Countdown To Lockdown (9 page)

I was thinking of going with an exaggerated “Ralphie” from
A Christmas Story
— trying to whip up some fake tears, but instead, I opted for a little simple overacting, making sure everyone knew just how disingenuous I was being. I smile while I play and replay the scene in my Christmas room.
Impact
has just ended and I think the show went well.

“There is Jeff Jarrett — he is going for the guitar. Remember, I don’t know this, I am out, I see nothing, Jarrett wielding the guitar and there’s Sting — here is where things take a turn for the worse. Because you, Sting, you grab the guitar, now watch, when I come around, when I finally come to, it appears to me as if you are threatening the life of the founder, Jeff Jarrett. I believe you are going to wind up, I believe you are about to take his life, so in an act of desperation, oh, I save the life of the founder, lashing out to protect the man who founded TNA.”

There are some faint boos, and some looks of bemusement in the crowd. Not too many people are going to buy me as an honest-to-goodness bad guy, but I think they enjoy seeing this other side of me. Clearly, I’m energized and enjoying this new tweak in my character.

Sting doesn’t look like he’s enjoying this ludicrous explanation — at least not on camera. “You think this is funny, Mick?” the Stinger asks. “You think it’s some kind of a joke? It wasn’t funny last week when you hit me with that chair. I wasn’t laughing then and I’m not laughing now, Mick. Don’t you get it, Mick, last week, I was trying to protect you, Mick. That’s all I was trying to do. Mick, let’s face it, I understand the physical pain that you are in. Mick, I’ve seen what
it’s like, the pain on your face just trying to get up and out of a chair. Mick, your body is ravaged. You left a piece of yourself right here in the middle of the ring, all over the world, Mick, and you did it for these wrestling fans right here. Mick, you didn’t just do it for the fans, but you did it for all the boys, all the wrestlers in the back, Mick. You even did it for me. And last week when I tried to protect you, I did it because I respected you, but I’m starting to get a little bit pissed off now. And I’m starting to lose the respect right now.”

Sting has used my first name ten times in a one-minute time frame. You know who would be happy? Vince McMahon — he hates pronouns. Really.

“Well, aren’t you the humanitarian, Stinger,” I say sarcastically. “Make no mistake about it, times are tough out there. A lot of people are down. The stock market is spiraling out of control. Foreclosures are forcing people out of their homes. The job market has never been worse. A lot of people out there could use your help, Stinger, but I’m not one of them. Who the hell are you to pity me?

“Now, maybe a couple of weeks ago I could have used that pity. Let’s face it, Stinger, it was a sad sight, me sitting there in a director’s chair reliving my glory days, talking about Hardcore History 101, whoopee!”

For several weeks, I had been doing a segment on
Impact
called “Hardcore History 101,” telling stories about my glory days. This was a Vince Russo idea, and a good one, laying down a solid foundation for my return to the ring. The segments may not have been popular with some fans (who thought I spoke too much about current WWE star Randy Orton or revealed too much about the inner workings of the wrestling business), but as a long-term character builder I thought they were effective; illustrating an inner fictitious desire to once again step back inside that ring.

“But since last week’s
Impact
, Stinger, things have changed, because from the moment that steel chair made impact with your skull, the tables of time have turned. You can feel it in the air.

“No one is talking about that other wrestling show in April anymore, Stinger. They are talking about
Lockdown.
”

I regretted saying this the moment it came out of my mouth, knowing it was not only factually incorrect but might be perceived as a slap in the face to anyone at WWE who works so hard to make
WrestleMania
such a great event. It’s the type of comment I would have hated and found disrespectful when I was a WWE guy. But that’s one of the drawbacks of visiting Promoland — you don’t know every word that might come out. You’ve got a feeling, you’ve got a general idea, but it’s not rehearsed and not predigested. Therefore, it’s sometimes not as smooth as it might be — a little lump in the creative pudding. Which is probably why politicians so rarely veer off script these days. With cameras following those poor guys 24-7, no one wants to get caught in one of these gotcha moments. This line was especially lumpy, but nonetheless probably better than “The statistical percentage of people talking about
Lockdown
as compared to the other show has changed to a slight extent.” Okay, enough of the explanations; let’s get back to the promo.

“They are talking about you versus me, Icon versus Legend, which is exactly the way it should be. But make no mistake about it, when that cage door slams shut and you and I are locked inside the Six Sides of Steel, it won’t be some pathetic loser crying about the old days like some drunk in a corner bar, talking about the night he copped a feel at the homecoming dance. No, Stinger, you and I, we’re not going to be
reliving
history. We will be
making
history. Oh yeah, as far as those big dives off the cage, Stinger, as far as those big dives, I’ve still got a couple left. Bang bang, bang bang… .” (This line would later come back to haunt me.)

Yes, I did it! A few visits to Promoland, and
bam
, I’m at the top of my game. I have no doubt, absolutely no doubt in my mind, that if
Lockdown
merely required me to come out and tell people how good I was going to be at
Lockdown
, that I would tear the roof off the place.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.
Lockdown
is actually going to
require some physicality — a one-on-one matchup that will be among the biggest challenges of my career.

My legs have no strength. My cardiovascular conditioning has been weak to nonexistent. I’ve got that “desert in my mouth” thing happening. And Promoland can only get me through TV tapings — it can get me
to
but not
through Lockdown.
For that, I’m going to need some inspiration. This looks like a job for Tori Amos.

There’s more wrestling in this — my favorite chapter —
than you might think.

I almost passed on the chance to meet Tori Amos. I’d been thinking a lot about this opportunity for two days, since learning of her two-hour promotional appearance at the San Diego Comic-Con. I’d made appearances at this convention in two previous years — in 1999 to promote Chaos! Comics’ new
Mankind
comic book, and in 2006 to create an initial buzz for my third memoir,
The Hardcore Diaries.
The convention had been big back in 1999, and it provided me with my first real look at the bizarre subculture of the comic-book fan: people who traveled hundreds, sometimes thousands, of miles to buy and sell comics, talk shop, attend seminars, and walk around for hours dressed as their favorite sci-fi characters or superheroes — kind of like a slightly nerdier version of my own fan base. By 2006, though, it had just exploded and had transcended the boundaries of mere comic-book convention to become a legitimate pop-culture phenomenon. Indeed, the Con, as it had come to be known, had become a place to make deals, where A-list stars and directors premiered trailers for new films, where advance buzz, or the lack thereof, could either make
or break a project. Nonetheless, the Con struck me as an odd place to find Tori Amos, singer of beautiful songs and the most unlikely inspiration in my professional wrestling career.

I’d been nervous about this Con, anyway, even before beginning my great two-day internal Tori Amos debate. Those two previous appearances had been a piece of cake — two hours in 1999, one hour in 2006 — both heavily promoted by WWE and the Con. No real chance of seeming like anything but a big star. No chance of looking like Mickey Rourke in
The Wrestler
, sitting at his table in near solitude, at a legends convention the whole world forgot to attend. This Con would be different for me — three days of signings, four hours a day. No project to promote, no financial guarantee — you sign what you sign, you get what you get, you hope for the best.

Three days, as it turned out, was one day too many. Or maybe, more accurately, four hours on that third day was about two hours too many. Pretty much anyone with any desire to meet me had already done so, leaving plenty of time for doubts, nerves, and Tori-fueled trepidation to get a good grip on me. Simply put, I was afraid to meet Tori Amos. On the surface, this fear might seem foolish. After all, I’m six four, weighing in around 300. Tori, five four, maybe 110, 120 tops. Besides, I’d met big stars, lots of them. Sports Hall of Famers, Academy Award–winning actors, eighties adult film icon Christy Canyon. I’ve even got photographic evidence that some of these meetings took place — those “look at the camera, smile, act like you’ve known each other more than five seconds” types of photos. Look, there I am with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates; with baseball’s all-time hit leader, Pete Rose; with lovable, foulmouthed rapper Snoop Dogg.

Some of these meetings are memorable or even touching. Katie Couric closed out a
Today
episode on Halloween 2001 by holding my then one-year-old little Mickey, who was dressed as a pumpkin — a moment I once referred to as the best of my career. I actually feel fortunate and blessed to have met so many talented and famous people, some of whom I’d admired for years. But I wasn’t actually afraid to
meet any of them. This was different. For of all the artists, athletes, and other dignitaries whose work has in some way touched my life, none has done so on a more personal, emotional level than the music of Tori Amos.

I can still remember the first time I heard that voice. Sitting in the back of Maxx Payne’s (the wrestler, not the video game, comic, or Mark Wahlberg movie character) colossal ’79 Lincoln two-door Coupe Mark V, embarking on some otherwise forgettable road trip in the Deep South — Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, it doesn’t really matter — in the fall of 1993. In another lifetime, Maxx had been Darryl Peterson, an All-American heavyweight wrestler at Iowa State. That was 1985. By 1993, Darryl was Maxx, six foot six, nearly 400 pounds, a mountain of a man with waist-length, jet-black hair, a booming, gravelly, baritone voice, and one of the nicest dispositions of anyone in the wrestling business, or probably any business for that matter. And in 1993, Maxx was all about the music. Along with Brian Armstrong (WWE’s “Road Dogg,” TNA’s “B. G. James”), referee Nick Patrick (our copilot for this particular road trip), and 350-pound, Mohawk-wearing bass player Dr. Squash, Maxx had put together a first-rate rock-and-roll band — part heavy metal, part grunge, part insightful social/wrestling commentary — and spent most of his nonwrestling time holed up with the band in a sound studio, working on an album that never did quite materialize, although legendary rocker Steve Miller (
The Joker
,
Fly Like an Eagle
) gave the demo a listen and once referred to it as “the album Pink Floyd should have put out, but never did.”

Some of the guys called Maxx “Maxxguiver” — a nod to the TV show whose hero seemed to escape death on a weekly basis with the aid of a paper clip — for his propensity for collecting random gadgets that seemed to serve no useful purpose. But when it came to his Lincoln, that passion for gadgetry seemed to find its useful purpose. Equipped with every technological innovation known to man, and possessing the type of wattage normally reserved for the sleep deprivation of captured South American drug lords, Maxx’s gas-guzzler,
affectionately named Miss Christine, was like a rusting two-ton boom box on wheels, as we barreled down some unknown Southern highway, heading for a tour I can’t recall and a show I have no memory of.

But I remember that music, that all-out audio assault that Maxx and Nick Patrick subjected me to for so many hours on that night so long ago. Megadeth was there — and I must admit that singer Dave Mustaine had a way with a phrase, although those phrases were delivered at a volume just a little too loud for my liking. Then there was some Rage Against the Machine, where Maxx and Nick knew the words to every angry, socially conscientious song — every song. I’m not sure Zack de la Rocha knew the words to
every
song … and he was the band’s lead singer! Then, something called GWAR, and a few other offerings so raucous and raw they made the guys in GWAR seem like sensitive song stylists by comparison.

Finally, I tapped out, picking a spot in between menacing musical offerings to meekly request something a little less combative. As a veteran of the wrestling business — eight years as of that moment back in 1993 — I fully understood that the selection of the tunes was almost always the sole dominion of the automobile’s driver and his chosen copilot. Over the years, a few backseat passengers have voiced disapproval at my choice of Christmas tunes in July — and ended up getting an extra dose of Nat King Cole for their trouble. But by this point, I was willing to usurp wrestling protocol; I was almost begging for some aural relief.