 1996 Slammy Awards (the World Wrestling Federation’s annual awards show). Owen had won a Slammy the year before and had carried it with him to every match. His tights were adorned with the words “Slammy Award Winner,” and he was even introduced for his matches as “The Slammy Award-winning Owen Hart.” Now, a year later, Owen was not even nominated, and I felt a little sad to see one of my favorite gimmicks ended. The nominees for Best Bowtie, a prestigious award if ever there was one, were announced, but before a winner could be declared, Owen jumped on stage. “Yes!” he yelled in his overbearing little way. “I did it! I won. I’m a winner-whoa! Bulldog, you might have two titles, but you don’t have two Slammys … but I do, because I’m a winner-whoa!”

The camera showed Davey Boy, who was literally beaming. He always got the biggest kick out of Owen. Owen continued his little speech threatening Vader and me, who would be facing Owen and Bulldog in the next evening’s WrestleMania. As he stepped offstage with his new Slammy in hand, he walked toward Vader. A waiter happened to be passing by, and Owen dumped the entire contents of his tray-ten pitchers of iced tea-onto Leon. Vader stood up, not knowing what to do. He was smiling, but he sure as hell wasn’t happy. Finally, he ran after the two-time Slammy winner but tripped and fell, and actually missed a few shows due to injury.