Forgiven: One Man's Journey from Self-Glorification to Sanctification (16 page)

Somebody’s got to
drag
Halle Berry out on the carpet for the

!@#$% speech she gave last night. Why the !@#$% does everybody have to play that race card? Her bumbling babble was utter nonsense.

Does Halle seriously think that for the past 74 years the Academy made the conscious decision to suppress the black woman from winning a little gold statute with a bald head? What African-American actresses were overlooked for three quarters of a century because of the color of their skin? Are you kidding me?

The only reason there may be a race issue today is because of people like her, with that kind of ridiculous mindset. If you deserve the award — even if you are a !@#$% Umpa Lumpa, you’re going to bag it. Whoopi won it ten years back for her work in
Ghost
, what was that all about? Oh — I get it — it was for “Supporting” Actress, not the leading lady. Blow it out your !@#$%!!!

How often is a white player the mvp in the National Basketball Association? What’s the difference? Are all the sports writers around the world prejudiced toward whites?

Just shut the !@#$% up and accept your meaningless trophy. Go cry to Oprah — she’ll put you on her show for an entire week. You didn’t hear Denzel get up on his soap box. No — the guy won because he was the best actor this year, period.

I swear, I will
never
go see another Halle Berry movie! That is, unless she decides to take her shirt off again.

Sorry about that last line, written by the old Vince. Again, I just wanted to show you how far I’ve come. Whereas I still have rather strong convic-tions about those who play the race card, I now have a whole different view on award shows.
I hate them.

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Forgiven

If you want a red carpet, first-row glimpse at the “me, me, me” syndrome, just tune into any award show. Winner after winner after winner, you will experience more “I’s” than an optometrist! It just boggles the mind to see how many Hollywood “superstars” think they did it all themselves. It was all them, no help, they just appeared here one day on earth, much like Arnold did in
The Terminator
. Just showed up in the middle of nowhere, naked and with nothing, and achieved “all this.” First of all, what is “all this” anyway? I would have to assume that “all this” refers to money. Money to spend on exotic trips, bathtubs made of gold, four Hummers, four garages to house those Hummers, guest cot-tages for guests who will never come, beds big enough to get lost in, gowns you’ll wear once, shoes you’ll never wear, caps so your teeth will glow and tucks so there’ll be no tummy. You think I sound envious? Are you kidding me? I have “all that” and more — God is running my life.

Man, money is so overrated. We are driven by Wall Street’s media campaigns, telling us we need this, we need that — now. Think about it

— what do we really need to get by? Everything that God promised us he will provide to us anyway — food, shelter and clothing. If that’s all we really need, and God promised to provide those things for us if we believe in him — then what are we stressing out over? Friends, if you take anything from this book, please believe that it’s not money you should pursue. Money will never bring you what God will — never. I had money and it meant nothing — I now have God, and it means everything.

But getting back to the “I” Principle, why is it that people who win awards can thank people they barely know — but yet never thank the guy who really made it all possible? Why is the focus always on themselves, rather than God?

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Chapter 21

RE-ENTER VICIOUS VINCENT

Usually I had a game plan; a well-thought-out game plan. I’d look at where I was, and decide where I wanted to go. Then I devised a strategy that would get me from point A to point B and put that strategy in motion. It was no different than winning Amy over. I had a plan and I saw it through. Back then, I felt that the most common cause of failure was not seeing your vision through.

When the going gets tough 90 percent of the population quit. That was the easy way out. I thought that was also the difference between making $50,000 a year or $500,000 a year — nothing more — nothing less. “All people are created equal” — that’s a fact, so my question was, how do you stand out from the pack? Answer: brains and spaldings. I never felt, and still don’t feel, like there’s a need to kiss anybody’s butt, because that will only get you so far. There will come a day when you will be judged. When you must stand alone, naked, and let your true self be seen. That is when those who take shortcuts are
done.

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I wasn’t changing the course, kids. I had made a decision to get into the wrestling business, and guess what? — I was getting into the wrestling business, and I was doing it
my
way. When in doubt, I always went back to the basics. Strip away everything swirling around in your head and go back to square one. When I was first introduced to professional wrestling, I fell in love with one thing — the entertainment.

It was a circus, and I wanted to be part of the big top, front and center. It wasn’t about the politics, the Arezzis or the Mushnicks — it was all about the entertainment. So, if I was drawn to the entertainment, then entertainment would draw others. Provide entertainment, and they will come. Well, I knew of one guy who I thought was pretty entertaining, and his name was Vicious Vincent. Outspoken, brash, opinionated, he just didn’t care what he said. I guess you could call him my alter ego. Vicious would say what everybody else wished they could say — but just didn’t have the spaldings to say. Was he wrong at times? You bet he was, but that didn’t matter. Vicious Vincent could become the Howard Stern of professional wrestling.

I’ve got to stop everything to give props to the genius, Howard Stern. I started listening to Howard back in 1983, when he was on wnbc in New York. I was only 22 years old, and as you read earlier, at a real tough point in my life. If I was inspired by anybody, it was Howard. The guy just didn’t give a !@#$%. If he felt it, he said it. If it meant getting fired — so be it. He stood up for what he believed in.

He knew what would work when others didn’t have a clue. He stuck to his guns and never compromised himself. And, look at him today.

His movie,
Private Parts,
should be an inspiration to us all. He represents the ultimate “!@#$ you!”

My wife despises me for allowing my kids to watch Howard Stern on the E channel, but I don’t give a !@#$%. She doesn’t get it. My kids should grow up with half the integrity Stern has, not to mention half the creativity.

Two years later, I can now clearly see that I was much like my “idol.” Whether it was schtick or not, is not the point — the fact is, neither one 109

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Vince Russo

of us were doing the right thing. We knew it — and we paid for it.

In my case, I almost lost my sanity. I let myself fall into such an abyss of depression that at times I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry — and I often did both at the same time. Howard, on the other hand, not only lost his voice in many of his markets, he lost perhaps the thing most dear to him . . . his family. After resisting the pitfalls of radio and temptation for many years — Howard finally gave into his demons by divorcing Allison, his loyal better half and mother of his three children.

If you go against God’s word there is just no winning. At times you may feel like you’re on top of your game — but when the ninth inning rolls around you’ll be shut out. Shut out of the only light that can save your life — the Lord Jesus Christ.

I had the name in a matter of minutes — “Vicious Vincent’s World of Wrestling,” a wrestling/variety radio show that would represent the way Vince Russo wanted to portray the wrestling business. No politics, no personal attacks, just pure entertainment. I would fund the show myself, and it would be the next step in my quest to work for the wwf, side-by-side with the master himself, Vince McMahon. In search of a home for the show, I contacted Arezzi’s former station, where he and I began, wgbb out of West Babylon, New York. I signed a deal with the station manager, agreeing to pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,000 a week for a two-hour block on Friday nights.

Even though my video stores were dying at the time, I would find a way to squeeze out enough cash to support my show. Amy again thought I was nuts. We couldn’t pay our own bills because I wasn’t even paying myself, but I would somehow find $1,000 dollars a week for a radio show? She just didn’t understand. “Vicious Vincent’s” was going to get me from point A to point B. I never doubted myself. I had a plan, I had a dream and I was going for it.

But the show would not succeed on Vicious Vincent alone. No, I needed to put my supporting cast in place. If I was going to be the Howard Stern of wrestling, then I needed my Robin Quivers. I looked no further than my childhood friend and business partner, Jim 110

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Monsees. At the time, Jimmy didn’t know squat about wrestling, but that was okay, I would carry him. I just needed a body next to mine to bounce things off.

To this day, Jimmy Monsees remains one of my best friends. Even though he is doing life in wwf prison — I put him in there myself about five years ago — and we don’t talk as much as we should, I’ll never forget what he had to offer as a friend. And, that’s my point. In life, good friends are few and far between, so
value
them. Man, in the wrestling business I have taken a beating. You think people are your friends, but the minute you’re on the outside looking in, as Apollo Creed said, “They drop you like a bad habit.” It has happened to me over and over again. But true friends are there for life — no matter what. Jimmy would put himself on the line for me, whether I was Vince McMahon’s right-hand man or a television salesman. It was never what I could do for him, it was always what he could do for me.

I’ll never forget that. I’ll be there for him and the few good friends I have until the day I die.

My best friend in the world is a half-Italian, half-Puerto Rican guy by the name of Jeff Iorio. I’ve known Jeff now for, shoot, close to 30

years. Jeff is the kind of friend that I could see only once every 10

years, and it would be as if I’d seen him only yesterday. Think about how many friendships you have like that. That’s what life is all about.

With friends, there are no boundaries.

You see, if Vicious Vincent was going to be a gimmick, or character, then Jimmy had to become one as well — thus, the birth of the

“Mat Rat.” Now only a “real” friend would ask a grown man to wear sunglasses and a top hat and talk like Minnie Mouse. But then again, only a real friend would do it. As the Mat Rat, Jimmy’s job was to act like a complete fool and be the brunt of every joke I hurled his way.

And he did it flawlessly. His character was so over-the-top that even I had a problem not cracking up on air. He was so good, I don’t even think he realized it. The fact was, Mat Rat made the show. The kids loved him and the girls adored him — which was always the case with Jimmy in real life anyway.

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Vince Russo

“Vicious Vincent’s World of Wrestling” — what a blast. The best time I ever had in the wrestling business. Skull Von Krush, a.k.a. Vito LoGrasso, was brought into the mix, making the show an absolute asylum. Skull was, and still is, a natural comic. He thrives on breaking you up, and on many occasions he had me losing it live. It got to the point that I couldn’t even look at him without busting a gut.

There’s no question that we were on a roll, growing an audience at every turn in the road. The kids loved us; to them we were celebrities.

Occasionally we would do our show live from an indoor batting cage called Whitey Ford’s, and the tikes would show up in droves. We even organized monthly bus trips to wwf events for our fans — and get this, we even got paid to appear at a bar mitzvah.

There was no doubt that we were starting to make a name for ourselves. Using my Steve Planamenta contact, I was also able to occasionally get wwf stars on the show. When the wwf would come to our backyard, the Nassau Coliseum, we would do our show live in a dining hall prior to the event. There, about a thousand fans would be in attendance as we grilled wwf superstars right in front of their very eyes. Early on, I even had the privilege to interview Ric Flair. It was everything that I wanted a sports entertainment show to be. In time, we had syndicated the show — ourselves — into seven different markets around the country. No question we were well on our way. There was just one small problem, I was flat broke!

At this point — Will the Thrill’s Video was dead, closed for business. What a shame. We were no doubt ahead of our time. To this day my dad, now in his 70s, won’t even set foot in a Blockbuster. Screw them and their blue-and-khaki uniforms. Corporate America is heartless — plain and simple.

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Chapter 22

YA WANT THE 3, OR THE 5?

So now what do I do? Oh — I forgot to tell you we had another kid along the way. That’s right, a son named VJ. He entered the world blue because my wife needed two shots of Demerol to spit him out, but he’s fine now — just a little whacked. Even though I cried like an infant when he popped out as well, I was almost too busy to notice. Here I was with a wife,
two
kids, a mortgage and no scratch. I had to concentrate on my goal, I had to make this thing happen at all costs — unfortunately, including what it cost my own family. While Will the Thrill’s Video was on life support, I picked up a part-time job at an appliance store called P.C. Richards and Sons, the “Appliance Giant” of Long Island. Was I proud? No, I was embarrassed. At the time, I felt the job was so beneath me that I had to crawl on all fours just to get in the front door. But you know what? You do what you’ve got to do — especially when a family is depending on you. When Will the Thrill’s finally 113