My children are six and eight years old. I let them watch the World Wrestling Federation on television. Not only the Saturday and Sunday morning shows, which are edited specifically for a younger audience, but the Monday Raw program and Thursday's SmackDown! as well. Raw comes with a TV-14 rating, which means it may not be suitable for children under fourteen, and SmackDown! carries a TV-PG. I'm not sure if I would let them watch the evening shows if I weren't involved, because there are some slightly risque moments that are a little much for little kids. (More on that later.)
My kids love to wrestle, and I let them. I have sat down with them and explained that several of the moves hurt, and that many are extremely dangerous. They have a decent understanding of the spinal cord, and which moves pose a threat to it. They know that they can never use these moves on each other or anyone else. If they do so, they know that they will not be permitted to watch the shows or wrestle anymore. Watching the two of them wrestle, complete with "uh-oh, both these guys are hurt" commentary by Dewey, is a thing of beauty. He is extremely gentle with his little sister. With the exception of an occasional bumped head or banged knee, they can wrestle without incident for hours at a time.
Granted, I have an intimate knowledge of wrestling moves, but anyone with even the most basic knowledge of the human anatomy (and this would include anyone with a ninth-grade education) can watch the program with their child and establish similar guidelines. Therein lies the problem. Many parents don't have a clue as to what their kids are watching. They are content to have them occupied. So whether it's Triple H giving Cactus Jack a pedigree, or a twelve-year-old watching porno on the Internet, many parents neither know nor care what the children are watching. That is ignorance, with a little dose of apathy thrown in as well.
In addition to ignorance, wrestling suffers from another stigma that actually is fed by ignorance: the decades-old proclamation that "it's all fake." I would like to think that most parents are responsible and intelligent enough to sit down with their kids, watch the show, and accept it for what it is. "These guys don't really hate each other, Joey, but they do some really athletic things that can be very dangerous. Please don't do them, okay?" Unfortunately, I can almost hear other parents around the world saying, "I don't know why you watch that crap anyway—don't you know it's all fake?" I can see fifteen-year-old Billy trying to correct his mom. "Mom, come and watch, they do some really cool stuff." For which Mom, who has bills to pay, a casserole in the oven, and a deadbeat ex-husband, has the final word. "Yeah, right, anybody can do that crap." So Billy has his friends come over, builds a homemade ring in his backyard, attempts a move that his mother has assured him "anybody can do," lands on his head, and his mother files a lawsuit because she needs somebody to blame. All due to ignorance. Now if Mom knows it's dangerous, and still lets Billy construct his ring and perform dangerous moves without supervision, she's no longer just ignorant—she's a lousy parent.
The 20/20 piece left a lasting impression on me. (In terms of content, not moral accountability.) These kids build some awfully elaborate rings in their parents' backyards. Don't their parents have a clue as to what the kids are doing out there? I'm sorry, but when Mom can't find the cheese grater and twelve-year-old Junior shows up at the dinner table with a forehead that looks like scabby moz-zarella, it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to realize there's a problem. Nor does it take Sherlock Holmes to know that when Dad realizes the living room is a little dark, and sixteen-year-old Peter stumbles in with a piece of glass embedded in his skull, it's definitely time for a talk.
The ring in the backyard needs to come down, kids. Find a new television show to watch. And Mom and Dad, I want you to take a walk into the bathroom together. Go ahead, Dad, put down beer number five just for a second; this is important. Good. Now walk into that room, look in the mirror, and explore the possibility that your child didn't get hurt because Vince McMahon is a bad man. He didn't get hurt because Mick Foley used a cheese grater on the Sandman in the ECW arena in 1994. Instead, open your minds up to the idea that your child quite possibly was injured because you, as parents, suck. By the way, kids, if you insist on using a cheese grater, I've got two words for you: "Fake it." Is there an optical illusion in the world that's easier to pull off than a cheese grater to the head? One guy makes an ugly face and pretends to grate—the other guy screams. Perfect. That's exactly what the pros do.
As of this writing, no one has died as a result of backyard wrestling. But with media attention actually fueling its rise in popularity, a future death is probably inevitable. What then? Should the World Wrestling Federation be blamed? What then? In no way do I want to trivialize the death of anybody, but in my opinion, pointing fingers and filing suits oversimplifies the cause. I definitely believe in accountability, and in punishment and imprisonment, when applicable. Do I believe that a murderer should be imprisoned? That's an easy one. Do I believe that a bar that serves a stumbling drunk, who subsequently takes a little girl's life in an automobile accident, is accountable? That's a little tougher, but yes, I do. And do I believe that the author of a book on how to make bombs is accountable for the death of babies killed in a terrorist explosion? You're damn right. I do. Put me on the jury, too.
But that's about the end of it. I don't believe in suing the inventor of the handgun, the maker of the whiskey that was ingested, or the guy who chopped down the tree that made the paper that the bomb book was written on. And I don't believe in suing Vince McMahon because a lot of kids happen to enjoy his show.
Really, where do people think accountability ends? Do we sue the estate of Henry Ford for an automobile accident? Do we sue Orville Wright VII for a plane crash in the Andes Mountains? And does the surviving husband of an electrocuted wife sue Marconi because the husband mistakenly knocked the radio Marconi invented into the bathtub while she was scrubbing her armpit? But, man, people like to sue Vince.
I guess when a ridiculously liberal interpretation of cause and effect is applied, some people could claim that professional wrestling has injured young people. There are others who would go further than that and say that wrestling has caused deaths. So why not just get rid of it? Okay, now it's gone and we can all sleep a lot easier tonight. But wait, why stop there? In order to be fair, we have to apply that liberal interpretation to the other sports as well.
We've already determined that football, baseball, and amateur wrestling have caused death, so they've got to go as well. Hockey too. Several young kids have been killed over the years. Not to mention the youth hockey league father who was killed recently during an ice brawl with another parent. Basketball? Do you have any idea how many people have been killed over arguments during pickup games, not to mention the tragic deaths of Hank Gathers and Reggie Lewis? Auto racing is not only dangerous to the drivers themselves, several of whom have died in recent years, but its influence has cost many more lives on the highway. It's got to go. Running is healthy, right? Not so fast. It killed Jim Fixx, who wrote The Running Book, so how damn healthy can it be? Gone. Golf has to be the culprit when talking about beloved golfer Payne Stewart's death. I know, golf didn't kill Payne directly, but we're talking cause and effect here, and if Payne wasn't a golfer, he wouldn't have been in that plane, and if he wasn't in that plane he'd still be alive. It's got to go. Skating? Sergei Grinkou. Can't have it anymore. Just to be safe, let's get rid of them all—even badminton. I mean, who wants their cause of death to be listed as "choked on a red-tipped cock"?
Music would be history as well, for a variety of reasons. First off, we can't have impressionable teenagers go to an Ozzy concert and take "Suicide Solution" literally. Come to think of it, let's ban all live music following the deaths of fans at a recent Pearl Jam concert. I almost forgot, we'd better make that "all music," because after all, music causes young people to take drugs, and we all know that drugs kill.
I'm a little concerned about the movies. After all, if a mother convinces her son that "anyone can do that crap" when talking about stuntmen, the kid migh
t try to dive out of a thirteenth-story window after seeing a Jackie Chan flick. Which leaves us only live plays to enjoy, which we obviously can't because Abraham Lincoln was killed at Ford's Theatre, and we all would have been a lot better off if old Abe had stuck around.
Great. Now we'll all live a lot longer—and without a whole hell of a lot left to live for.
7: January 25,1999: Two-Time Former Champion
"Hon, please pull over, I'm afraid you're going to kill us." Colette was offended, but she knew the Los Angeles traffic was too much for her. So even with nine stitches in, and eleven lumps on, my head, I piloted our rented car to the Los Angeles airport. As originally planned, I would have been starting my vacation at this point, but we now had our "something big during half time of the Super Bowl" to tape. So I held Noelle as she slept with my flannel shirt as a blanket while Dewey played with his action figures and Colette warned me never to get hit on the head again. With a kiss, a hug, and an "I love you" for each of them, I watched them board their red-eye flight, where I hoped that the first-class seats would allow them to rest, and put what was one of our worst nights as a family behind us.
As for me, I was off to Phoenix to do a quick one-day buildup for our "something big," which would turn out to be an "Empty Arena" match, with the World Wrestling Federation title on the line.
A year earlier MTV had done phenomenal ratings during halftime of the Super Bowl by promoting a Celebrity Death Match featuring "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. I guess Vince figured why let MTV do big ratings with our guys when we could do big ratings with our guys.
The "Empty Arena" idea was derived from an infamous Terry Funk/Jerry Lawler brawl in an empty Memphis Mid-South Coliseum from the early eighties. Anyone in the business with even the slightest appreciation for wrestling history has either seen or heard of this mat classic that began with the most profane interview of all time by the Funker. I think Terry set the indoor record for most frequent usage of the words "bastard" and "son of a bitch" in a three-minute time period. The end of the match is also warmly remembered for Terry's bungled attempt at maiming Lawler with a spike, which caught Terry in his own eye, leaving him bleeding and moaning mournfully, "My eye, my eye, Lawler, you bastard, my eye!"
What most wrestling fans don't remember is that, with the exception of the beginning and end, the empty-arena thing was atrocious. In much the same way that Star Wars geeks convinced themselves that The Phantom Menace was a great movie, even though cinematic evidence seemed to prove otherwise, wrestling fans have labeled this fiasco a classic. Hey, I'm the Funker's biggest fan, but even he laughs about how bad it was. Still, this was our agreed-upon stipulation, and what the hell, we might as well do our best.
A one-day story line isn't an easy sell, but we certainly gave it the old college try, even if the story line had a bigger hole in it than Tim Robbins's prison cell in The Shawshank Redemption.
Raw started with Vince presenting The Rock, his "corporate champion," with $100,000 for helping him win the Royal Rumble in what was Vince's first official World Wrestling Federation contest. To Vince's credit, he trained like an Olympian, and looked good in winning it. The hundred grand was stored inside an armored truck and was guarded by two armed "guards" that I somehow managed to dispose of, with minimal effort, during a dastardly sneak attack. With the guards knocked out, I pulled out the huge sack of cash, thereby committing an act of grand larceny and assault on national television. Of course, I was able to keep the money, due to the little-used "finders keepers, losers weepers" clause that was in effect at the time of the crime.
Appearing onstage, cash in hand, while an outraged Rock and Vince sulked in mid-ring, I somehow managed to expose the previous night's taped "I Quit" conspiracy, explain my newfound robbery skills, and challenge The Rock to the "Empty Arena" match, all while throwing wads of real cash to the crowd. It was actually quite a good interview, especially considering that my head was still throbbing like the no-reason boner of a fourteen-year-old boy.
For the rest of the show, I came up with inventive ways of spending The Rock's money, including "renting" horizontally challenged Mexican wrestler Max Mini for my kids to play with for the week, buying beautiful blond valet Debra a sweater to cover her oft-exposed cleavage, and giving giant wrestler Kurrgan enough cash to invest in my expertly researched mutual-fund selections. Oddly, no one ever remarked that my proposed theory of "40 percent large caps, 27 percent mid caps, 18 percent aggressive growth, 13 percent international, and 10 percent money market" added up to slightly more than 100 percent.
What could The Rock do? He had to accept it, which he did, in an interview that saw his voice crack more often in three minutes than Dustin Diamond's Screech character did on an entire season of Saved by the Bell. It was hilarious—two guys who supposedly hated each other, one night after one of the most brutal displays in sports-entertainment, openly laughing while the crowd laughed along. At least the match was made, and the stage was set for one of the strangest matches of my career.
The "Empty Arena" match was shot like a movie, in segments, in different rooms throughout the building. We didn't rehearse scenes, or do more than one take for each scene, which would have been difficult, seeing the ass-kicking I took in each one of them, but nonetheless, it was different from anything I'd ever done, and many people involved thought it would revolutionize the business.
It was difficult to get pumped up for the match, as none of the other wrestlers had yet arrived, and I was still feeling the pain of my "I Quit" bludgeoning less than forty-eight hours earlier. I really didn't know what to expect as I laced up my boots. First, we shot our arrivals to the building; The Rock in an elegant stretch limo and me thanking a guy in a '73 Pinto for the lift, and giving him ten bucks as he drove away. Then it was time for our "Empty Arena" entrance, an experience I will never forget. My music began, and I stepped through the curtain wearing more bandages on my head than Boris Karloff in The Mummy. We were already skating on thin ice with USA after the Rumble match, and the last thing anyone involved wanted was for my head to spring a leak during what we were hoping would be the most-watched match in wrestling history. With that in mind, we made a conscious effort to make the match a "fun" one to watch, especially for the first-time viewers we were hoping to attract. So even though the "Empty Arena" match/movie would turn out to be a physical one, especially for me, we made sure to throw a lot of humor into the mix.
I could hear Vince doing commentary as I made my way to the ring. When I stepped inside, Howard Finkel began his introduction. "Ladies and Gentlemen ..." I looked around. "Weighing in at 287 pounds ..." There was not a soul in the building. "He is a former World Wrestling Federation champion ..." I felt like such a jerk. "Mankind." Now I know how the guys in WCW feel. The Rock's music started, and I felt even stranger. I really wanted to just yell out "cut" and go backstage for a little more motivation. I realized that millions of people would be watching the match, and I tried to let that inspire me. It didn't. Instead, I watched in bewilderment as The Rock climbed the second rope to play to a crowd that wasn't there. After what seemed like an eternity, but what was probably only seconds, the bell rang and we went at it.
Guess what? It was actually pretty good. After a minute inside the ring, the action spilled out to the floor, where I took out an entire section of the security fencing via a Rock Irish whip. Then it was into the chairs with an upside-down flip that put the domino theory into effect—knocking over about twenty chairs in the process. This used to be one of my patented bumps in the independents, Japan, and even ECW, but this had been my World Wrestling Federation first, because, well, people actually pay to be in those chairs.
While I lay on the floor, The Rock began piling chair after chair on top of me—burying me as if my body was Ralph Macchio's acting career. I somehow managed to escape the pile of seating devices and mounted a comeback that sent The Rock scurrying up the arena steps with me in hot pursuit. (Or as my brother would say—doing his best Dukes of Haz-zard Sheriff Ro
scoe R Coltrane imitation, "Hot pursuit, hot pursuit, huh kuh kuh kuh kuh.") My brother has every episode of that stupid show on tape, save one, which was spoiled when I took his designated tape off auto record and opted instead to air the Kay Parker film Steven into Snowy for my friends during my parents' college-visit absence.
When I got to the top, The Rock was waiting for me with a dreaded Rubbermaid to the head. The blow and two more like it were enough to send me down to the concrete, where I began a quick, rolling descent down the stairs. I managed to get down about thirty of them, but fell short of my goal of all fifty when my foot became wedged in a chair. Nonetheless, it was a pretty impressive start, considering my mummified state, and the fact that I was still sore as hell from the Rumble.
I have received some criticism for "taking too much" and not giving enough in return during my matches with The Rock. When I look back at the tapes, there certainly does seem to be some truth to that, but if there is blame to be assigned, it should be assigned to me. As I mentioned earlier, I felt like my ultimate goal was to get The Rock "ready" for WrestleMania. I saw myself kind of like a guard in football whose job it is to protect the quarterback. I didn't see "beating the hell out of him" as part of my job description, although, in retrospect, I may have been a little too giving.
The tumble down the stairs led us into the kitchen, which in turn led us to the catering area, a meeting room, an office, and finally the parking lot, with a prevailing theme throughout. The theme consisted of me getting my ass kicked, and The Rock coming up with funny lines as it was happening. Case in point: after throwing salsa in my eyes, which caused me to scream out in pain, The Rock replied, "That was mild sauce, you baby."