Suddenly, a flashlight beamed through the window-temporarily blinding me. A police officer banged on the glass, and the driver opened it up. “What do you have in the car?” the crooked officer demanded.
“Nothing,” Uti was quick to reply.
The officer was not impressed. “Open the trunk.” My heart was pounding. I really felt like my bag was the least of my problems. Deep inside, I was hoping that this officer hadn’t seen Deliverance.
Then Uti spoke up in a booming voice and yelled, “I’m Power Uti. I’m on my way to Bendel State for a match. Don’t waste my time!” Amazingly, the police officer let us go, and even wished the champ well in the match. One thing was very clear to me at that time-there was no way that I was going to win that match. They could not have paid me enough money to beat Power Uti in his hometown.
I’ll be damned-my wish came true. I lost the match, but not before I witnessed several strange events. The match was scheduled to start at 8 P.M., but at 8:15, the place was empty. “I don’t get it,” I uttered with a shake of my head, “I thought Uti was popular here.”
“Oh no, you don’t understand,” came a kind voice. It was Nigerian veteran Flash Mask Udor, who was a mountain of a man, but who possessed a truly gentle spirit. “This is Nigerian time. If it says eight Nigerians know to come at nine or nine-thirty. Don’t worry, they will be coming very soon.”
I was confused and let him know. “Does everybody know this?” I politely asked.
“Oh yes, Mr. Jack, everyone knows.”
Sure enough, by nine-thirty the place was almost full, and at that time, the ring announcer went out to the ring. At ten-fifteen, he was still talking. Apparently, his job was not just to do the announcing, but also to entertain the crowd with a standup comedy routine. Finally, he announced the next ring luminary, who made his way to the ring. Was he a wrestler? No, silly, he was the witch doctor, who did a rain dance to ward off the rain spirits who might threaten the outdoor show. I swear I’m not making this up. Finally, with Mother Nature held in check by the nifty moves of the doctor, the show was under way.
Honestly, I can’t remember a thing about my big match except being split open, losing to the champion, and the aftermath that almost did me in.
Uti was in command of his comeback when he took me toward the steel ring post. I wanted it to look good, but at the same time, I was counting on Uti’s respect for me to keep me safe. Apparently, that respect thing didn’t mean a whole lot to him as he sent me headfirst to the steel with all the power in his massive physique. With a sickening thud, I heard my head split like a ripe melon, and temporarily saw stars. When I regained my senses, I felt something hot and wet running down my face. I would be lying if said I didn’t like it just a little.
Within seconds the match was over, courtesy of a sunset flip, of all things. I knew the match hadn’t exactly been a classic, but it had been nothing to be ashamed of either, and as the crowd went crazy, I lay back for just a moment to bask in the glory of the job moderately well done. My basking didn’t last too long, because as I hopped out of the ring, I felt as if I was smack dab in the middle of the running of the bulls in Pamplona. Fans were everywhere, and they were dead set on rushing the ring, whether I was in the way or not. I saw a few faces, and they looked as if they were drunk on national pride, or something equally as intoxicating. I had just about two seconds left before I would surely be flattened like Leslie Nielsen in The Poseidon Adventure.
Luckily, the warm sensation of my own blood had sparked an adrenaline rush, and I decided to go on the offensive. I was thinking of Lou Ferrigno as the Incredible Hulk as I let out my best scream and charged the rushing crowd. Chuck Heston would have been proud of me as I parted the Benin fans like the Red Sea, even though the only guns in my possession were the seventeen-inch ones that threw wild haymakers at whoever stood in my path.
As I got halfway through the mob scene, several of the Nigerian wrestlers, including Flash Mask Udor, came to my aid. When I got to the back, I was dripping both blood and confidence as one by one the Nigerian boys voiced their concern. “Sorry” seemed to be the popular word for the boys, who by this time had grown quite fond of their American friend. Eventually I got cleaned up, strapped an ice pack to my wound, and waited more than three hours to be paid for the tour. Like most guys who have just been opened up, I had walked around for a great length of time with dried blood clinging to my face.
While waiting for the money to be counted, a religious discussion began, and I was more than happy to share my viewpoints. At one point in my life (actually about the age of nineteen) I’d briefly considered being a man of the cloth. I guess I must have gotten impassioned about something religious in that dressing room, because the wrestlers started looking at me as if I was a holy presence. One of them actually got down before me and said, “You are very close to the Kingdome.”
“Not really,” I replied naively. “I’m actually a long ways away.” This astonished the wrestlers, who collectively agreed that I was very close to the Kingdome. Apparently, they didn’t know their geography. “Look,” I tried to point out, “I live in New York-the Kingdome is all the way on the other side of the country in Seattle.” Their faces showed nothing but confusion. I was midway through explaining the Seahawks and the Mariners to them, when one stood up and said, “Mr. Jack, we are talking about the Kingdom of God-you are very close to that.” Suddenly, I understood-I was close to the Kingdom, not the King Dome.
Shortly after my discussion, I was handed my payoff. Three hundred dollars for the two-week tour. Wow! Maybe I should have been a man of the cloth, because although the vow of celibacy may have proved difficult, pro wrestling was doing a damn good job of preparing me for a vow of poverty.
My dad was at JFK to greet me when the plane touched down. Halfway through the trip home, he asked me about my financial compensation. “I got three hundred,” I sadly replied and waited for a lecture about throwing away my college education. Instead, I got a vote of confidence.
“Hey, it’s a great experience-how many people can say they’ve been to Nigeria?”
“Good point, Dad, but why would they want to?”
Upon returning from Africa, I embarked on a memorable trip through the Dakotas, Maryland, Idaho, and Wyoming. I headed out of Columbus, Ohio, by Winnebago and had a blast, as it was the last time that I remember the DeNucci school together as a whole. On the downside, we performed in front of miniscule crowds and received about $20 a day. But I prefer to think of it as a free vacation with some of my best friends through beautiful scenery, Yosemite Park, and the site of Custer’s Last Stand at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
I was also developing rapidly as a wrestler. With only a little over two years’ experience to my credit, I was actually touring and performing like a veteran, even though I never did start smoking stogies and calling everybody “kid.” My timing was getting to be real good, my psychology was coming along, and my chemistry with Brian at ringside was resulting in some classic stuff.
My most vivid memory of the trip was almost the last memory of my life as our RV lost its brakes on the way down a mountain in Yosemite. I was listening to a tape and feeling fine with the world when I became aware that our lives were in danger. For some reason, I didn’t feel even the slightest twinge of panic. I saw my buddies holding on to each other and crossing themselves, but it all seemed like a dream and I had no doubt that I’d be fine. Not even the impact of our vehicle crashing into the mountain to slow our momentum could ruin the moment for me, although everyone else seemed pretty upset about the whole situation. I saw Dominic nonchalantly head down a hill into a meadow with a stream, where rumor has it he removed his underwear, which were no long suitable for wearing. After a day of repairing the Winnebago, we continued our tour.
After the western disaster, I headed back to Nigeria-where I was scheduled to perform as a manager and referee and wrestler on three different cards that would take ten days to complete.
I showed u
p in the country and was almost immediately taken to a house for breakfast. I was informed that many of the Nigerian wrestlers were at the house, so I packed a dozen or so Tshirts that I had brought them. These were not wrestling shirts even, for at the time the concept of a Cactus Jack shirt selling to anyone outside my immediate family was unreasonable. Instead, these were shirts that I had either outgrown or didn’t wear. I handed them to the boys as I walked in and excused myself to use the restroom. When I came back less than a minute later, every last one of the wrestlers was wearing the hand-me-down gift they’d been given. The smiles on their faces were unbelievable.
For reasons that I never could quite figure out, I was sent to the ring as a manager with a generic black mask. Tony Nardo, who was usually Moondog, but for this trip was “Eric the Red, Jr.,” was my wrestler. Eric the Red had been a big name in Nigeria for years, and the exploitation of Nardo was supposed to pack the crowds in for another Uti title defense. It didn’t. Something to do with running the show at the end of the month when no one had any money left, or so I was told.
Power Uti entered the ring to the thunderous applause of about 8,000 people in a 30,000-seat soccer stadium, and the match was on. At the right moment, I handed Nardo his special prop-an eighteen inch cow’s thigh bone that he used as part of his ring persona. Nardo hit Uti with the bone as I distracted the referee, and then handed it back when the referee went to check on Power Uti. I really didn’t think too much about it-after all, without outside interference, wrestling might start resembling a real sport, and I don’t want any part of that boring stuff. To the fans in attendance, however, it was a very big deal.
I sensed a rumbling and turned just in time to be clubbed with what felt like a chair, although I’m not certain. Whatever it was, it was delivered with a great deal of force, as it put me down with one shot, which, as people who watch Raw will attest, is no simple feat. When I gained some semblance of rationality, I realized that I was being stomped, being punched, and getting my ass kicked in general, by what had to be at least a dozen people. I would like to be able to say that I jumped up and fought them all off, but the truth is I got up and rolled into the general calm of the ring. This is generally the best place to fight off a fan attack, as you can see them coming, and can usually knock their dick stiff the moment they stick their head through the ropes. I could see that the mob was mad, but I didn’t have any further trouble.
I felt my head, and even through my stupid black mask I could feel a large divot in my hairline. Mr. Haiti was refereeing, and didn’t seem to have a whole lot of sympathy for my plight. “Get out of the ring, get out,” he yelled, in his heavily accented English.
“I’m hurt, I’m hurt,” I yelled, in an attempt to reason with him. No dice. He again ordered me out, as I looked at police officers armed with machine guns who were much more intent on watching the match than they were on helping a bloody white guy with a cheap black mask. Finally, the cavalry of Nigerian wrestlers came, lead by Flash Mask Udor, and escorted me to safety.
I took off my mask and was sickened by the heavy blood loss. Unlike the incident during my previous trip to Nigeria, I had not enjoyed this feeling at all. To make things worse, my black mask had hid all the precious juice, so no one even knew I was busted wide open.
Also unlike my last cut, which I had patched up myself, this one definitely needed stitches. “Flash, how do I get to the hospital?” I asked the grizzled Udor. His response both worried and surprised me. “Mr. Jack, the hospital is no good-we will take you to a chemist’s office. They will take care of you.”
“A chemist’s office?” I asked with slight dismay in my voice. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, Mr. Jack,” my friend assured me, “it will be okay.”
An hour later, without the benefit of anesthesia, I received seven stitches in a chemist’s office with a dirt floor. Back at the hotel, where we were no longer allowed to eat in the Chinese restaurant because “it will cost the promotion too much,” I had a revelation that I shared with Tony Nardo-“I need to write a book.”
The next day, Nardo flew home, and I spent the next five days as the only Caucasian I saw. Fortunately, I had two things to keep me company-Fatal Vision, an excellent book by Joe McGinniss, and the Nigerian wrestlers, who almost considered me one of them. I even had a chance to go out to a club, and noticed two things that appeared rather strange to a tough guy like myself. Guys danced with each other, instead of with women, and they also held hands when they walked. I had seen some of the wrestlers holding hands on the way to meals and asked what it meant. “Holding hands is a gesture of respect and friendship,” a wrestler named Sunday had told me. I liked the name so much that I suggested it for our firstborn, but my wife shot it down immediately.
With only a few days left on the tour, I was walking to breakfast with a few of the guys when I felt it. A man’s hand. In mine. Flash Mask Udor was not just holding my hand, he was swinging it as he walked. I didn’t know what to do. At that moment, I felt like every kid in America who gets a physical and has to turn his head and cough while the doctor feels his nads. Our sports physical guy in high school, Dr. Eihacker, had felt so many teenage testes in his life that he actually had the nickname “Happy Hands.” Every kid in school was terrified of Happy Hands, because the last thing he wanted was an overabundance of blood in the region when Eihacker went to squeezing, lest he appear as if he enjoyed it. Jay Johnson had suffered the misfortune of giggling while in the office, and the poor guy’s reputation was shot from then on. With that in mind, I was really hoping that my blood would be in short supply, as I tried to figure out what to do or say. Wisely using the hand that wasn’t being held by a 260-pound man, I discreetly felt for my little buddy, and was relieved to find him in his normal unaroused state. With irrefutable physical proof that I was indeed a true man, I decided to speak up and end this romantic stroll. I did decide, however, to do it gently.
“Uh, Flash, can I tell you something?” I politely asked my too close friend.
“Yes, Mr. Jack, what is it?” his kind voice wanted to know.
“Well, I know over here in Nigeria, you guys hold hands with each other, but where I come from, we usually just hold hands with girls.”
Flash immediately saw where I was coming from and let me loose. “I’m sorry, Mr. Jack,” he politely said. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”
We walked the rest of the way and talked amiably, and as I walked, I began to see his gesture in a different light. Here was a huge Nigerian man in his mid-forties, reaching out to accept an American man in his early twenties. I felt foolish for having been so troubled about it, and immediately saw his gesture as the ultimate sign of acceptance. It was a true compliment, given from a true gentleman. Either that or the guy secretly wanted to hammer me.
At the end of the tour, I was handed my money, which consisted of eighteen crisp U.S. bills. Too bad they were all tens. I had spent a total of six weeks in Africa on three different tours, and had brought home a cool $480 total. The guy at the 7-Eleven was making more dispensing Slurpees than I was for my overseas bludgeonings. I had to face the fact that some things in my life had to change.
Chapter 7
I was at a stalemate as I entered 1988. I had been going to DeNucci’s school in Freedom for two straight years, and had benefited enormously from his training, but I had to accept the fact that I just couldn’t improve enough in an empty gym 500 miles from home to justify going there. I will always consider myself a DeNucci student, but at this point, I effectively stopped my whole routine. I still forayed out that way occasionally, but only when I was booked on shows. Fortunately, I was starting to get some recognition in New York, mainly based on shows I did for a friend of Dominic’s named Mark Tendler. Back in 1988, if you had looked up the word “character” in the dictionary, you probably would have seen a picture of Mark Tendler’s smiling face. Mark was a big loud man who wore loud clothes with big loud jewelry. He also made big loud noises when he ate. He wor
e a huge “Mark” nameplate across his chest, which we referred to as the “Tendler license plate.” He wore one of the world’s worst wigs, which for some reason had dandruff in it. I guess to make it look more natural. He was also a genuinely warm, nice guy, who made his home on Long Island our house and who invited me to train in his new wrestling school free of charge.
Mark’s promoting style was comical, to put it mildly. With the exception of one or two stars he booked per card, Mark filled his shows with unknown wrestlers. But if you didn’t look closely, a casual fan might believe that a Super Bowl of Wrestling had just come to his town.
Fellow Long Islander Lou Fabiano, with whom I became fast friends, became the Magnificent LaRocca. A long-haired blond guy became Buck Hogan. A fat, bald guy became Ding Dong Bundy. He had a tag team of Tom Brandi and Bill Woods called, the Rock n’ Roll Connection, whose opponents, King Kaluha and I, were the South Sea Islanders, which was either a tribute to or a ripoff of the World Wrestling Federation team, the Islanders. I had no issue with Kaluha, whose Philippine/Hawaiian ancestry made him a passable Islander. But me? I had to question it. “Mark, I appreciate the spot on the card,” I said, “but I really don’t want to change my name to do the Islander thing.”
“Hey, no problem,” the gregarious Tendler replied with a huge lump of hero sandwich in his mouth, “you can still be Cactus Jack, we’ll just announce you from the Fiji Islands.” Hey, who could disagree with that logic? On second thought, coming from a promoter who had taught two twelve-year-olds to walk bowlegged so they could pass as midget wrestlers, and who got a black guy to be his “Russian,” the South Sea Cactus Jack wasn’t so bad. It also helped that, as “Islanders,” Kaluha and I were stealing the show.
As spring rolled around I even got a real job-three of them, actually. I worked full-time as a landscaper by day, went to Mark’s for a few hours a few times a week, and bounced/tended bar at a local institution called the Check Mate Inn. I was putting in about sixty hours a week, plus wrestling most weekends, and was bringing home almost $400 a week. During this time, I got a call from Shane Douglas, whom Eddie Gilbert had brought with him to Alabama in the Continental Wrestling Federation. As would be the case for much of Shane’s career, he wasn’t too happy there. “Cactus, if you’re making $400 a week at home,” Shane said, “there’s no reason to move here to make the same thing.”