I saw Frank Dusek in Greensboro, North Carolina, in early 1998. It was the first time I had seen him since my Texas departure. I was wrestling the World Wrestling Federation champion. He shook my hand, and I asked him if he remembered what he said to me a decade earlier. “Oh God,” he said, laughing, “what was it?” I repeated his “bottom of the top, top of the bottom” speech and saw him wince as if he were John Winger taking a Sergeant “Big Toe” Hulka uppercut to the solar plexus. He then literally got down on his knees and jokingly bowed down to me. “Cactus,” he exclaimed, “I have never been so glad to be wrong in my life.”
I had envisioned great things for my sendoff at the Sportatorium. I had performed in that building over seventy times in my nine months and had engaged in some tremendous matches. I wanted to give the fans a great match to remember me by and had my head loaded with ideas as I drove to Valerie’s for what would prove to be the last time I saw her. The match had been booked as a loser leaves town match and I intended to leave right from the Sportatorium and drive through the night. Over dinner I speculated about the match and saw her become slightly angry as she yelled, “Jack, I know you’re going to lose tonight.”
This surprised me as I had always tried to “protect the business” around her and had steadfastly denied knowing the outcomes to my matches. I decided to call her bluff. “What makes you say that?” I inquired, using the poker face I had honed to perfection years earlier at late-night card games in childhood friend Scott Biasetti’s basement.
Her reply was simple and her rationale was hard to argue with. “Jack, I’m not stupid, Embry’s the boss, not you.” Then came the kicker. “Besides, I’m looking out the window at your car and you’ve got everything you own in it, I know you’re going to lose.” She then asked if I was going to come back for her and I had to admit that it probably would never happen.
My classic farewell match never happened either, as I lost to Embry in nine seconds with a simple backslide, then walked up the aisle as the fans sang “hit the road, Jack, and don’t you come back no more.” I actually had tears in my eyes as I pulled out of the parking lot and didn’t stop for rest until I was in my old bed in East Setauket twenty-seven hours later.
Chapter 10
I headed into Continental country with high hopes for the future. Robert had spoken of this territory as being like heaven, and I couldn’t wait to get started. When I got there, Rob was his normal gregarious self and greeted me with a big hug. “Goddamn, Jack-o, it’s good to see you, boy,” Rob exclaimed, and then asked if I could give him a ride to the post office. “Some arsehole came and repossessed my car, poo poo [this was one of Rob’s favorite terms of endearment], and I need to go and get your videotape,” he told me.
This wasn’t a good sign, and I told him so. I had sent the video that Video Bob had helped me come up with over a month ago. This tape was of me as a single wrestler, was set to the ominous tune of “Helter Skelter,” and was a good piece of business. The Continental area had been a part of the country not exposed to the World Class product, and the video would have been a good way to introduce me to the fans for a full month before I got there. Rob didn’t seem so concerned. “Don’t worry, poo poo,” he said. “We’ll just play it this week instead.”
I felt like he was missing the point. “Rob, don’t you think the tape would have helped get me over?” I asked him. “Now we have to start from square one.” It was damn hard to stay mad at the Stud, though-he was just so damn likable.
“Damn, Jack-o,” he said, “I’m sorry-I just got so damn busy that it skipped my mind.”
My first night in Montgomery was a TV taping at the Montgomery Civic Center. I decided to make up for lost time by kicking ass right out of the gate. I clotheslined my opponent over the ropes and slammed him on the cold, concrete floor, a good twelve feet from the ring. Quickly, I hopped up onto the ring apron and with a twostep approach, came sailing off the apron with a perfect elbow. When I got to the back, I asked Scott and Steve Armstrong how the elbow had looked. “What elbow?” Scott asked.
“The big one off the apron,” I replied.
“No, brother, I’m sorry, but I didn’t see an elbow,” Stevie let me know.
I headed for the TV truck to see what was the matter. I was more than a little bit pissed-after all, the elbow is a painful thing to drop on concrete; it needs to be captured on film. Maybe I’d become spoiled by Video Bob at World Class and would have to point out the error of this veteran director’s way. I opened the door and was shocked by what I saw-a bunch of scared kids looking at an angry wrestler. I immediately opted for the gentle approach. “Why didn’t you guys tape my elbow?” I asked a pimply-faced teenager.
Without a trace of sarcasm but with a whole lot of trepidation, he looked at me and said, “I don’t really know how to tape elbows, sir.”
I thought I sensed what the poor bastard was thinking so I gently explained a little bit about the wrestling business. “No, I’m not talking about physically taping my elbow for an injury,” I said, “I’m asking you why you didn’t videotape me when I was getting set to leap off the ring apron?”
“I’m sorry sir,” pimple face explained, “but this is only my first semester of television production.”
College kids? I went to Rob and got the lowdown. It turned out that multimillionaire David Woods, who owned the company, had been losing money on the wrestling business and decided to cut costs. One of the costs he cut was the production crew, who at one point helped make Continental a thriving territory. As a big believer in close-ups and camera angles, I was not high on our company’s chances for success without a decent production crew, and felt that Woods’ money saving methods were unwise. I also didn’t care for his decision to cut our payoffs.
Forty dollars was the minimum payoff for a show. Often I could wrestle in a single, come back in a tag, and end the night in a battle royal. For my extra efforts, I would be given an extra twenty a night, which averaged out to a cool $220 for my three-month stint in Alabama. Fortunately, we had the perk of a free two-bedroom apartment that in true starving-wrestler fashion, we jammed six guys into. The fact that I temporarily had to share a room with Downtown Bruno tended to put a damper on the joyousness of the free roof over my head.
Bruno was a true classic. A sniveling runt of a man, Bruno was the willing target of several funny but cruel practical jokes that seemed just a little too realistic for my tastes. One night in the dressing room, Bruno was reading off a list of African-American jokes that he consistently laughed the loudest at. Click. Suddenly, there was a gun to Bruno’s head, held there by a shaking Brickhouse Brown, who claimed he’d “had enough of your jokes, you white son of a bitch. Now I’m going to show you what a black man can do!” Immediately, Bruno’s knees buckled and he burst into tears and begged for his life. Brickhouse and all the boys broke out laughing. “Bruno, don’t you know I wouldn’t waste a perfectly good bullet on your worthless ass,” Brickhouse explained.
For a little guy, Bruno could throw down brews with the best of them, and his legendary drunken escapades became the butt of many jokes, the cruelest of which actually happened months later when I was with WCW. Sid Vicious had brought Bruno to the TV taping in some far corner of Alabama, where, per Sid’s request, booker Ric Flair began marveling at Bruno’s managerial splendor. “Brother, I’ve seen you work,” Flair lied to Bruno. “And may I say, you are the finest young manager I have seen in a long time.” Bruno was beaming, and lit up even more when Flair informed him, “I think you’ll have a new home right here in WCW.”
Suddenly, Flair began sniffing the air, and asked Bruno if he’d been drinking. “Yes sir, Mr. Flair,” a petrified Bruno replied, but defended himself by saying, “but only one.” Flair looked repulsed as he chastised poor Bruno.
“Look, I don’t know what kind of organization you come from,” the Nature Boy lectured, “but we do not want drunks working here.” Bruno was crushed. When I went out to wrestle, all of the fans were on on
e side of the small gym, in an attempt to make the place look full. All except Bruno, who sat in solitude with tears running down his sorry-ass cheeks. After Sid let him in on the joke, Bruno instantly forgave him and joined him on the ride back home. To Sid’s credit, he actually did bring Bruno to the World Wrestling Federation with him a few years later, which in reality was the only place Bruno really wanted to work. He remains there in some capacity to this day. Hell, he even had an action figure made of him.
Unfortunately, laundry was not something that Bruno was real good about, as I watched his dirty clothes pile up in a corner. One day I caught him digging into his dirty clothes pile for something to wear. “What the hell are you doing,” I asked.
Bruno turned around and in all seriousness replied, “Well, they’ve been in the pile so long, I figured they wouldn’t be dirty anymore.”
Despite the financial woes, which were compounded by the fact that the territory was dying, and our somewhat cramped living conditions, I had a decent time in Continental. All the wrestlers lived in the same apartment complex in Montgomery, including Brian Lee, who was married, and my old buddy Lou Fabiano, and the complex often resembled a big family. We’d have cookouts and play Wiffleball in the afternoon, sit around the pool all day on our off days, playing crazy eights with Rob.
Rob was addicted to eights, and never ceased to entertain with his running commentary during the games. “Come on, poo poo, come to old Rob,” he’d say while always threatening to “drop a hoss on you,” which meant throw a joker down. Rob provided commentary on more than just crazy eights, as I discovered at a motel after a late-night visit to Shoney’s for “all you can eat” shrimp night. Rob, Jimmy Golden, and I had done a pretty respectable job of costing Shoney’s some money that night, and we each headed back to the Days Inn with full bellies as we called it a night.
A few minutes later, I got up to get a soda and heard the unmistakable sound of Rob’s voice. “Oh God, oh God, here it comes,” he moaned. I didn’t know what the hell to think. Here what comes? Was Rob enjoying a private moment of climactic ecstasy, and if so, why didn’t he sound all that ecstatic about it? A splashing in the toilet cleared up the mystery. Unless Rob was an unbelievably virile man, the splash I had just heard was vomit and Rob was doing play-by-play on all the gastrointestinal action. “Oh, that’s not good, that’s not good,” he bellowed, followed by a “mmphh” and a splash. “Oh, I think it was my heart that time.”
I was a frequent dinner guest at Rob’s apartment and was treated often to the great Southern cooking of his wife, Sylvia. I learned the pleasures of cornbread and its many versatile uses, which included being crumbled into beef stew and being crumbled into milk. I also became close with Rob’s two youngest daughters, Katey and Charlotte, who I believe were seven and five at the time. I often took them to school, rode the rides with them at the Alabama State Fair, and have especially fond memories of reading to Charlotte every time I was over to their place. The little girl loved to be read to, and she’d curl up on my lap like it was the most comfortable seat in the world.
One day I picked up Rob in the trusty Arrow for a trip to the next town, and he had a huge gleam in his eye and a story he couldn’t wait to tell me. “Jack-o, guess what I did last night,” he asked, and then continued without waiting for my response. “I asked Charlotte if she wanted me to read to her, and she curled right up on my lap. I’m going to read to her every chance I get.” I was genuinely glad that I could help Rob rediscover a simple joy in life that I treasure every chance I get with my own kids now.
Yes, I had a good time in Alabama, but I couldn’t completely ignore the fact that business sucked. The crowds were bad to the point that I was starting to get buzzed regularly on a couple beers in the backseat of my car, following anemic attendance figures at our shows. I even resorted to drinking a thirty-two-ounce Colt 45 malt liquor out of a paper bag on one trip. Continental was, however, the place where Cactus Jack learned how to brawl.
Rotten Ron Starr was a veteran wrestler with a forehead that looked like pink taffy from all the years of bloodshed he had endured. He had come to the territory even though Fuller and Golden accidentally injured his neck years earlier.
I had my first match with Rotten Ron in Meridian, Mississippi, and we clicked right away. Rob had cut a great promo about Starr, saying he was hot at Cactus Jack because Cactus had done a number on Starr’s “love child that he’d had with a little senorita down around El Paso.” It may have been a ridiculous premise, but Starr played it up big, to the point that he came across like one mad SOB when he tore into me in Meridian. It was a true give-and-take match, with Starr giving out punishment and me taking it. We fought in the ring and outside it, up the bleachers and back down, and when I stumbled off into my dressing room, Starr returned to the ring to a huge ovation.
The next day, Ron was putting me over big time and concluded by saying, “Do you know who you remind me of, kid?” My mind started racing. Who? Harley Race? Terry Funk? Ray Stevens? His answer was a bit of a letdown. “Mike Boyette,” he said, beaming. I only knew Boyette as the guy who had run off over 100 straight losses in Bill Watts’s MidSouth group, and I guess Starr could see my confusion as he let me in on the fact that at his peak, Boyette, the California Hippie, was the premier bump man in the sport.
We took our match around the loop, always ad-libbing and always creating new twists along the way. Our run peaked with a memorable and bloody TV brawl at the Montgomery Civic Center that left Starr as the unlikely biggest babyface in the company. Our feud was short-lived, however, as we received word that the company would be shutting down right after Thanksgiving. After a year and a half of steady, if somewhat poorly compensated, work I now found myself with the unsavory task of looking for a job. It was during this trying time that I heard the phone ring in our apartment and when I picked it up, the voice of Shane Douglas say, “Hello, could I speak to Cactus, please?”
Shane had recently caught on with Turner’s World Championship Wrestling (WCW), and even though pegged with a ludicrous tag team gimmick called the Dynamic Dudes, seemed blissfully happy in his new role. Maybe the hundred grand contract he had signed made him blind to the fact that he had to wear pink trunks and carry a skateboard to the ring with him. I’m sorry, Shane, but when you have a skateboard and don’t use it, the fans will in fact know that you don’t know how, just as they caught on to the fact that I couldn’t crack my bullwhip in Memphis-because I never did.
Shane asked how I was and I told him of the imminent closing down of the company. “Why don’t you come to a TV taping in Atlanta,” Shane suggested. “Hell, it’s only three hours away. This way, you can at least get your face seen.” I quickly agreed and a week later, drove to the Center Stage theater in Georgia.
Chapter 11
Center stage was like a whole new world when I walked in. I felt strangely like I had during my first day in the World Wrestling Federation dressing room back in 1986, as I watched all the big stars walk by. This time, however, some of the people actually knew who I was. “Love your finish, mate,” came a deep voice with a strong New Zealand accent. It was Rip Morgon, who expressed his admiration for the flying elbow off the apron.
A moment later, I spotted Jim Cornette, whose eyes lit up when he saw me. Brian Hildebrand was a mutual friend of ours and as a result, Corny came over and hugged me like he had known me all his life. “Goddamn, Cactus, it’s good to meet you, you crazy son of a gun,” Corny exclaimed in his machine gun vocal style. “Hey, I’ve been trying to throw your name around as part of a tag team with Tony Anthony, who’s a hell of a talker. We’d dress you up with weird stuff sticking everywhere, make Brian your manager, and call you The Wild Things.” Just then, Jim Ross came into view. Although no longer part of the booking committee, Ross was still WCW’s play-by-play man, and he was taking a break between two tapings. He spotted me, walked over, and with less than full enthusiasm, gave me a quick “Cactus Jack, are you still alive?” before heading into the dr
essing room. Needless to say, it was not quite the greeting I had been hoping for.
A minute later, however, Ross reappeared with booker and five time (at the time) world champ Ric Flair. He said, “Hello, how are you, sir,” for the first time (I should point out now that Flair had two separate stints as booker-one in 1989-90, and one in ‘94). Suddenly, Ross, who I thought had just blown me off, was singing my praises to the Nature Boy. “Ric, this is Cactus Jack,” he said. “He’s a hell of a worker, a hell of a talker [which was debatable] and takes some great bumps.”
Cornette was next to give a glowing testimonial. “Ric, you’ve got to see this guy-you’ll love him. Maybe you can put him under a hood just for one match, and take a look at how he bumps for one of our top guys.”
Flair took it all in before asking, “What are you doing in two weeks?” I was tongue-tied for a moment before using my much-heralded mike skills to say, “Urn, nothing.”
Flair nodded and said, “Come back in two weeks, when we have TV again, and I’ll take a look at you.”
During those two weeks, I read the Bible and watched the G-rated movie The Bear twice-I wanted to get on God’s good side. I visualized my tryout match a thousand times. I was going to come out with all guns blazing and was definitely going to showcase my flying elbow. I even visualized my big promo, just in case. I hadn’t been given a chance to talk in months, but I knew in my heart that when called upon, I could deliver the goods.
When I arrived at Center Stage, I looked at the lineup sheet and felt all of my visualization become devisualized. There in black and white, for all the world to see, were the following words: “R. Fargo and Cactus Jack vs. The Steiners.” This wasn’t going to be a tryout; it was going to be a slaughter. The Steiners weren’t just wrestlers, they punished you. Rick threw the hardest clothesline in the business and Scott seemed to make up suplexes as he went along. The fact that I had known Scott in Memphis did little to comfort me as I envisioned myself spending more time in the air then Kay Parker’s legs in the Taboo trilogy. Was this really all they thought of me? I felt suddenly as if all my suffering had been for nothing, and was even contemplating packing up and leaving, when Jim Cornette and Kevin Sullivan approached me.