Forgiven: One Man's Journey from Self-Glorification to Sanctification (31 page)

The atmosphere was quiet — very quiet. There was a chess game going on and all parties knew it. Vince, again, kept his distance from me —

which he did on many occasions after that — in order to protect me.

That was one of the problems when I would later go to wcw. I had no protection. I was Brett Favre without an offensive line — thrown to the wolves to be eaten alive. That was not the case with Vince. He made me almost untouchable, and I’ll never forget it. You messed with me, you messed with him. I could tell that on this night he wanted me out of the loop — nowhere near the fire. I read it, and I stayed away. As the bell sounded to start the WWF Title match between Bret and Shawn, I still had no idea what was going to happen.

As the match began I took a seat next to Mark Calloway, a.k.a. the 220

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Undertaker, in front of a monitor in the back. Everybody was watching closely, and everyone knew the implications and was curious to see the outcome. In the locker room there are no secrets. Everybody knows everything, that’s just the way it is.

So the match began. At the onset it looked no different than any you’ve seen before. These guys have a way of being professionals once they set boot between the ropes. The contest went back and forth for quite some time — until Shawn put Bret in the Sharpshooter. I felt my heart swan dive into my stomach. It was exactly what I had laid out to Vince. The minute Shawn locked it in, referee Earl Hebner called for the bell. Vince then strutted down to the ring, to show Bret that he took 100 percent responsibility for what had just happened.

The Undertaker immediately rose from his seat in disgust. Everybody knew that Bret had been screwed.

You have to be in the business to really understand how bad this was.

There is an unwritten moral code in wrestling that states “the office” (the brass, the suits) will never screw one of the boys. Remember, the boys are the ones who go out there every night and put their bodies and livelihoods on the line. To take that risk, there must be no doubt that they can trust the office. They must feel like the office would never intentionally put them in harm’s way, or do something that might taint, hurt or damage their careers. If that trust is breached, then the boys start asking themselves: “Why am I doing this? Is what I’m doing right?

Should I be sacrificing my body like this? Why?” Once the office is second-guessed, and trust goes out the window, the whole foundation of the business is cracked. Well on this night, the office royally screwed one of the boys — live — before the entire world, in his home country. I’ll never forget Bret’s face after the bell rang. There was a grin that said,

“How could I have been so stupid?” But Bret trusted Vince, and regardless of any reservations he may have had, he went along with the plan laid out to him, thinking he was beating Shawn that night. Once it sunk in, Bret was irate — and after nailing Vince with a thick, wet loogie, Bret proceeded to destroy the expensive television equipment that was located ringside. Shawn, on the other hand, played dumb. To this day I 221

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have no idea whether or not Shawn was in on it. If I had to guess I would say he was — but again, that’s only my opinion.

Man, there was dead silence in the air — the only thing I could compare it with is a funeral. It was almost morbid — but you knew it was far from over. There was going to be an encounter in the back, because Vince wasn’t going to run away from his responsibility. I can remember sitting backstage waiting to see what the finale would be, when Mick Foley walked past me and said, “Vince, you should be ashamed of yourself.” My heart broke. Coming from anybody else, maybe it would have been different. But Mick? This is a guy I always looked up to and put on a pedestal. Mick was so distraught over the events, he didn’t even show up to television the following day. But again, understand that very few people knew the whole story. Before I could rebound from Mick’s heartwrenching words, Vince walked past me, followed by Shane, wwf head agent Jerry Brisco and Bruce Prichard. He was heading straight for Bret’s locker room to get what he knew he had coming. Later I heard that Vince had told Shane to let Bret hit him once, then break it up . . . and that’s exactly how it went down. To this day I respect Vince for doing that. A lesser man would have filled the car with gas and pointed it towards Mexico.

After receiving a black eye courtesy of the Hitman’s hand, Vince emerged from Bret’s locker room. I thought the worst was over — but for me, it was only beginning.

In the days that followed, Vince had a meeting with Bret’s younger brother, Owen Hart, an established wwf superstar in his own right and a favorite in the locker room. Vince explained to Owen what had happened concerning Bret, and told Owen that regardless of the circumstances surrounding his brother he wanted to be sure that Owen stayed with the company. Vince offered him more money, but regardless of the raise, Owen’s heart was with the World Wrestling Federation.

The last thing Owen wanted was to be involved in this, and quite frankly, he shouldn’t have had to be involved. Owen just wanted to continue to work around friends and people he considered family. What went down between Bret and Vince was between them. But Bret saw 222

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things a little differently. It became all about “sides” with Bret. Owen was either with him or with Vince — a tough position to be in — but again, understand Bret’s frame of mind at the time. Maybe he wasn’t thinking rationally — and in those circumstances, who would be?

It was about 11 p.m. — five days following the Survivor Series. It was still the talk of the industry, and perhaps getting hotter by the day. Man, I was just happy to be home — just to get away from it.

The phone rang. It was Owen Hart. He was on the verge of tears.

“Vince, you’ve got to help me,” he said. “Bret is telling me that if I continue to work for Vince he is going to disown me as a brother.

He’s serious, Vince . . . I don’t know what to do. I tried calling Vince and he’s not home. Vince, you need to call Bret for me.” Understand, I would do anything in the world for Owen Hart. I sincerely loved the guy. But calling Bret — only five days after the fact?

“Vince . . . please. You have to call him.” Owen then hung up the phone.

I had no choice — there was no way I wasn’t going to be there for Owen. At first I tried to call Vince — I guess looking to get his approval — but Owen was right, there was no answer. So my next call was to Bret.

It was one of the toughest phone calls I’d ever had to make. Even though I never lost one ounce of respect for Bret Hart during the entire fiasco, he saw me as nothing more than one of Vince’s hench-men. Thank God he had no idea the screwed finish was my brain-child. But I had to make the call — I had to do it for Owen.

I’ll never forget it. At that time Bret was in a whole other place. For five days he’d played it over and over in his head, and he was just getting more worked up with each passing minute. He was over the edge

— there was no logic you could sell him — but I tried anyway. I told Bret that Vince never thought that he would screw him by showing up on wcw with the WWF Title, but that Vince didn’t trust Bischoff.

I expressed to Bret that though he couldn’t possibly see it now —

Vince did what he had to do for the company, and that I supported him 100 percent and would have done the same. But Bret wasn’t lis-223

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tening. Saying all I could say, I apologized to Bret, telling him I knew he would never understand. But before I hung up the phone Bret said to me: “Vince — you know what I felt like doing the next day? I felt like showing up at the building with a gun and blowing people away.” Obviously Bret didn’t mean that — but those words characterize what must have been going through his mind at the time.

I was always a big fan of Bret; not only the performer, but the man as well. Hart was such a respected human being. He was always soft-spoken and sincere. With the exception of Shawn Michaels, I don’t think Bret ever had a bad word to say about anybody. But his silence carried great weight. He was from the “speak softly, but carry a big stick” school.

Bret stood tall for everything he represented — and he took that role very seriously. With great pride he wore the mantle of “Canadian Hero,” only to be ridiculed by others. But think about it — what athlete today really takes pride in being a hero and role model? It meant a lot to Bret, and where many thought that he was caught up in his own gimmick, I found it noble. He lived to be a hero — and in today’s society there is nothing wrong with that. The fact is, we could use more Bret Harts.

That day in Montreal changed him. The mental and emotional scars he has to deal with — only he can understand. At the time, I never dreamed that one match could have the impact it would have on the rest of Bret’s life. Add to that the tragic death of his brother —

and the man was not, and perhaps never will be, the same again.

On a more personal note, Bret has nothing to be ashamed of. He was always a man of honor, standing up for his beliefs and values regardless of what others thought. Today, the business sorely misses him, and there will never, ever, be another like him. And even though he may sometimes feel he’s forgotten as he sits back in his hometown of Calgary, Alberta — he never will be. In my opinion Bret simply was

“The best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be.” In the week following the Survivor Series, the controversy would not go away. It was all anyone could talk about. It was a major event, and 224

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even those in the know were intrigued. Those fans who were ’tweeners

— who weren’t sure if it was “live or Memorex” — wanted to hear more about it so they could form an opinion. After things settled down a bit, we had a meeting before
Raw
to discuss the situation. Everybody in the room wanted to bury it under the mat: “Let’s forget about it and move on.”
Yeah — let’s get back to rasslin’!
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. At this point, we were still getting hammered by wcw. Bischoff and the nwo were running rampant — and these bananas wanted to sweep the hottest thing we had going under the rug? No way. So I spoke up and basically said: “What, are you guys nuts? This is all everybody is talking about — we’ve got to go with this.” I could see Vince listening . . . and thinking . . . and listening. He then spoke. . . .

“I agree, we need to take advantage of this.” Thus the infamous “I didn’t screw Bret . . . Bret screwed Bret,” sit-down interview with Vince McMahon that later aired on
Raw
. Sure, some understood, while others didn’t have a clue — but those watching were intrigued. They knew something was going on even if they couldn’t quite understand what. Regardless, they were tuning in to find out.

We had them.

Man, looking back, that was such an historic moment. To think that only months before Vince had cleared his desk of wrestling-related knick-knacks after reading my shoot article with Bret Hart.

He had come a long way in such a short period of time. But the fact was — so had the business.

To be honest, at that moment I didn’t fully understand the impact of what had happened. If something like the Montreal screw job happened in the past, it would have been kicked under the rug. But here we were, opening up that curtain and letting the fans in. Suddenly there was a level of sophistication surrounding the product. For the first time, we were telling “the truth” about the business. We were pushing the circus clowns to the side and presenting a new kind of high drama. Remember, this was before the “reality show” craze hit the networks. We were ahead of our time, and people were coming on board.

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Chapter 40

PLAYING CENTERFIELD WITH WILLIE MAYS

When I was brought in to “help” write television for the wwf, the rating of the last show before my involvement — the “bi-global cluster” I talked about earlier — was 1.9, one of the lowest
Raw
had ever received. So I guess you could say there was nowhere to go but up.

And up we went.

You can read all you want about creative teams and booking committees, but during the time I was writing with Vince those were fictitious terms. There was no “team” and there was no “committee.” It was Vince and I — period. To this day McMahon might not even admit that. For his own reasons, he wants you to think a group of writers gathered in a room every week to write tv. Well, maybe that’s the case today, but back then it was just us. And the process worked like this. . . .

After we arrived home from
Raw
I would work on all 11 segments of the following week’s show on my own. I would look at our roster of players and make sure that
everybody
was involved in a story line, 226

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or an angle. This was quite important to the process, because at the time all Vince cared about was what the top four guys were doing. My philosophy was the top four guys weren’t going to be around forever, so we needed to start building the future. So that’s how it all began —

me, my brain and a computer. Once I had an outline of the 11 segments, I would go to Vince’s house the following day. There I would pitch the entire show to Vince, and he would then add his ideas. That usually consisted of a 10-hour day — just Vince and I sitting at his dining room table. I think this is where we complemented each other so well. I would hit Vince with the “big picture,” and he would fine-tune it. Regardless of what has been said or what you may think, Vince hardly ever made drastic changes — he more or less went with what I had, adding his two cents to make it better. Remember, it’s much easier to tweak a show than it is to sit there with a blank piece of paper and make something out of nothing.