The Road Warriors: Danger, Death, and the Rush of Wrestling (40 page)

All of that would change in January, though, right when I came in as Time Warner merged with America Online (AOL) in a multibillion-dollar deal to form AOL Time Warner. The deal effectively removed Ted Turner from being in charge of his networks.

Without Ted Turner’s protection, WCW was left at the mercy of corporate wolves who wanted no part of the money-losing ($60 million in 2000 alone) disaster. So AOL Time Warner put a for-sale sign up in the front yard of WCW headquarters and waited to see who came calling. I’ll give you one guess who wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity this good.

For a mere $5 million, Vince McMahon swooped in like a vulture, only too happy to take advantage of the WCW carcass, and after an eighteen-year battle, bought his competition. Even though WCW had been formed back in ’88 when Jim Crockett sold the combined assets of both his company, Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, and the remnants of GCW, it was still more or less the same entity that had entertained millions of people for more than seventy years. Now it was all gone.

My prediction that the Monday Night Wars would doom either Bischoff or Vince turned out to be true. If Eric had left well enough alone back in ’95 and stayed on Saturday nights instead of running himself and WCW into the ground with the Monday Night Wars, none of it would’ve gone down like that. There was room enough for both WCW and the WWF to coexist and do great business for years and years to come, but now it’s a waste of breath to theorize about any of it.

I’ll never forget standing next to Rick Steiner in the back at what turned out to be the very last
Nitro
on March 26. We were in Panama City Beach, Florida, and nobody had a clue what was going on when out of nowhere Shane McMahon came in and cut a promo about the sale and purchase of WCW. It reminded me a lot of Black Saturday back in ’84 when Vince appeared on
World Championship Wrestling
.

I nudged Steiner. “Well,” I said, “there goes the neighborhood.”

HAWK LOVED TO WREAK HAVOC. 2003.

19

SPIRITUAL REBIRTH AND THE END OF AN ERA

When Vince shocked everybody in the wrestling world by purchasing his longtime rival, WCW (with me in it), no one knew what to expect. Maybe Vince was going to maintain it as a separate company and everyone would get to keep their jobs as rumored.

Maybe not. WCW, with the exception of a piss-poor and short-lived invasion angle into the WWF, was dismantled and gone forever.

It was starting to feel as if a lifetime had passed since I’d had a full-time gig with a guarantee. Trying to pick up the pieces of a dying wrestling career, I started taking indie bookings for appearances. I was feeling really tired about that time. My morale was down, my mood was bad, and my temper was being tested. There was no doubt in my mind or my heart that I needed something to help anchor me. It wasn’t something I could put my finger on, until a sign was actually put into my hand.

After doing a shot for some small promotion somewhere in Albuquerque, I ran into Nikita Koloff. In the early ’90s, my old buddy had semiretired from the wrestling business and was now an ordained pastor. He’d wrestle during the week and preach on the weekends. I remember him giving me a copy of his autobiography,
Breaking the Chains
, which dealt with his personal issues as a young man and how finding Jesus Christ had changed his life forever.

Photo courtesy of the Laurinaitis family.

During my first run in the WWF, the only person who could really take me off my feet was Jessica! September 1991.

Photo courtesy of the Laurinaitis family.

Merry Christmas 1990 from the Laurinaitis family! James on my right, Joey on my left, and Julie with little Jessica on her lap. Check out my Zubaz bow tie!

Photo courtesy of the Laurinaitis family.

Top:
A little brotherly love as James practices his powerbombs on Jessica. Summer ‘94.
Bottom:
Coaching Joey’s Legion of Doom little league team was another favorite role.

Photos courtesy of the Laurinaitis family.

The family that plays together stays together, and hockey was a Laurinaitis specialty for James, Jessica, and Joey from day one.
Bottom left:
A proud moment. Joey graduates boot camp to defend the USA in Iraq. January ‘00.

Photos courtesy of the Laurinaitis family.

Above:
James and Jessica flashing their bright smiles during their high school years.
Bottom:
Sometimes James wouldn’t even go to eat with Joey and me unless I painted him up like Daddy first! Fall ‘90.

Photos this page courtesy of the Laurinaitis family.

Top:
Julie, Jessica, and I visiting James during his sophomore year at Ohio State. Fall ‘06.
Bottom:
James as a St. Louis Ram visiting with Houston Texan and fellow Wayzata High School graduate Dominique Barber.

Although Nikita had given me his book in the past, I’d never looked at it. This time, for whatever reason, I read it from cover to cover in one night at the hotel, and it made a huge impression on me. Nikita stopped me after a match the next night and said, “Hey, last night you were yelling, ‘I’ll kick your ass,’ and tonight you were yelling, ‘I’ll kick your butt.’ What changed?”

It took me off guard. “I don’t know, man.”

“That’s the Holy Spirit, brother,” he said. “He’s knocking at your door.”

I know what you’re thinking. I was thinking the same thing, too.
Oh no, here we go again. Another athlete talking about God.
Well, those of you who know me personally or from TV know that I say it like it is—no BS. The events following would prove to me that God has a sense of humor. I mean, think about it. If He could hunt down a 300-pound, Mohawked wrestler with face paint and spikes, He could hunt down anybody.

After that, I started trying to work through everything I’d read and known about Christianity. I knew a lot of guys in the business had used religion to get a second chance with the wrestling executives after making a mess of themselves, but then they’d just turn right back around and make another mess. I didn’t want anything to do with that. It had to mean something to me to give my heart up like that.

A couple days later when Julie picked me up from the airport, I told her about Nikita’s book and that maybe there was something to this spirituality thing. I asked her to drop me off at The Gym so I could clear my mind with a good workout.

After finishing a set of lat pulldowns, I went for a drink of water. When I turned around, five of the biggest guys I’d ever seen were staring right at me. It was the Christian group The Power Team. One of them, a former Hells Angel from Texas named Big Russ, asked me a question: “Hey, Animal, do you have Jesus in your life?”

I looked at him blankly. “Bro, I don’t know what’s going on.” It was true. I couldn’t process everything rolling around in my head lately.

Then the guys from The Power Team invited me to their event in town at the Living Word Christian Center. With an open mind, I decided to go with my whole family.

Sitting in the front row of this 10,000-seat facility, where the guys from the team had given us seats, we watched all of their typical strong man exhibitions: tearing phone books in half and bending frying pans and stuff. It was funny because I was sitting there saying, “Oh, I could do that.”