Death Clutch

by Brock Lesnar

  I had met Show when I was still in Louisville, and we didn’t exactly hit it off right away. He pissed Vince or someone off because he was not in shape, and they sent him down to the developmental squad as a punishment. He was a giant of a man, seven feet tall and five-hundred-plus pounds, but Vince wanted his wrestlers to “look good.” No one pays to see a couple of fat guys roll around the mat.

  So I first met Show when I was in Louisville to learn the business, and I was taking everything seriously. I wanted to get called up to the main roster and the bigger paydays as soon as I could. When Show got demoted to Louisville, he looked at the guys training there like everyone was a maggot or something. He was all grumpy right from the get-go because he had to lose some weight, and everyone in camp was afraid of him. Everyone but me.

  I wasn’t afraid of Show, even if he did have almost a foot and two-hundred-some pounds on me, and I let him know it one day. We were in practice, and we got into the ring. He thought I was just another dumb jock greenhorn who was going to be intimidated by him, but I dropped him to the mat with a double leg takedown, and he was crying uncle. I kept the pressure on him because I didn’t like the way he thought he was so much better than all the guys down there. I earned his respect that day, and I had no problem doing it either.

  Another day, he was bullying everyone around, and I decided to bully him back. He got mad at me and told me, “I’ll be back up in the main events, making millions, and you’ll still be down here in Louisville setting up the ring.”

  When I got to the big time, I decided to remind Show of our little incidents in Louisville. As soon as I had to work with Show, I waited until the time was right and I said, “Remember down in Louisville, when you said—”

  He cut me right off there and said, “I know where you are going with this, and fuck you!”

  I still tortured the big bastard . . . and while I was doing it, I taunted him a little more. “Hey, didn’t I take you down in front of everyone, too?” I laughed. But I like Show, because he turned out to be one of the best people you could ever be around.

  Hell, he cried when I told everyone I was going to leave WWE. He’s just a super nice, sentimental guy, and he’s trapped in that massive body. That can’t be easy. I know when I was three hundred pounds of muscle, it was hard to carry all that weight around. Imagine adding two hundred pounds of not-so-lean mass on top of that, and nine or ten more inches in height?

  I loved working with Show because, just like with Undertaker, I’m in there with someone even I would call a monster. A lot of people consider me to be a monster, but Big Show really is one, so I didn’t mind bumping my ass off for him. The difference in working with Taker and working with Show, besides that mystique Undertaker had, is that Show legitimately weighed five hundred pounds. That wasn’t just a made up gimmick. He weighed five hundred pounds! Picking him up was a bitch. It hurt.

  As big as he was, and as much as it hurt to pick his big ass up off the canvas and toss him, I had to do it, and I had to shine when I did, because WWE was planning to have Show beat me for the title. The story would have Paul “double-cross me,” and help Big Show win the championship from the unbeaten Brock Lesnar. So, to set it up, I had to throw this five-hundred-pounder around every night, and that took a toll on my body fast.

  The match at Survivor Series was very simple. I F-5’d Show, but Paul would then reveal that he “sold out Brock Lesnar” by breaking up the referee’s count. About a minute later, I would get screwed out of the title. I was the biggest “heel,” or “bad guy,” in WWE, and I had just been robbed. The fans knew my character was going to go after Show and Paul for “revenge,” which made me a new “babyface,” or hero. I can’t say my character became a “good guy,” I was just going to beat up the guys people were willing to pay to see me pound on.

  One night in South Africa, Show and I were working in the main event. We had been working with each other for months, and had come up with a pretty easy match we could do every night and make the people happy they had paid their money to see us. He’d go out to the ring with Paul, and Paul would cut a promo, getting the crowd all riled up, which wrestling people called “getting up the heat.” Then I would come in, and we’d start the match hot, with me dumping the big bastard on his head a bunch of times. Show would get his heat, miss something, I’d smash him, F-5 him, and then F-5 Paul after the match. The fans loved it. I loved it, because we knew the routine, and it worked. No problems, right?

  There we were in some city in South Africa. Think about it. South Africa. Keep it simple. Same routine. It was safe, it worked, and I was hurting enough just throwing this five-hundred-pound monster around every night. I was tired . . . I was injured . . . and I didn’t want any surprises.

  Right before our match, Show came over to where I was dressing, smoking a cigarette. That alone is funny, because a cigarette in that huge hand looks like a cutoff toothpick. I hate cigarettes, and he had to know that. After I made him put the damn thing out, he said, “Let’s change the match around tonight.”

  We’re as far away from home as we can be. We might as well be on the planet Mars. We knew the match. It was easy. Why change it? Show got all upset with me, and he kept saying over and over again, “I’m a veteran, I’m the heel, I get to call the match!”

  I couldn’t believe he was serious. OK, we were all dealing with the stress from traveling halfway around the world. Bad news for Show, though. I wasn’t in the mood for his shit that night.

  “Whatever you wanna do is fine with me,” I told the big grump, “just call it out in the ring.”

  So here’s this seven-foot-tall, five-hundred-pound giant, and he’s mumbling to himself as he walks away from me. It’s so funny when I think about it now, because Show is the most likeable guy you’ll ever meet, but he had me ready to kick his ass over in, of all places, South Africa!

  Show was all huffy and puffy going out the ring, determined to call the match the way he wanted it to go, but as soon as I hit the ring, I snatched him and started suplexing him all over the place. Show backed me into a corner, and was going for a big chop across my chest, but I ducked under and waist-locked him. Once my hands were clasped, he had a pretty good idea about what was coming next. I was going to pivot my hips and throw him anywhere I wanted him to go. Show started screaming at me, “No no no no no no no no no,” but I didn’t listen. I threw him across the ring, and I can still hear the thud he made when he landed!

  Before he could get up, I ran across the ring, grabbed him, and locked my hands around him again. He started panicking: “Brock, what the hell are you doing? Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait!” So I flung him around a few more times. He learned his lesson.

  After that, we got along great. I flew around for Show when it came time for the part of the match they call “the heat,” which is when the heel is getting the crowd angry by beating up the babyface, and building the anticipation for the babyface to get back up and kick the heel’s ass. Show got on my nerves a little bit sometimes, but I could never hate him. I’m sure I got on his nerves, too, especially when I brought along a midget to dinner one night. By the way, Big Show fears midgets. I don’t know why. It’s a phobia. So just to “get” him, I brought one along . . . who kept sneaking bites out of Big Show’s hamburger!

  VODKA AND VICODINS

  As my first WrestleMania was approaching, I was already feeling the toll of life on the road and in the spotlight. I was hurt, dating back even before I dropped the title to the Big Show. My ribs were broken, and they hurt like hell, and I had a torn PCL (posterior crutiate ligament) in my right knee. I was flying to a new city every night, drinking more and more vodka and washing down more Vicodins, all just to dull the pain. It got old real fast. I kept thinking to myself that I was living a life that my mom and dad wouldn’t want me living, and there was good reason for that.

  It’s easy for people to blame the wrestling business when t
op notch people like me get consumed, but that’s just a cop-out. It’s not the wrestling business’ fault.

  I could easily have ended up like some of the less fortunate. I had been popping pills for a while just to kill the pain of being on the road, of injuries that never heal, and I started drinking vodka. Lots of vodka. I can’t even tell you how much for sure, but it seems like a bottle every one or two days, with a couple hundred pain pills each month to go with it. You want to know why there aren’t more stories in this book about my pro wrestling days? Because the truth is, I don’t remember a lot of that period of my life.

  The even sadder truth is that my consumption of booze and pills was on the light end of the scale compared to some guys who had been around longer than me. They were really trapped, and they knew they would never get out. So they escaped another way. When I started to make an assessment of my life back then, I realized that if I stayed long enough, I’d end up just like them. Nowhere to go, and not even remembering where I had been.

  It’s not the pro wrestling business itself that’s the real problem, it’s the lifestyle that goes along with it.

  The schedule is too demanding for anyone. You have to live on the road, and at the same time deal with the injuries, fans, rental car people, hotel clerks, restaurant waiters and waitresses, company politics, everyone walking around like a zombie, and never being home. And on those rare occasions when you get to go home, you are supposed to suddenly turn it all off and just try to be “Daddy.”

  Yeah, salesman travel and they are gone a lot, too. But they don’t get body-slammed by 250-pound men, or tear up their knees by landing a backflip off the top rope, or have their ribs crushed, or get concussed, or have their arms twisted out of the sockets each night before they head to the airport. Pro wrestlers do, and they are expected to heal on the plane, get a few hours of sleep in a hotel, then show up “looking good” the next night, in the next city.

  I found myself getting caught up in everything, and I think I lost sight of reality for a while. But I have no regrets. I chose to jump off the train, move as close to my daughter as possible. Nothing was more important to me than making sure my family life would be stable.

  MY FIRST WRESTLEMANIA

  Kurt Angle was hurt going into WrestleMania 2003 in Seattle. He wrenched his neck and it was determined he needed surgery. Kurt didn’t want to take a year off, so he found a surgeon in Pittsburgh who had an alternative that involved shaving down the disc instead of the neck-fusion surgery the other wrestlers were getting.

  Kurt also didn’t want time off for the standard surgery because he wanted to collect that WrestleMania main-event payday. I can’t say I blame him for that. I wanted that payday, too.

  Kurt and I talked a little about our match, but we didn’t talk about it much. We knew we could bring out the best in each other, and I knew I had to protect Kurt because his neck was hurt.

  John Laurinaitis was going to be the agent for the match. That means he was the choreographer, the guy who had to know what we were going to do, so the cameras could follow us and cover the match properly. The agent carries the finish of the match from Vince, and then talks with the wrestlers, and gets the entire story of the match together. Then he goes back to Vince and hopes Vince likes it.

  John wanted to do something special because a lot of corporate eyes were on him since he was being groomed to take over Jim Ross’s job as the head of talent relations. He was now the agent for the biggest match of the year, the main event of WrestleMania. The WWE title was on the line between two amateur champions, two real wrestlers with legitimate athletic backgrounds. Apparently, that wasn’t enough for John Laurinaitis. He thought the match needed a WrestleMania moment.

  At lunch that day, John came up to me and pitched his great finish, which would see me hit the Shooting Star Press to beat Kurt for the WWE title. John had this elaborate concept of me kicking out of everything Kurt could hit me with. Then Kurt kicks out of the F-5. Since we couldn’t beat each other with our best shots, we’d have to dig something out of our bags of tricks. I’d look around, trying to figure out how I could beat Kurt. Then I’d climb to the top rope, and hit the Shooting Star Press to pin Kurt Angle and become a two-time WWE Heavyweight Champion. That was John’s big finish, for the biggest match, on the biggest show of the year.

  The only problem was that I hadn’t done the move for over a year, and it was very dangerous for both of us. A lot can go wrong when a three-hundred-pound man inward-reverse-somersaults himself through the air from the top rope, and the margin for error is slim.

  John, however, was relentless, “Brock, you gotta finish the match like that. It’s so memorable. It’s your WrestleMania moment.”

  I kept thinking my WrestleMania moment was beating Kurt, just like I had beaten everyone else, and winning back the title that had been stolen from me at Survivor Series. Wasn’t that the story we were telling? I didn’t want to do the Shooting Star. It didn’t make any sense to me.

  To crank up the pressure on me a little more, Jim Ross sat down with us, and John started saying, “Don’t you think Brock should finish the match with the Shooting Star Press? It’s so impressive, no one has seen him do it for such a long time, it’s such a great move, blah blah blah.”

  J.R. thinks about that for a moment and drawls, “Hell, kid, that would be one helluva WrestleMania moment!” They had their routine down pat.

  Finally, stupidly, I agreed to do it, but I at least wanted to practice the move a few times first. I should have listened to my gut and just said “NO!” But I went down to the ring to practice hurling myself from the top rope.

  John got ahold of some crash mats and piled them in the ring for me so I wouldn’t hurt myself during practice. When I went off that top rope and threw myself into a reverse spin, it was actually kind of cool. I nailed the landing perfectly my first time. I tried it again, and l nailed it the second time, too. After a few more times, I was really feeling pretty good about it, and we were all thinking it would be no problem when I had to do it at the end of the match.

  What I didn’t consider was that I was going to be working with Kurt for fifteen to eighteen minutes, and I was probably going to be dead tired and pouring sweat by the time we got around to the finish of the match.

  That night, Kurt and I put on the best show possible considering the circumstances. We had a really physical match, which wasn’t easy when you think about how injured he was. It finally came time to hit the Shooting Star Press, but Kurt and I had been throwing each other off the ropes and working the corners all night long. When I grabbed the top rope to boost myself up, it was all wet. Not good. As I climbed up, I was dripping even more sweat onto the ropes, but I wasn’t thinking about that. Everyone at Safeco Field in Seattle knew what was coming, and they were all screaming for me to hit the move, and beat Kurt Angle for the championship.

  There I stood, on the top rope, both arms raised in triumph, my head back, letting the crowd take it all in . . . and then I launched the Shooting Star Press.

  Every wrestling fan knows what happened next. My boot slipped off the wet rope, I under-rotated, crashed in spectacular fashion, and gave myself a massive concussion. I damn near broke my neck. I still had enough sense left to know that I had to win, but I don’t remember finishing the match. I did finish, which meant I was the champion again, but I sure don’t remember it. Not at all.

  Can you imagine if I had knocked myself out . . . if that “missed move” had become the finish?

  The next morning, I was supposed to do a sponsor appearance, but I couldn’t get out of my hotel bed. After I received a few phone calls to rouse me, I finally crawled out and made it down to the appearance. When the sponsor’s people saw me throwing up from the aftereffects of the concussion, they sent me back to the hotel.

  After you play in the Super Bowl or the World Series, you get some time to yourself, or to take your family on a
vacation. Not in pro wrestling. You’re right back to work the very next day, doing live TV for Raw the first night, or taping SmackDown! two nights after WrestleMania. Kurt made it through the match, and I was lucky to “only” have suffered a concussion. Kurt went in for the alternative surgery, and I was right back on the road as WWE Champion for the second time.

  STARTING YEAR TWO

  My first year on the main roster in WWE was a blur. My second year was even worse. I was running into the grind. Same routine every day, day in and day out. The money was great, and I was buying a lot of nice things, but I had no time to enjoy any of it. That touring schedule just eats you up. I just kept thinking that there has to be a better way to make some real money.

  The one good thing—okay, great thing—that came out of my second year was that I got to meet my future wife, Rena.

  I think it’s pretty common knowledge that I’m a very private man, and there’s a reason for that. When I’m on the job, in the ring, at the arena, I’m there to entertain you. I understand that. You paid to see me, and I owe it to you to make sure your money was well spent.

  But when I’m not on the job, I don’t think I owe anything to anybody. If you’re a plumber, and you’re out to dinner with your family, would you like it if the waiter walked up and said, “Hey, the toilet just backed up, can you come in the back and fix it?” Probably not. You are there to eat, not to fish tampons out of the drain pipe.

  When I’m enjoying some time with my family, I’m not at work. I’m not “on.” I’m not there to entertain anyone. I’m a husband and a father. I’m Daddy. That’s who I am, and all I want to be. So if some jackass wants to pose for pictures with me, it really burns my ass because he isn’t just imposing on me, he is imposing on my wife and my children, too.