The Road Warriors: Danger, Death, and the Rush of Wrestling (18 page)

Vince looked amused. I’d like to say that the rest of our talk with Vince was a keystone moment in my life and I learned amazing things about the inner workings of professional wrestling contract negotiations, but none of that’s the case.

Paul had only begun his pitch for guaranteed contracts when Vince interjected his own theory of how we’d fare in the WWF. “Boys, I can’t give you guarantees. That’s not the way I conduct business. In the WWF, we do things with a verbal agreement and a handshake. What I can offer you is the opportunity to make every bit of the amount you can make with Crockett.” He went on to explain that unlike any other company, the WWF stressed the earning potential of merchandising. He said guys like Hogan and Roddy Piper were going to be multimillionaires from royalty checks alone.

As he spoke, he walked around the room with spreadsheets in his hand. Before excusing himself for a trip to the bathroom, he strategically placed the papers on his desk right in front of us.

We took the bait and looked at the sheets. We could see they were for Piper, but none of it made any sense. Personally I think Vince screwed up and left the wrong pages out. All of the numbers and percentages were out of context, making it impossible to decipher. I’ve wondered if Vince put those papers there just to have some fun with us. It’s not hard to picture him on the other side of the door standing in the hall laughing to himself and looking at his watch.

None of it really mattered anyway. My ulterior motive was clear from the get-go, and that was to put pressure on Crockett and get our contracts. If by some shot in the dark Vince would’ve wanted to scoop us up for a similar deal, all the merrier. Any way you sliced it, being at Vince’s for our little powwow was something I wouldn’t have missed for the world.

When Vince finally came back in, we knew things wouldn’t work out for us in the WWF for the time being.

“I figured as much, Joe. No worries. After all, you’ve got guaranteed deals waiting for you down in Charlotte, right?”

Right. Well, not really. But we all shook hands, and I told Vince we’d be back someday to take over his tag team division.

He let out one last laugh as we walked out the door.

When we got back from Vince’s, word got out quickly about our meeting, which was the perfect way to let Crockett know we weren’t fooling around. Now that Hawk and I were pulling our load for both him and Verne, Jimmy would have to “shit or get off the pot” in regards to signing us to contracts. Meanwhile, Hawk and I knew our run as champions in the AWA was over and we needed to drop the titles before taking off.

At thirteen months, our reign as the AWA World Tag Team champions was the longest in company history. We could have kept on going for as long as we wanted to, really, but it was time. Aside from the fact that we weren’t going to be focusing on the AWA anymore, our recent breakthrough as babyfaces helped force the issue. When we’d been monster heels, people had always wanted to see if anybody would be able to step up and dethrone us. It never happened. Like us, everybody from the fans to the other guys in the AWA got used to us always being the champs.

As in Georgia, the reason we were given the tag belts in the first place was to get us over with the new AWA audience. Now, a year later, we were one of the hottest tickets in the United States, Canada, and Japan. Not only did we not need the titles, but having them was anticlimactic. Verne asked us to suggest who should have the belts, and we knew right away it should be “Gorgeous” Jimmy Garvin and “Mr. Electricity” Steve Regal (not to be confused with Steven William Regal from the WWE).

We’d wrestled those guys countless times, and they would fly all over the ring selling our moves. Besides that, Hawk and I really liked them personally. To set up Garvin and Regal’s title win, we came up with a two-part plan involving the Fabulous Freebirds. Now that Hawk and I were faces, the Freebirds rotated directly into our old position as the top heel team in the AWA. Our confrontation had been coming for a long time.

The Fabulous Freebirds consisted of Michael “P.S.” Hayes, Terry Gordy, and Buddy Roberts, one of the most successful heel teams of all time. They were like a cool gang of Dixie rebels from Atlanta. Hayes was their long-haired, moonwalking front man who did all the talking—and singing. Hayes recorded the Freebirds’ entrance song, “Badstreet USA.”

While Hayes brought all the flamboyance to the Freebirds, six feet four, 290-pound Terry Gordy supplied the brawn, and Buddy Roberts, a bushy-haired Harpo Marx lookalike, was a scrappy little presence you always had to watch for. In regular tag matches with the Freebirds, Roberts usually was odd man out because he was older and smaller. While Hawk and I would be focusing on the action in the ring, Paul had to keep a sharp eye out for Buddy.

The first match we ever had with the Freebirds in the AWA was during a super card show at the Meadowlands on August 16 in Jersey. Because the Meadowlands complex was across the Hudson River from New York City, it was considered WWF country, and that’s why Verne always pulled out all the stops when he rolled into town. He’d call Jim Crockett, and the two of them would pool their rosters and stack the event with the best stars each company had to offer. They figured if you’re going to be in Vince McMahon’s backyard, you might as well have a party at his expense for a change.

With Paul as our partner, we took on all three of the Freebirds in a chaotic whirlwind of a match. The whole thing was mostly out of control with all six of us constantly in the ring brawling. I’d always go right for Gordy because he was the biggest and I wanted to get my hands on him for a press slam.

That slippery son of a gun kept avoiding it until I finally had my chance. Near the end of the match, Hawk and Paul were on the floor with Hayes and Roberts on various sides of the ring while I was all alone with Gordy in the middle of the ring. I had Gordy in a headlock and whispered, “You’re going up, big boy.” Then I grabbed him by his crotch with one hand and his neck with the other and sent him up on his way. He went up quickly. It was probably the only time he’d ever been picked up like that. I could tell by the look on his face when he hit the mat how surprised he was at my ease in pressing his big ass. After all, he was 300 pounds.

The thing about the press slam as a move is its usual reliance on the person being pressed. He has to know how to properly go with the move, keeping his body as stiff as possible to help distribute the weight evenly. But once I’d get someone rested on my collarbone, even if he was 400 pounds, he was going up.

During my powerlifting days, pressing movements had always been my suit. Who’d have ever thought I could translate my lifting into a practical profession? I was made for press slamming. And I don’t care who came before or after me; nobody press slammed or powerslammed with as much strength and finesse as I did. If there’s nothing else I’m remembered for in pro wrestling, that would be perfectly fine with me.

I’ve got a strong man’s pride and can honestly say that throughout my entire career I never failed on a press slam attempt, and that includes lifting the likes of wrestlers over 300 pounds including Jumbo Tsuruta, Killer Khan, Hulk Hogan, and Terry Gordy.

That night at the Meadowlands, Gordy came down so hard on his back that he yelled for Buddy Roberts to help him. Roberts climbed into the ring and brought a chair with him. He started whacking me across the back.
Bam, bam, bam!
The DQ was called.

The Freebirds’ loss by disqualification that night in Jersey gave buildup for a co-main event AWA World Tag Team Championship rematch at SuperClash on September 28 at Comiskey Park in Chicago, our kayfabe hometown. Twenty-one thousand wild fans filed into that old baseball stadium for Verne’s super card extravaganza, an answer of sorts to the success of recent shows like WrestleMania and the Great American Bash.

Collaborating with Crockett, Verne was able to feature both Ric Flair versus Magnum T.A. for the NWA World title and Rick Martel versus Stan Hansen for the AWA World title. Even Giant Baba himself as well as Jumbo and Tenryu flew over from Japan to compete together in a six-man tag match.

When it was time for our match, the Freebirds came out first to the field through the visitors’ dugout, and would you believe it? Hayes, Gordy, and Roberts all had their faces painted like the Dixie flag to mock us. They did their faces up completely red, with two white diagonal stripes with stars intersecting right at the bridge of the nose.

I had to give it to them; it was pretty funny. We didn’t even know they were doing it until right before they were set to go out and passed by our dressing room. Hayes poked his head in and waved, saying, “See you out there, motherfuckers.”

I looked at Hawk and about died laughing. It was a first-class rib.

After Hayes was done moonwalking in the ring, we made our way down with a huge throng of security guards surrounding us on all sides. Fans were running to us in droves, trying to see us up close as we made our way down the field. As Hawk and I dove under the ropes and jumped to our feet to run down Hayes and Gordy, they met us head on, beating us to the punch, literally.

They were all over us with forearms and kicks, but it was short-lived. We quickly reversed the situation and dumped the Freebirds out of the ring, at which point Hayes and Gordy walked back toward the dugout like chickenshits, a classic cowardly heel move. (Ric Flair used to do it all the time, too.) The Chicago crowd really let them have it, sending waves of booing and jeering that echoed from one side of Comiskey to the other.

While we circled the ring and awaited the Freebirds’ return, Hawk came up and gave me a big double pat on the chest. “Are you ready for this, big man? Listen to those people.” Hawk was in one of his extra pumped-up moods that night and even flexed for the crowd a few times, pushing down on the top rope and sticking out his tongue. That pose became a Hawk trademark.

Hawk had some fun getting in some moves and then tagged me in for some of the hijinx. Hayes hammed it up by bailing onto the floor to stall things up. I paced back and forth with my hands on my hips waiting for him to come back. Outside I saw a fan right in Hayes’ face screaming, “Get the fuck back in there, you redneck pussy!” Ahhh, it was like music to my ears. You had to love the Chicago fans. There ain’t nothing like ’em anywhere else in the world.

When Hayes did mount an effort back to the ring he immediately tagged in Gordy, who cautiously stepped through the ropes. Gordy was a fantastic heel, who loved playing everything up and making his opponents look like a million dollars. Hayes was equally entertaining to watch. The two of them were right out of a cartoon or something.

After I tagged in Hawk and he was getting to work on Gordy and then Hayes, out on the ground I noticed Paul and Buddy Roberts having some words and putting up their fists to fight. I turned and faced the altercation like I might jump down, but they broke it up.

Back inside the ring, Hawk and Hayes were mixing it up pretty well with Hawk taking the advantage of the exchange. After Hawk nailed him with an uppercut, Hayes came over to our corner like he thought it was his, so I hit him. Hayes then turned back around and let Hawk hit him again, which turned him around one more time so that I could knock him down to the ground. It was like in a
Tom and Jerry
cartoon or something, when Tom runs into a yard full of gardening tools and steps onto the rake, smashing himself in the face with the handle and then stumbling forward onto a bunch of nails, causing him to step back onto the rake again. It was pure comedy.

When Gordy and Hayes finally got an offensive opportunity, they took every advantage they could to double-team Hawk. At one point Gordy gave Hawk a big suplex after which he started maniacally barking like a dog in my face. It was just a strategy, though, because when I tried to get into the ring to smack the shit out of him, the referee would start pushing me back, warning that he’d stop the match with a disqualification. While the ref’s back was to the ring, that’s when Hayes and Gordy would pummel Hawk into oblivion. Gordy even caught Hawk with a piledriver that left him clinging onto one of the ropes for dear life.

For the next minute or two, Hawk kept getting closer and closer to my outstretched hand only to be driven down time after time. I was going crazy on the outside cheering Hawk on the best that I could. Finally after a collision from the ropes that left both Gordy and Hawk laid out, Hawk was able to recuperate and make a diving tag to me just as Terry was about to stop him.
Boom!
I got the hot tag and it was time to clear house as 21,000 Chicago diehards cheered me on like I was Carlton Fisk after hitting a game-winning home run for the White Sox!

I must’ve elbowed Gordy five or six times before giving him an atomic drop. Then I picked him up and whipped him into the ropes, catching Terry for my powerslam,
whom!
I could feel all of the air collapse out of his lungs as I heard a faint grunt come from his mouth. As I went for the cover, in came Hayes with a kick to my head as Hawk ran in to help. All four men were in the ring slugging it out in total chaos.

While we were wrecking Hayes and Gordy, Roberts jumped onto the side of the ring like he was going to get involved, but Paul grabbed him down and clobbered him. When Paul turned around, Roberts got a folding chair and hit him over the head with it, knocking him down and out. When Hawk saw what Roberts was doing, he jumped out to kick his ass, leaving me alone with Hayes and Gordy.

They tried to double-team me but I ducked a punch while being held back, and Hayes was the one knocked silly. Then my big moment came as Hayes was on the mat and I grabbed Gordy and proceeded to press him high over my head before dropping him for a slam.
Pow!
Considering how late in the match it was, I was surprised at how easily I got the big guy up, but I was running on pure adrenaline.

The fans in the front row were jumping up and down chanting my name. Out of nowhere, Hayes came up on me, but I threw him into the ropes and caught his ass with one of the most fluid powerslams I ever had the privilege of executing.