Forgiven: One Man's Journey from Self-Glorification to Sanctification (35 page)

That night I called Rena and laid out the story both to her and her husband Marc. Rena was flattered that we had come up with this elaborate plan for her and she agreed to do it. In the months that followed, Marc taught Rena how to work and, just as I expected, she picked it up with ease. Rena performed above the call of duty once she stepped inside that ring — doing things I had never dreamed she could pull off. In a matter of weeks she became a bonafide wwf superstar — again, all credit to her. We gave her the platform and she delivered.

Unfortunately, the guys despised Rena. They flat-out hated her —

and were hell-bent on making her life miserable. Let me spell out one 250

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word out for you — J-E-A-L-O-U-S-Y. How dare a female make it in a male-dominated world? How dare a female get more television time than one of the boys? In my view, they were simply acting like children. The fact was, I didn’t care if a chimpanzee scratching his butt was pulling in numbers. If the fans wanted to see a monkey, I would send his hairy rear out there each and every week. Rena was drawing huge numbers, and the bigger she became, the more bitter the boys got. Think of the position that put Marc in. He’s one of the boys — but he was married to Rena. Man, it was getting ugly. There was even an incident where Rena and Marc were working a tour overseas, and one of the boys actually defecated in Rena’s bag. How sad and barbaric is that?

Despite Rena’s success — Vince was being persuaded by the boys to diminish her role. I’ll say it: I love the guy, but when it comes to women in the business, in my humble opinion, Vince takes on a sex-ist attitude. In his world, women are only going to make it to a certain point, and then they’re gonna get chopped back down to reality.

That’s just the way it is. It happened with Sable, and it happened with Chyna. Behind that curtain it’s a man’s world, and if you’re a woman and they start cheering your name, start looking for another job.

Due to all the childish politics, tension between Vince and Rena grew until lawyers were brought in. Eventually, the parties involved went their separate ways. I remember Vince being so proud, bragging to the boys that he had beaten Rena and Marc in a legal battle, and that the Meros were walking away with nothing. All I could think was: “What are you walking away with, Vince? You just lost a property that was earning you cash on top of cash.” But again — so goes the wrestling business.

I’ve got another favorite story about Rena. Sable was to be a partic-ipant in an upcoming bikini contest that was to be broadcast live on pay-per-view. About a week before the event, her husband Marc told me Rena had an idea. Instead of wearing the traditional bikini she wanted to wear only a G-string, with latex hands painted over her bare breasts. Now, you’ve got to understand, even though I would never 251

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have acted on it, I was still a male and I was smitten with Rena at the time. Marc knew it, I think everybody knew it. (That’s probably another reason why she had so much heat.) So I told Marc, “Well, if that’s what she wants to do — there’s nothing I can do to stop her.” Man, I couldn’t wait to see this. Let’s face it, this was the closest I was ever going to get. You know how it is when you have that fantasy woman in mind, the one you dream about. We all saw
The Woman in
Red
. Gene Wilder knew he was never going to get anywhere near a young Kelly LeBrock. . . .

Sunday and the pay-per-view couldn’t come quickly enough. If Tom Buchanan, the head wwf photographer, missed this one, I was going to hurt him, personally. About an hour before show time, Marc tracks me down in the locker room and says, “Vince, come with me

— I want to show you something.” He leads me into Rena’s dressing room.

I swear to you — I’m sweating. I’m flushed, I’m faint, I need air, I’m going to puke. Rena walks out of the bathroom — and there she is with nothing but a G-string and two hands painted onto her bare-naked bazooms! Marc asked, “Well — what do you think?” I was Ralph Kramden: “Humna, humna, humna, humna.” What did Marc want me to say? Looking back on it now, he must have done that on purpose, just to see my reaction. I’ve got to tell you though — I tip my hat to Marc. He is so confident in his relationship with his wife that he never worries about things like that. And, make no bones about it, Rena adores Marc. But if that were my wife? Not only would she never leave the house, I’d deadbolt the doors and buy myself a pit bull that eats only human flesh!

To this day, I stay in contact with Marc and Rena. The only problem is that since Marc became Rena’s agent, he doesn’t let me talk to her anymore. That’s understandable — after reading this
he’s
probably not going to talk to me anymore! All kidding aside, the Meros are true friends, a rare breed when your booking days are over.

It’s just mind-blowing what wrestling does to people. The security I just 252

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talked about between Marc and Rena — the fact that Rena adored Marc?

Two years later — over, done. Rena found somebody else — in the wrestling business.

You know, I recently ran into Marc, after not having seen him for two years, and he admitted to me he knew where he needed to be in his life.

But he wasn’t there. Marc was clearly talking about his walk with Christ.

Marc also told me that at a certain point in their careers, he and Rena chose money (Rena posing for
Playboy
) over what they knew was right.

Obviously the outcome was not what I think either of them expected.

We can glorify him or we can glorify ourselves — the choice is ours.

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Chapter 45

FORGET BURNS & ALLEN — IT’S

TIME FOR THE ROCK-N-SOCK CONNECTION

So now we were in the midst of a soap opera fueled by both high drama and sex. The only missing ingredient was comedy. Yeah, there was
some
wrestling, mixed in there — but to my taste it was always too much. Vince and I used to joke that our goal was to eventually have
no
ring
at all. It just got to the point that it wasn’t really about the wrestling anymore. Casual fans were tuning in by the droves just to get their weekly fix of this male-oriented soap opera. The masses didn’t want to see 20-minute wrestling matches, they wanted to see all the stuff that went on in between. The bottom line was, and still is: hardcore fans are always going to watch the show as long as the word

“wrestling” is somewhere in the title. That’s what wrestling fans do —

they watch wrestling. The key was to draw in that television viewer that wasn’t a wrestling fan. And because we had a little somethin’-

somethin’ for everybody, that’s what we were able to do.

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have anything particular in mind — I guess you can say it just magically happened. Traveling two separate roads, somehow, Mick Foley and the Rock met at an intersection. Like Austin and McMahon, the chemistry between the two superstars was simply magical. If Austin/McMahon was the David Blaine New York Street Show, then Mankind/Rock was the
Wonderful World of Disney!
Man, an angel had to be sitting on our shoulder for all these things to work out the way they did. It was like everything came together at once. We weren’t missing a beat — everything we touched was turning into gold. I don’t think there’ll be another time like that in sports entertainment history. And, what an honor it was to work so closely with two men I admire and respect — Mick Foley and the Rock. By far some of the fondest memories I have from my 10-plus years in the business revolve around them.

How could you not love Mick Foley? Here is a guy who would do anything — I mean
anything
— that was asked of him. He was the most unselfish person I think I have ever come across. Mick is the kind of guy you would want to bring home to meet the family, maybe play a couple of games of “Twister” and hope he’d never leave. He’s everybody’s best friend. That teddy-bear smile tattooed on his face is stuck in my mind to this day. You just always looked forward to seeing Mick.

Mick and I had a lot in common. We were both from Long Island, and we both knew John Arezzi. As a matter of fact, the first time I met Mick was on Arezzi’s radio show on wgbb. From that first day until the last time I saw him, the guy never changed. No matter how big he got, ego was never an issue. Mick was one of those guys who, in my opinion, was just too damn good for the business. He was smart, intelligent and no doubt would have been successful in whatever he chose to do. But for Mick that choice was easy. By the time he was a teenager, Mick was jumping off the roof of his Smithtown, Long Island, house in a public display of his love and admiration for professional wrestling.

One of the most difficult things I ever had to do during my tenure 255

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as head writer for the World Wrestling Federation was to look Mick Foley in the eye and tell him that he wasn’t going to be a part of the main event at WrestleMania xv. Mick’s dream was to main-event a WrestleMania, and knowing that, I did everything within my power to make that happen. The story was written. WrestleMania xv was going to headline with Stone Cold Steve Austin, the Rock and Mick Foley competing in a three-way match to determine the wwf Champion. Vince agreed to it, and we were set.

The
Raw
that was already written for that week was to lay down the groundwork for the match. Well, when we arrived at the building, Shawn Michaels made an appearance . . . an unbooked, unanticipated, unexpected appearance. Man, Shawn could stir it when he wanted to — and he knew exactly what buttons to push. Shawn got in Austin’s ear and somehow convinced Steve that the WrestleMania xv main event should be just himself and the Rock. Austin, who was on the surface a good friend of Mick’s, then went to Vince (whether he sold Shawn’s opinion as his own I don’t know) and, as he had done before when it came to talent, Vince caved, or “changed his mind.” Mick was out, just like that. I was nuts at Shawn — livid. If anyone deserved to be in the main event at Mania it was Mick. And of course, nobody had the spaldings to tell Mick he was out — so I had to.

Looking in his eyes that day, he was crushed. We both knew it was absolutely wrong, but that’s how the business is, most of the time.

Later on, I think I buried Shawn to somebody, probably Hunter.

After catching wind of it, the Heartbreak Kid threatened to kick my butt if I said another word. I think his exact words were “I know I can take you.” Whether Shawn wanted to kick my butt or not didn’t really matter to me at that time. What mattered was that a good man took the hammer. But as always, Mick did business without ever saying a word — that’s just the way Mick is.

Following WrestleMania xv and the headaches leading up to it, Vince never wanted to see or hear from Shawn Michaels again. He was just flat done with him. But there I was at Vince’s house, every week, lobbying to bring back the Heartbreak Kid. Sitting here thinking back, 256

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there was yet another instance where I was threatened by Shawn. One day, after I’d called him and told him we needed him at television, Vince changed his mind. Shawn had made some public comments the boss didn’t like concerning one of the boys. I called Shawn to tell him to stay home, but I couldn’t get a hold of him. So when he showed up at tv and was told he wasn’t going to be used — he came looking for me! Yeah, me, the same guy who was
begging
Vince on a weekly basis to put Shawn back on the air. . . .

But again, to me it was all about the product. If Shawn was difficult to deal with at times, so be it — deal with him! At the time he was the best, hands down. You couldn’t shelve him just because there was some maintenance involved. What we gained by having him appear on
Raw
always outweighed the loss of time spent catering to him. And I don’t mean that in a negative way — there was always some “catering” involved when it came to the big-time players.

I hope I can once again spend some time with Mick Foley. To this day, I don’t even think he has the slightest idea of the influence he had on me. Mick taught me to never change — to always be true to yourself, no matter if you’re on top of Mount Everest or at the bottom of the Hudson River. I wish some of wrestling’s egomaniacs would take a page out of Mick’s book and quit taking themselves so seriously. It’s only wrestling, boys. Mick — I never had the chance to tell you then, so I’ll tell you now — thank you. Whether you realize it or not, you made a difference in my life.

Inside the ring, Foley was a flat-out freak. With the body of Dom DeLuise, Mick would fly through the air like Peter Pan, crash on his head like Evel Knievel — then get right back up like Rocky Balboa and do it all again. We used to have this tiny Frenchman on the road whose name was François Petite. A character in his own right, François was responsible for putting the boys “back together,” courtesy of manipulating bones and non-invasive medical procedures. If it weren’t for François’ work on the walking wounded, some nights we might not have had a show. While some swore by him and others swore
at
him, the colorful “artist” also claimed to be many things —

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from a general in the Foreign Legion to a brain surgeon. We never knew whether this guy was the real deal or Walter Mitty, but I will tell you this — François also practiced shiatsu, and man, when he worked your back, it was the next best thing to getting a day off (which, by the way, was unthinkable). Though daggers at times, his fingers could put you back into a place where you were pain free. One of the few things I do miss about the road is having François put me through 15 minutes of agonizing ecstasy.