When my lifestyle was out of control, Vince never gave up on me. I’ve heard it said that because of my wrestling ability, it was in Vince’s best interest to keep me around regardless of how much trouble I caused. Yes, I was a commodity of his. Yes, there were others he had good reason to keep around for his company’s bottom line, but instead he let them go. For whatever reason, he never did that to me.
Then when I returned as a Christian, he was nothing but accommodating. I told Vince about the apostle Paul and how he had been a bad guy named Saul who persecuted Christians before his life was turned around on the road to Damascus and then ended up writing a majority of the New Testament.
“You could do stuff like that,” I told Vince. “This empire you have created here — who knows the kind of good you could do from this place?”
“Oh, please!” he replied. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
At least I was able to plant a seed.
Vince may have resembled Saul more than Paul, but he was not the evil guy he was portraying in the God angle.
And Vince was my boss. Even though I wasn’t a fan of the overall angle — despite Vince being funny in his role — I was attempting to be a good employee without compromising my standards.
I once heard Ted DiBiase make a comparison that fits my take on participating in the God angle. Ted, a solid Christian and effective minister, got into wrestling about a decade before me. Ted wrestled as “The Million Dollar Man” and mostly as a heel. I heard Ted speak at an Athletes International conference a few years ago, and a kid asked Ted how he could have been a bad guy and a Christian at the same time.
Ted told the crowd that what he did as a wrestler was the same as someone playing Satan in a church play. That actor could play the role of Satan and still be a Christian. Ted’s analogy hit home with me. I doubt there is anyone who would walk up to the dude playing Satan and ask, “How’s your walk going, brother? Are you stumbling? I noticed last week that you were laughing when Jesus was crucified.” Playing Satan in the church play doesn’t make the guy any less of a Christian than the actor portraying Jesus.
I did not want to do anything in wrestling that would negatively impact my witness. I had some say in what I would do as part of my job, and I made those decisions as they came up. But I also had to consider my witness behind the curtains with the guys who knew me best and were watching me. I could have hurt my witness with them by raising a huge stink about WWE wanting to bring DX back or whatever the issue at hand was.
As for the controversial God angle: I thought it was a dumb idea, but I was at least excited that God was included in a WWE storyline. I mean, Vince McMahon was letting me talk about God on his show! I spoke with some people who saw it that way, who said it was “huge” that we were sharing God with a large audience. More people, though, didn’t see it that way. They were so distracted by the words of Vince’s character — and I go back to the symbolism of what we see in real life with people mocking the church — that they lost sight of the fact that in the crazy world of WWE I was able to represent God and glorify Him in front of millions of people.
As I said earlier, I prayed many times for God to open the doors I needed to go through and close the ones I didn’t need to go through. Throughout the criticisms I had to remain more concerned about doing what God wanted me to do in step with His plan for me in wrestling than about what others thought I should be doing.
I learned an important lesson about knowing whom to please first and foremost.
CHAPTER 8
AIMING TO PLEASE
“Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10).
Paul told the believers in the church at Colossae that he and Timothy prayed that the Colossians would live a life that pleases God.3 I like the thought that simple ol’ me can please the Creator of the universe. That’s mind-boggling.
It also is amazing to consider that it seems like it is easier sometimes to please the Almighty God than it is to please other people like me.
I have spent thirty years in a business centered on fiction. I don’t say that wrestling is fake. We pounded the daylights out of each other. Believe me, the pain and injuries were real. But wrestling is make-believe, with Vince deciding whether you get to be a champion or not. Wins and losses are not real.
The wrestling business, however, also is what the fans want it to be. Some were fine with it and just loved the drama and the stories. But for some fans the feuds we had going on in the ring were as real as the person sitting next to them at the match. What made it tough for us as wrestlers was that we could never know which it was going to be on any given day to any given person.
I had friends at church who said they understood that wrestling was entertainment but still asked how I could have Superkicked Hulk Hogan. Well, it was a pretend match, and we decided beforehand that when he raised his hand and looked away, I would kick him. Me “kicking” Hogan was a real issue for them.
Daniel Bryan is a good young wrestler whom I trained. We once worked an angle where I was a special guest referee, and when Daniel attacked Hunter, I introduced Daniel to some Sweet Chin Music — my signature Superkick. I got called a sellout and backstabber for kicking someone I had helped bring into the sport.
It was pretend!
The predicament all of that created for me as I tried to keep my Christian walk in the sport was that there was no way I could win with everybody. I just couldn’t please all the fans.
No matter what I did, there would be some who thought I shouldn’t have done it, or should have done it a different way.
Frankly, after I returned to wrestling as a Christian, I caught more flak from Christians than I did from wrestling fans who weren’t believers.
I learned quickly to aim to please God and leave the rest up to Him and the people to work out how they should feel about me. I realize that sounds harsh, but I had to take that approach after discovering that it was possible to do what I believed would please God, yet that would still not be good enough to please some Christians.
It wasn’t just in wrestling where I experienced this.
Keith Mark warned me before our first outdoors show aired that I would catch heat for hunting. I admit to getting caught off guard about that. I had been raised in Texas, and even though I didn’t hunt growing up, it never occurred to me that people could get uptight over another person hunting. I learned.
I was shocked by the number of people who thought they were quoting Bible verses to support their opinions that I shouldn’t hunt animals. Look, I’ve read the Book multiple times, and it doesn’t say that.
Wrestling fans can easily be susceptible to becoming bitter and resentful because we do overdramatize in our sport. Our job is to hard-sell storylines. The fallout is that there are fans who lose a grasp of reality and will never admit it!
What we do for three hours on a Monday night show has nothing to do with real life. And while we determine the message, we cannot control how it is received.
When I played the role of a heel, my job was to stir up emotions to the point that fans hated my character. It was only natural that some of those emotions were going to spill over toward the real me. I understood that.
I don’t want this to come across as complaining. It was part of the job for all of us. We knew it was coming, and we dealt with it.
Instead, I want to communicate what it’s like in the wrestling business, because there was a time when I worried about what people thought about me. Even though I said publicly that I didn’t, I did worry about it. Opinions were so varied that if I got caught up in trying to please both sides, I would only wind up placing myself in the middle of a giant tug-of-war.
One of the many things I love about being a Christian is that I can put my focus on pleasing God above all others. I still seek affirmation, but now it is from God. I want people to like me — the re
al me — but I know from experience that is not possible in every case.
There is no shortage of people willing to give me advice on what I should and shouldn’t do, or how I should do things. As a Christian, I had to get comfortable in my own skin and in my relationship with God so that I wouldn’t wind up in the middle of that tug-of-war and become distracted or bogged down in areas that aren’t healthy for me.
I know there are people who contend I am the greatest wrestler who ever lived. It could be easy to get caught up in that type of praise. But you know what? I don’t believe that God really cares if I was the greatest wrestler ever. I believe that He cares instead that after I became a Christian, I used my gift for His glory.
It is at best debatable whether I’m the best wrestler of all time. But the likelihood is that there will be another wrestler, or multiple wrestlers, who will come along and be so good in our sport that my name is removed from consideration. Will the people’s views of me change then? You bet they will. But God’s view of me won’t.
When the time comes, I will stand before God to give an account of my life, and I don’t anticipate God asking whether I was a better wrestler than Ric Flair.
After becoming a believer, I discovered Christian music. I didn’t even know such a genre existed. I’ve always been a country music guy at heart, but I got hooked on the songs of three bands in particular: Casting Crowns, MercyMe, and Third Day. Those three have really ministered to me with their music. One of my favorite songs is Casting Crowns’ “Lifesong,” which speaks to our lives being a song through which we can bring a smile to God.
I think about that song a lot, because on that day when I give an account of my life, I believe that God is going to look at my life as a whole, and He is the Judge I need to please. There are plenty of people around who like to judge me. (And you probably have judges in your life too.) Because of my chosen profession, I’ve had to develop thick skin. This goes back to knowing my identity in Christ and being comfortable with who I am now, so those have become non-battles for me.
Admittedly, there is a part of me that wants to tell someone who thinks I’m a horrible Christian, “Well, the day I stand before you and . . . oh, never mind. I am never going to stand before you, am I?” I might think that sometimes, but I don’t say it. It has become easier for me to discard that type of unfounded criticism.
In Acts 1:8, Jesus told His apostles that they were to be His witnesses “in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
I have been asked how I could be a Christian and work in wrestling. I answer by saying, “Jesus said to take the gospel everywhere. He didn’t say to take it everywhere but the WWE. Just like He didn’t say to take it everywhere except the slums.”
Jesus said to be His witness everywhere, and I do what I can where I am.
Some have contended that I could be doing even more and suggested I start a speaking ministry.
“If I feel like He calls me to do that, I will,” I respond. “But I haven’t felt called to go there.”
God meets us where we are and can use us where we are if we allow Him to. I’ve been amazed at how God has been able to use me, so I’ve learned not to put limits on the ways in which He works. As a result, I don’t go around telling other people how they should minister, because none of us knows what God is telling anyone to do or what His overall plan is; we can usually see only our little piece of it.
I laugh thinking about Jonah not wanting to go minister in Nineveh. After he spent three days and nights in the belly of a giant fish, Jonah’s surroundings helped him decide that Nineveh might not be such a poor destination after all. Still, after ministering in Nineveh, Jonah complained to God because he didn’t like the way He was doing things.
God’s answer to Jonah, in the words of the Shawn Living Translation: “You don’t know what I am doing here, so shut your piehole and get to work.”
That is what I try to do. Some may not agree with how I do things, but as long as I pray and spend time reading God’s Word and sense that I am doing what He wants me to do where He wants me to do it, then I figure that I am pleasing God, and that is the best that I can do.
There is one part of pleasing people that has been a struggle for me since becoming a Christian. When I went back to wrestling, I wanted to be a good witness and a shining light. Fully aware that I was representing the Lord in everything I did, I was very conscious of how I presented myself.
Perhaps the area I struggled most with that concerned autograph seekers.
As a non-Christian, I was accommodating with fans when I wanted to be and not accommodating when I didn’t want to be. If I upset someone by not signing an autograph, I didn’t care. There was no conviction whatsoever if I said no.
But when I went back full-time as a Christian, I struggled with how accommodating I should be. I’ve read the story about Jesus being surrounded by a crowd and sensing the woman touching the hem of His garment.4 The story says that it was so crowded that the people were pressing against Jesus. There were other accounts in the New Testament, too, of Jesus being in a crowd because everybody knew who He was, and He never lost it with the people. There were times when He would go off on His own, or with the disciples, to get away and rest, but I never read of a case where Jesus lost it in front of everybody.
That became a little burdensome. I began to question whether I was allowed to say no, whether I could turn down anyone. If I wasn’t making everybody happy all the time, was I being a bad Christian?
Consider the mornings after a Raw when, on three or four hours of sleep, I would wake up at five o’clock, go to the airport, and have people asking for my autograph as I was trying to make it through the security line. There were times I politely said no, but then I’d clear security and wonder whether I had been a bad witness.
I am very protective of my family when we are out together. I feel for my kids, because they have had to share me with others every day of their lives. I get recognized pretty much every time I leave the house, and my kids have never had 100 percent of my attention when we are together in public.
One day we were walking through a mall when a man asked for my autograph. I declined, but he pressed for me to sign anyway.
“Come on, man!” he insisted.
“No,” I told him. “I am with my family.”
He walked away, and I began to feel horrible. Trust me, before becoming a Christian, I would not have given the man a second thought. But as a Christian, I began to wonder if I had done wrong by not signing.
We looked for the man in the mall. We found him, and I apologized and signed for him.
We have made several family trips to Disney World, and when we go there, it is completely family time. Fans will request an autograph or ask to pose for a picture with me. I explain that I am on a family trip and that I hope they can understand why I am not signing or posing with anyone that day.
Most of the time the fans do seem to understand. Once in a blue moon, though, I encounter people who want what they want and that’s it, with no regard for my family time. But even with the people who understand, I know I have disappointed them. I used to be concerned that they would go back home and tell friends that I was a jerk and wouldn’t sign for them. Or that I’m not really a Christian because I said no.
Now I just hope a friend of theirs will hear their story and say something like, “He was at Disney with his family, and you are calling him a jerk because he wouldn’t sign an autograph when you interrupted his family time?” Then perhaps that person will understand that I had a legitimate reason for not signing that day.
When I am not with my family, I try to be as accommodating as possible. I have picked up, however, the difference between a fan who wants an autograph for himself and someone who wants an autograph (or, usually, autographs) to sell online. I’ve encountered people outside my hotel at three o’clock in the morning, holding a two-year-old kid and saying they want autographs for the kid. That child has no
idea what’s going on.
“Take him home and put him to bed, please,” I’ve told them, “because I am going to bed.”
Then there are situations when I need to say no. No celebrity has said yes to everything. It can’t be done. There are times when I can’t be accommodating because of my schedule or whatever. Those are the times that gnaw at me because I know that what can seem to me like an insignificant autograph actually is meaningful to others.
As I read the Gospels, I never saw a time when Jesus was a doormat. Jesus found a perfect balance, and for me it has been an ongoing search to find the line to walk between making people happy and giving up too much in order to do so.
That’s why I never present day-to-day Christian living as a cakewalk. It isn’t always easy. There are situations we face for which we can’t go find a verse in the Bible that gives us the specific answer, but the Bible does give us principles we can apply to any situation we face.
For me, that means living a life that is pleasing to God. I know I make mistakes, and I know I let people down. When I feel convicted, I try to find that person and make amends. But then again, I know that it is impossible to please everyone.
We can only see each other’s actions. That’s all we have to go by. I’m thankful that God sees more than our actions. He sees our hearts. And if we can please God, I figure we’re doing all right.
3 See Colossians 1:3 – 14.
4 See Luke 8:40 – 48.
CHAPTER 9
SELF-DISCIPLINE BRINGS REWARDS
“. . . let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Hebrews 12:1).
Wrestling for My Life: The Legend, the Reality, and the Faith of a WWE Superstar Page 10
