Controversy Creates Cash (47 page)

I had the best of both worlds. I could step back into the limelight, so to speak, with WWE as a performer. Yet I’d still have enough time to pursue the projects I’d been developing in the entertainment industry.

Right about the same time, Jerry Jarrett and his son Jeff were starting TNA, and they asked me about coming in and being part of that organization. I didn’t believe that they had the vision to pull something off that would be successful, and I didn’t want to be part of a failed wrestling company again. I also didn’t completely trust Jerry. But the biggest reason I didn’t get involved was that I didn’t want to give up everything I was doing in Los Angeles. I told them,
Thank you but no thank you.

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Heat with the Boys

The Power of Surprise

After the second or third discussion I had with Vince, I started getting phone calls from people, asking what was going on. “Hey, I heard you did a deal,” said Kevin Nash. “I heard you did a deal.” As much as I hated to, I had to deny it. Technically it wasn’t true. I hadn’t signed anything yet. And I wanted my appearance with WWE, assuming I went through with it, to be a surprise.

The wrestling audience is a funky audience, particularly because of the power of the Internet. The Internet really does have an impact on the business. If the wrong person found out I was coming back, the news would be online in seconds.

I knew that that if the word got out, the initial reaction would be,

“Oh, cool.” But then you would have people tearing it down. That’s kind of the nature of that community. There are very few positive things said on the Internet. It’s more about everyone’s negative view of what everyone else is trying to do. So I knew it would turn quickly to “Oh, Bischoff’s going to ruin WWE. He’s going to do to them what he did to WCW. The morale’s going to go down, the guys are going to hate it.” It’d be one big negative thing before it even started.

I called Vince and said, “Vince, there are leaks in your organization. I’m getting phone calls I shouldn’t be getting, from people who shouldn’t know that you and I are talking. If we’re going to do this, can we do everything in our power to keep it quiet? Don’t tell anyone you don’t have to tell.”

He agreed.

“And you know what? I want to go so far as to fly myself in. Because the minute you book an airline ticket through your office, everyone’s going to know. I’ll book my own hotel. You tell me where to be and when, and I’ll be there.” And we did.

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Back to Black

In the year-plus that I’d been away from television, I’d let my hair grow pretty long. I’d also stopped dying it, which meant it was completely silver. I decided that, to make the best impact, I’d show up looking as close to the guy people remembered from
Nitro
as possible. So I got out the dye and had my hair cut Ken doll style.

A week or so before the show, I got a call from Stephanie McMahon, Vince’s daughter and one of the company vice presidents. Like the rest of the family, she was very cordial on the phone.

That’s one thing I have to say about the McMahons: they’re very classy people. Despite what the perception may be, I’ve found them all, Vince, Linda, Shane, and Stephanie, to be genuinely nice people.

“Eric, I want you to know you’ve got a lot of heat here with a lot of the boys. I’m not sure if you know what you’re getting into.”

“Stephanie, you don’t know me, but here’s the deal. I’ve had heat from the day I started in this business. I pretty much believe that if I show up and work hard, all of that stuff will take care of itself. If I don’t do that, the fact that I may have heat is going to be a problem. Don’t worry about it. It’ll all be fine.” Committed to Memory

The
Raw
I was going to appear on was at Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey. I came into New York City and stayed across the river near LaGuardia Airport. Monday morning, a town car came over and picked me up, bringing me to another hotel not far from the arena, but not the one where the wrestlers were staying.

Around two or three in the afternoon, a script was slipped under my door. There were two or three pages of material they wanted me to memorize. Up until then, I’d never had to memorize that much material. Usually I’d work with bullet points and improve it. That’s the way a lot of guys who’ve been in the business for a while work.

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I wasn’t sure whether they wanted it word for word or not. But I figured if they’d spent this much time preparing this much script, I better do it word for word.

For the next few hours, I walked back and forth in my room, talking to myself, reciting my lines.

Ready to Rock

About seven o’clock, a stretch limo arrived at my hotel to take me to the arena.

We stayed out in the parking lot, outside the arena area, until nine. Then the limo pulled inside the arena. I remained inside so no one could see me.

I was smiling so hard my face hurt. I knew it was going to be big.

I knew I was going to get a huge reaction from the crowd. I was excited to get out in that ring again and let it rip, just hear that audience react.

There is nothing like that.

There is nothing like standing in the middle of a ring, surrounded by fifteen or twenty thousand people, and having the ability to make them do exactly what you want them to do, exactly when you want them to do it.

I wasn’t nervous. There wasn’t any anxiety. I didn’t second-guess myself. Nothing. It was about as perfect as it could have been.

As the time came closer to my debut, I saw guys passing and trying to get a look in the limo, hoping to figure out who the surprise general manager was going to be. Steve Lombardi—he’s a great guy who works behind the scenes at WWE after a career as the Brook-lyn Brawler—squinted at the blacked-out windows. He couldn’t figure out who was inside. It was still a secret.

About twenty minutes before I was supposed to go out, Vince McMahon came by. It was the first time we had met face to face since that interview in 1990. He sat in the car and gave me a little pep talk.

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“When you come out, Eric, I want you to give me a big hug.

Let’s embrace.”

Which was kind of odd, because I’d hardly even shaken his hand until this point.

“Sure, Vince.”

He went back to the show. A few minutes later Stephanie came by, and we were ready to go.

A Train Wreck

“Okay, Eric, now none of the boys know. It’s going to shock a lot of people. Don’t let that bother you. Just go out and do your thing.” I think she probably thought I was a mental train wreck. She was sure that half the guys in her locker room were going to want to kill me, and the other half would cheer them on.

But I was just as calm and relaxed as I’ve ever been. We got out, and I followed as Stephanie walked me up to the gorilla position, which is a kind of holding area right behind the stage. It’s the last thing you see right before you walk out.

Either by design or accident, she made a wrong turn. Instead of walking me into the gorilla position, she swung me through an area backstage where twenty or twenty-five wrestlers were watching the show around a monitor.

The looks on their faces was priceless.

There was shock. There was fear. There was disbelief. There was anger. There was laughter.

Big Show stood up. “Oh ho, ho, I can’t believe this!” We reversed course and went up to the gorilla position. I stood there and waited.

Out on the stage, Vince was telling the crowd that WWE needed to be shaken up. He wanted a general manager who was going to be ruthless, someone who lived and breathed “ruthless aggression.” And he had found the perfect SOB.

My music started, and I walked out.

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Milking It

The Hug

The crowd was in utter shock. I walked to the center of the stage and gave Vince a big hug.

A very, very big hug. We milked it to the point where it was almost homoerotic.

“That rumbling beneath your feet,” I said as we embraced, “is a whole lot of people turning over in their graves.” The audience was so surprised they didn’t know how to react.

They were quiet—until I started running off at the mouth. Within a few seconds, I started noticing the scowls, then the howls and the boos.

It was the reaction I wanted. Once again, I’d found my inner heel.

Paying Respects

We did some backstage shots right after the show. The first was with Booker T, who’d been a WCW Champion. It was just fun.

Everybody was so professional that if I’d had any anxiety, it would have all gone away.

I went around and said hello, seeking out people I thought I ought to approach first to let them know I had no hard feelings. A lot of WWE people were still carrying the wounds of the Monday Night Wars. I’m sure a few would have gladly volunteered to drive a stake through my heart because of everything they’d gone through.

But many, especially the production people, were also anxious to see what I was like, and what I was like to work with on camera.

Not to sound too arrogant, but I think that even though they may have hated me and thought I was the devil incarnate, everyone realized that as a performer I was pretty damn good.

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I walked up to Undertaker. He’s been around a long time, with a very successful career, and it’s protocol for a newcomer to pay respects to someone of his stature. He was, I won’t say indifferent, I won’t say unfriendly, but he didn’t go out of his way to acknowledge me. I thought to myself,
Okay, I’ve got to work hard and contribute, and then he and I will get along. And that’s pretty much what’s
happened in the years since.

As ironic as this sounds, I probably have better relationships with the people at WWE today than I had with the guys at WCW

when I was there. Guys like Bruce Prichard, Gerry Brisco, Pat Pat-terson, and Ann Russo, who does my travel. Vince. The production people. I get along with all of them far better than most people who worked for me at WCW.

Part of it is that I’m a different person in a different situation.

But the staff at WWE are all hardworking, competent professionals.

I’m amazed by most of them. I’ve never met more hardworking or committed people than the ones who work at WWE, at every level.

Vince himself is a freak of nature when it comes to work ethic. I have a great work ethic. He makes me look like I’m going backward.

If he sleeps three hours at night, I’d be amazed. He’s one of the most intense, focused people I’ve ever met in my life. Much as Ted Turner set the tone for his company, the same is true in WWE.

Some people may think that if they don’t try to keep up with Vince, they’ll be on shaky ground. But more than the intimidation, they respect what he does and know how hard he works.

Wrestler Feuds

The heat that was supposedly following me around either dissipated right away or wasn’t there to begin with.

So much of what the public read about and heard about was bullshit. Chris Benoit and Eric Bischoff never had problems at WCW. I always got along with Chris. Dean Malenko and I had never had a problem.

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Chris Jericho was one of the guys who used me and whatever tension existed between us as part of his character. From the public’s point of view, there was a problem. But personally, there really wasn’t much there.

Eddie Guerrero and I had problems when we didn’t see eye to eye creatively. Eddie could get emotional and I could get emotional, and when you get two guys who both have tempers in a room, shit’s going to happen. Once or twice it did. But those incidents were blown way out of proportion. I took care of Eddie, and he knew it. He got into a bad car wreck in Florida one time when his contract was up. I called him up and told him not to worry about it.

Not to say that he wasn’t disappointed in things I was doing, but it wasn’t a personal thing.

Of all the guys at WWE when I came over, Arn Anderson and Ric Flair were probably the only ones who were clearly not comfortable with me being there. But even they put it in their back pockets. Within a month, Ric and I were going out together and having a beer.

Stone Cold Steve Austin

A couple of things have really stood out during my time at WWE.

My showdown with Steve Austin—who’d stepped away from wrestling after I left WCW—was one of them.

I can’t remember who came to me and said he was coming back to WWE. It may have been Vince, asking me if I wanted to do an angle with him that would end up with me in the ring with him.

“Hey, now, I know there’s some history between you and Austin,” said Vince, pulling me aside. “Don’t worry about it. He’s not the kind of guy who’s going to get into the ring and take advantage of you.” Quite honestly, that was the furthest thing from my mind. I knew Steve was a pro—as are 99 percent of the guys in WWE.

There’s a code. When it comes to what they do in the ring, wrestlers take things very, very seriously. Two guys who absolutely MEET THE DEVIL

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hate each other and would normally come to blows anywhere else would never settle their personal issues in the ring. It’s just not done.

Once they laid out what they wanted to happen and where they wanted it to end up, I suggested the “hunt for Steve Austin” skits.

Since the urban legend was that Steve Austin hated Eric Bischoff because Eric Bischoff fired him by FedEx, I suggested we play off that. “Obviously if he’s coming back, my character is going to want to make amends. He’s not going to want this guy pissed off at him.” So I went down to Texas and began looking all over for him.

Steve showed up while we were filming one of the skits. It was the first time I’d seen him since 1994 or 1995. He looked great. It was clear that he’d been working out and getting into shape for his comeback.

Steve pulled me off to the side. “Hey, I just want you to know, the past is the past, I got no heat with you.” Within three minutes, we were in a conversation about how my firing him had actually been the best thing that ever happened to him. It was a very good conversation.