What can I say? When you travel more than two hundred days a year, something insane is bound to happen.“I walked out of the hotel and was like, ‘Why is V sitting on that guy?’ ”
—KANE
An unexpected plot twist. A story you think is heading in one direction that suddenly shifts and takes you to a whole other, shocking place. That’s what you call a “swerve.” Throughout my months collecting stories for this book, there were a few times when I couldn’t even believe what I was hearing. “Did this really happen?” I would ask, and every time, the Superstar would just stop and laugh. “Just like I said,” they would repeat, “just like I said.” What can I say? When you travel more than two hundred days a year, something insane is bound to happen.
Beating a Dead Horse
Shelton Benjamin
One night, I almost beat up Brian Kendrick over the movie Seabiscuit. We were in Canada, and we had the day off. There were a whole bunch of us there, including my partner at the time, Charlie Haas, and the referee Mike Chioda, and we all decided we were going to go out and get something to eat. We were all staying at this resort, and basically the town we were in was built around this resort. So we decided we were going to walk through the town to find a nice restaurant. But before I could even leave, the whole group left me for some reason and headed off to the restaurant without me. I’m walking around and I’m trying to find where they went, but no one would call me back or answer their phones. Luckily, I just happen to stumble into the right restaurant, but by the time I get in there, everyone had already ordered and was eating their food, so I sit down and basically start acting like a brat. I’m like, “Why did you guys leave me? Some friends you are.” It was all in fun, though, I was just busting everyone’s chops. At some point, the topic of conversation switched over to movies, and Seabiscuit was out in theaters at the time. But as soon as someone brought up Seabiscuit, Brian Kendrick started yelling, “Nobody talk about Seabiscuit. Nobody talk about Seabiscuit. I haven’t seen it yet and I want to see it.”
Mind you, I have still never seen that movie, but I blurt out, “You want to know what happened, I’ll tell you what happened. The horse lost the race and died because his friends left him at the gate.” I’m basically playing off the fact that they all left me, but Kendrick starts going crazy. I don’t know what he was thinking, or what he thought he heard, but he looks at me and says, “I told you not to ruin it for me.”
I had just made a salad, and as soon as he said that, he pours a whole glass of water in my salad. I looked at him and was like, “What the hell are you doing?”
And he told me, “I told you not to ruin the movie for me!”
“Are you kidding me?” I said. “I haven’t even seen that movie. Didn’t you hear me? I was joking about how you guys left me.”
He started stuttering, like, “Oh, oh . . .” And I’m like, “You owe me a new salad. You ruined my salad. Now you need to go make me a new one.”
He just looked at me with this bewildered look, then he said, “Dude, I’m not making you another salad.”
I couldn’t believe it. First they left me, then I make a joke about a movie I’ve never seen, and now this guy who just dumped a glass of water in my salad won’t make me a new salad. To make matters worse, he started back with the whole “I can’t believe you ruined the movie for me.”
We were like two kids, and up until this point I was laughing pretty hard. But then he completely changed his tone. He looked at me one more time and said, “I’m not making you another salad.” And as soon as his tone changed and it wasn’t funny anymore, my tone changed and I told him, “You’re going to make me another salad or I’m going to whoop you.”
So he told me, “Go ahead and whoop me. I get my butt kicked for a living.”
Only thing is, this time, it was going to be real.
Now, all of a sudden, the whole mood of the table changed and everyone is tense. Charlie was like, “I’ll make you a salad, don’t worry about it.” And Charlie actually got up and made me a salad and brought it to me, but I was like, “No! He ruined it, so he’s going to make me another one.”
Finally, after about five really tense minutes, I told him, “A s soon as we walk out that door, I’m going to whoop your ass. Bottom line.”
So now we’re sitting there and I’m staring a hole through him and I have every intention of beating him up. Finally he gets up, throws together a little lettuce in what can only be described as an insult of a salad, and tosses it in front of me. Leaves were flying everywhere, and he says, “There you go, tough guy.”
As soon as the plate landed in front of me, I picked it up and threw it at him. I told him, “Who do you think you’re messing with? You ever try something like that again, and I’m going to kick your ass.”
Everyone was quiet, and Nidia grabbed me and brought me outside to cool things off. I don’t even remember if I finished my dinner or not, I was still so mad at that point, but we made it out of the restaurant without incident.
Now, mind you, I’m still feeling like beating him up, and I don’t know what he’s thinking, but the very next day, we get to work, and guess who’s wrestling each other. It was one of those things where I could’ve made things worse, because when I showed up to work, I still wanted to beat him up, but I had to do the professional thing and put my personal feeling aside for the sake of the show. It was in the back of my mind to whip his ass the whole match, but he later apologized and everything, and we always tell this story and we still laugh about it today.
Of all the movies for two wrestlers to fight over, would you have ever guessed it would be Seabiscuit?
Roman Candles
Goldust
I remember Owen Hart used to always drive with one of his friends when he was in town. And this one night we were driving from Youngstown, Ohio, to Pittsburgh, and I see Owen and his friend are behind us on the road. I’m driving with Billy Gunn, Davey Boy Smith, and Bob Holly, and we were all the fun, rowdy type, and I remember we all pulled over to go to the bathroom. When Owen and his friend got out of their shiny white car, Davey Boy lit three smoke bombs and threw them in Owen’s friend’s car when they were busy peeing. As we got in our car to leave, I look in the rearview mirror and all you see is this green and yellow smoke coming out of the car. Smoke is everywhere, Owen is laughing his ass off, and his friend is freaking out because he thinks his car is on fire.
We pull up a little bit, then we slow down and let them catch up, and Davey Boy leans out the window with these Roman candles and starts shooting them at this guy’s car. They’re bouncing off the windshield, and this guy starts speeding up. I don’t know how pissed off he is, but I know Owen is in the car, and Owen was always the instigator, so I’m sure he was in there just driving the guy crazy. Meanwhile, we’re flying down the freeway at around eighty miles per hour still shooting these Roman candles at his hood, and we’re throwing firecrackers out the windows at them any time they got close.
I remember the next day, looking at this guy’s car, and it was black. This used to be a white car, but now it was a freakin’ mess with black smoke marks all over it. There were burn holes in the carpet from the smoke bombs . . . but he didn’t care. He was just a big fan of Owen’s, they were friends, so he was like, “It’s cool.” I’ll never forget that. It wasn’t even a rental. It was his car. Actually, it was a white van, or at least it used to be white.
One of the funniest things about that night is when we were driving out on the turnpike, we were way ahead of them and they were trying to catch up, but I was hauling ass at this point, so they weren’t even close. I decided to pull over into a ditch and turn off the headlights so they wouldn’t see us. I wanted to let them pass us so I could fly up behind them with our lights off, get up on their ass, and shoot at them some more. So we do that, we’re all sitting there in the dark, and we see them haul ass trying to find us. I pull out of the ditch real slow, the lights are off, and all you see is black. They’re hauling ass over this hill, but they couldn’t really see behind them, and they couldn’t find us. So I pull right up on their ass, and I’m talking about within a foot of their car, and I’m just hoping they don’t slam on the brakes. So here goes Davey Boy, he lights up another Roman candle and—voom!—he starts shooting it at their back window. I turned on the brights and started honking the horn trying to freak them out. It was crazy . . . and a little dangerous.
Press Slammed
Kane
When you walk out of your hotel and see Big Daddy V sitting on someone, you know something crazy just went down. And that’s exactly what happened one time in England. We were all getting off the bus in either Manchester or Birmingham in the UK. Anyway, we were pulling into the hotel, it was really late, and there had been a kick-boxing match at the arena across the street and all of the fans were headed toward our hotel. Next thing we know, one of their fans punched one of our security guards and there was a short scuffle. Our guys were all very professional actually, but what stopped the whole fight was Big Daddy V sitting on two people. That was the end of the fight. I walked out of the hotel and was like, “Why is V sitting on that guy?”
The next day, I read about it in the English papers, and the British newspapers are even worse than our press when it comes to sensationalizing things, and the paper had an interview with the kickboxing promoter. So of course, he told this self-serving story of how there was this huge fight between all of his guys and all of our guys, and he’s talking about how we’re tossing people around with suplexes and all his guys are throwing big roundhouse kicks at us . . . and none of it happened. Don’t believe everything you read in the press.
Wee-Man
Kofi Kingston
Ever since the draft, I’ve been traveling with Hornswoggle. We were in New Orleans one time, and I actually got to the hotel first, but the garage was full so I had to park along the street. The next morning, I was walking with Hornswoggle out to the car, and when I go to put the bags in the trunk, I notice this guy with dreadlocks and gold teeth riding an old-school BMX bike. I look at him, and I see he’s staring at us, then all of a sudden he slams on the brakes. He’s looking at Hornswoggle, and we know he’s going to say something, then he starts yelling, “Hey, shorty, hey, shorty, I see you.” Then he called Hornswoggle Wee-Man. He thought Hornswoggle was Wee-Man from Jackass.
What’s funny is, we always call Hornswoggle Wee-Man because everyone always mistakes the two of them. Hornswoggle hates being called that. And now here is this guy with gold teeth riding a bike calling him Wee-Man first thing in the morning.
Then later that night, we went down to Café du Monde, which is this old French place in New Orleans, and one of the waiters was so sure he knew who we were. He wanted our autographs and everything, but he had no idea. He thought we were all the Jackass guys, and he thought Hornswoggle was Wee-Man. So he got called Wee-Man two times in less than twenty-four hours. Boy, was he mad.
Do You Work Out?
Beth Phoenix
To your average person, if they go on the road, they’re away from home. But the amount we travel, I would say that you have to adapt to the road so that it feels like home. So you start to pick up little habits and nuances so that you feel like you’re living a normal life on the road. You need to have a regimen so that you can feel normal anywhere you are on the road anywhere around the world. So for myself, in particular, a big part of my character and a big part of what I do is staying in shape. A lot of times, for me, the biggest challenge is actually just trying to find a gym or someplace to work out. I need more than a Curves, so most of the time I need to turn to the male Superstars to find the best places to work out. The type of training that I do is strength training and power lifting, so I need a serious gym. For the most part, that’s my focus when I get on the road. That’s how I find my sense of normalcy, through training. Constantly working out on the road is really the only way we can keep our bodies healthy—and eating, that’s a whole other issue when we’re on the road. You have to prepare yourself with healthy things to eat, you have to carry around healthy foods with you so you’re not stuck in Mobile, Alabama, somewhere and your only options are eating Ho Hos and Ding Dongs at the Kwik-E-Mart down the street.
What I’ve noticed is that everyone carries things with them to remind them of home. I know some of my friends on the road, some of the guys will set up their area in the locker room really meticulously, and they do this on a regular basis. They put their boots in a certain place every time, they have their bag open a certain way, and it’s their way to make their own special space in the locker room. It feels like your space because it’s your stuff and it’s set up the same way. It’s just another way to try and find that normalcy. Maybe when you’re home, the first thing you do is plop down on your couch. Well, when you get to your hotel, maybe you always plop down on your bed and turn on the TV or you set up your area in the locker room the same particular way just so you have that home away from home.
I know for me, though, on the road I’m all about business. I’m all about eating well, sleeping well, and training. That’s how I feel like I’ve kept myself healthy and strong. I don’t take shopping trips or do any of that girlie stuff on the road.
It’s funny, though, because since my character is very aggressive on the show and pretty mean, when I meet people I think they’re surprised I’m not trying to eat their face off. Obviously, unless I’m competing in the ring, I have no reason to stomp around and punch people. But for myself, personally, the single most annoying icebreaker line that I get all the time is, “Hey, do you work out?” I get this from men and women, mostly men, of course, and I get it constantly at the gym. I’ll be lifting heavy weights, and in the middle of my workout, someone will come over with the “Hey, do you work out?” line. They’ll be like, “Are you a bodybuilder or something?” I always want to say something like, “No, I’m a baker.” It’s just one of those things where you know people mean well, but it’s the silliest thing on earth to say. It’s actually become somewhat of a big joke to me now, just because I get it so much. So I take it with a grain of salt and politely explain to people what I do for a living. It’s so funny, though, because I can see people staring at me, and I can see them kind of start creeping over, and I already know what they’re going to say. And nine times out of ten, there it is, “Do you work out?”
On the flip side, it really means a lot to me when little kids come up to me and want to talk to me because that’s what I got in this business to do, to be an inspiration to the little guys. That’s what wrestling was for me growing up. It wasn’t just this great form of entertainment. I was really inspired to become a better person and to listen to the messages the Superstars said. It was also a time of great bonding for myself and my family when I was growing up, so for now, to be a part of that, and to be able to work for WWE and to have the honor and pleasure to see my picture on the side of the trucks when I drive up to the building . . . It never ceases to blow my mind to see my face on the back of the truck and working for WWE, when I used to have Stone Cold and Bret Hart and the British Bulldog and Lex Luger pictures plastered all over my walls as a kid. Now, here I am, I get to be one of those faces. It’s pretty incredible.
Get the Horns
R-Truth
I travel with a bunch of different people, sometimes Jimmy Wang Yang or Jeff Hardy, sometimes Shane Helms or Vladimir Kozlov. It alternates. But I remember one day a few of us were driving and I saw a cow on the side of the road. I made a comment to Brian Kendrick that if he pulled over, I would jump out and go ride that cow. He didn’t even need to think about it. Next thing I know, he pulls a U-turn in the middle of the street, and we’re headed back to the cow. So I had to do it now. Only thing is, when I got out of the car and started walking toward it, it turned around, and it wasn’t a cow . . . it was a bull! It started huffing at us and looking mean, so we all jumped back in the car and got out of there. That was one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen. I never thought I’d get that close to a bull.
When we left, Vladimir turned to me and said, “You picked the wrong target.”
JBL = Crazy
D’Lo Brown
I remember this one time I was in a car with Taka and Mark Henry. We were up in Newfoundland. It was around midnight, and we were making a two-hour drive between cities. All I remember about the road was that it was about as desolate a highway as you could find, and it was pitch black. I’m doing like 80 mph because I want to get to the hotel, then all of a sudden I get bumped. I look up in my mirror, and it’s Bradshaw, and he’s cackling in the driver’s seat, and sitting next to him is Ron Simmons. Taka was asleep in the back, and he bursts up, looks behind him to see Bradshaw, and yells, “Oh no, Bradshaw, that guy is crazy!” So now we’re at this high-speed run at about 110 mph, and Bradshaw is still bumping us from behind. Taka turned white as a sheet, Mark Henry is just sitting there laughing, and I’m panicking thinking we’re going to roll the car or smash into something. The funniest part of the whole race was Taka’s reaction. “Bradshaw, he’s crazy!” That’s all Taka kept saying, even when we finally made it back to the hotel. And he’s right, Bradshaw is crazy.
The Little Man Is a
Little (Lot) Weird
Tommy Dreamer
I was sharing a room with a guy, and he was single, and he ended up bringing a girl back to the room with him. We were also sharing a room with Hornswoggle at the time, but I got to the room first and just threw a bunch of pillows on the floor next to my bed and fell asleep before anyone else had gotten to the room. Anyway, this guy comes in the room with the girl, and they start “hanging out,” when all of a sudden Hornswoggle popped up from underneath the bed. I never knew he was there, the other guy didn’t know he was there, and obviously the girl didn’t know he was there, so we all started screaming. And the way Hornswoggle popped up, it looked like he was coming from under the bed, just like he does when he’s hiding under the ring for one of our shows. He really scared the crap out of all of us.
But that’s not all. For some reason, maybe because he’s weird, Hornswoggle will get up in the middle of the night, take a pillow, and go sleep on the cold floor in the middle of the bathroom. He says he likes it really, really cold. So when I would get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I would see a dead little manatee on the floor, and it would be Hornswoggle, ’cause that’s what he looks like. There was even this one time when I went to go to the bathroom and Hornswoggle was asleep on the toilet bowl, ’cause he’s just a weird little man.
What a Drag
Maria
One time I got to the building early, so I figured I’d go sign some autographs. I put my bags down, because no one was around except for the guys driving the big WWE trucks. Unfortunately, the driver wanted to go and he didn’t see my luggage, so he backs over my luggage, and the fans are screaming, “He’s running over your luggage!” I turn around, and my bags are getting dragged down the street by the truck. Thank God my dog wasn’t with me or that would’ve been a whole other problem. I probably would’ve killed the guy. Luckily, I left my dog home that trip so he avoided getting run over by our huge semi.
Wrestling’s Number-One
Sports Fan
MVP
One of the toughest parts about being on the road so much is trying to keep up with the scores of my favorite sports teams. I’m a lifelong Raiders fan. It breaks my heart the way they’ve been playing, but I bleed silver and black. And oddly enough, growing up in Miami when Miami didn’t have a baseball team or a basketball team or a hockey team, I ended up becoming a fan of all the New York teams because when we got cable TV, we ended up getting all of New York’s programming. My mom’s friend’s husband used to sit me on the couch back when I was in second grade, and we’d watch the Yankees, the Rangers, and the Knicks. And my teams have been my teams since I was little. I’m not a bandwagon fan. I stay true to my teams, and you can tell that just by the fact that I’m a Raiders fan and a Knicks fan at the same time. It’s torture. Another team I’m really into is Manchester United of the English Premier League. I get a lot of flak for that because Manchester United is like the Yankees of the English Premier League. People in Manchester don’t even root for Manchester United. I even came out on Raw one night with a Manchester United jersey on. I got into a little trouble for that, but they’re my team.
So while I’m on the road, I have constant score updates on my BlackBerry, then when I get to the hotel I’ll catch the highlights on ESPN. I’m constantly pulling up scores and highlights online. And in terms of college sports, I’m a die-hard Miami Hurricanes fan . . . I see a national title in our future.
But man, back to the Raiders, Rey Mysterio and I always have our friendly wagers, because he’s a big Chargers fan and the Raiders play the Chargers twice a year. But because the Raiders have been so bad for so long now, I’m so far in the hole to him, I don’t think I can ever get out. We usually bet a hundred bucks a game. Lucky we only play twice a year. We’re so bad I can’t even talk trash. I just hand him my money. I wouldn’t even mind losing if the Raiders played tough like the old days. Maybe they’d lose, but people at least feared them. They lost that mystique a long time ago. I don’t think the Raiders will rise again until Al Davis dies. It’s sad to say, but it’s the truth.
Will the Real Rey Please
Stand Up?
Rey Mysterio
I always put my mask on about half a block before I pull up to the building. That way, when I drive up to the arena, I have my mask on. Just recently, though, we were wrestling at a casino and I was the last guy to leave the building. I was by myself that day, and I walked out without my mask on, put my bags in the car, and I heard some fans out there who were yelling, “Rey! Rey! Please sign!” So I walked over and signed autographs for everybody, and eventually I ran into this little boy whose parents were there and they asked me if I could take a picture with their son. I was like, “Yeah, no problem.” But this kid, he was looking at me strange, and he just kept saying, “No, that’s not Rey. That’s not Rey.” So I showed him my tattoos, and usually kids will figure out who I am by my tattoos, but this boy, he still didn’t believe me. He was pleading, “This isn’t Rey. I want Rey with the mask.” So I walked back to my car, put my mask on, and came back out to take a picture with him. I took the picture, signed some more autographs, and I could see him staring at me. He still couldn’t decide whether he believed it was me or not. His parents were trying to convince him the whole time and I stayed to talk to him for a bit and I think finally he came around, but it was funny how this kid just kept saying, “No, that’s not him. I’m not taking a picture with this guy. I want a picture with Rey.”
Punch Heard ’Round the
Amusement Park
Cody Rhodes
I’ve known Santino Marella since we came up together in OVW in Louisville, Kentucky. One day, back when we were in Louisville, we decided to talk our wrestling trainers into letting us go to Six Flags. It should have been no big deal. We had been training hard. I had been on the road to a couple of different live events and showed my skills or what have you . . . I showed what I had to the WWE’s top brass. We were all vying for that spot, and we wanted to go out and have some fun.
So we approached our trainers with the premise that we were all going to be on our best behavior. This rowdy bunch of pro wrestlers just wasn’t going to act like that at the park. We were all going to maintain, have a good time, ride some rides, and eat some junk food. Again, we were all working hard and we needed a day off.
So when we go and get our tickets, we have this meeting about being on our best behavior. And I have to emphasize, we had more than one meeting about this. When we were back at the OVW building, we had a meeting about being on our best behavior. When we got to the park, we are told to be on our best behavior. They couldn’t have emphasized the importance of this any more.
But then we get to the park.
Not eleven seconds into being in the park, I turn around and I see the Tasmanian Devil character from the WB, and it’s clawing in the air, waving its hands around. Then I see the handler, another park employee, just screaming at Santino Marella.
Turns out Santino got a little excited when he walked in, and he decided to give the Tasmanian Devil a one-two punch right in the mask. Here’s the best part: As our trainers are walking in our direction, I know we’re all in trouble, and Santino is trying to talk his way out of it, but then the Tasmanian Devil lifts off its head and it’s a little girl inside. Not like ten years old, she was probably like fourteen, fifteen . . . whatever the minimum age for a park employee to work there. And she just had tears streaming down her face.
I’ve never seen a bigger look of disappointment in anyone’s face as the look I saw from Santino. It was really the funniest thing I can recall. He was quarantined to the wave pool the rest of the day. He sat there the entire day with the boo-hoo face of all boo-hoo faces.
“There were times I wrestled in front of twelve or fifteen people, but I performed like I was in front of fifty thousand people.”
—REY MYSTERIO
Think spiders crawling in your bed, rental cars spinning into ditches, and hotel keys hitting you in the eye are bad? That’s nothing compared to what it took these Superstars to actually make it to the top. From performing in barns and high-school gymnasiums to getting excited when there were two hundred people in the crowd to lying about your age just so you could sneak into a bar to perfect your craft in front of a smattering of drunks, the following are a few stories from life on the road before the Superstars became household names. This is what paying your dues is all about.
Brining Home the Bacon
Christian
I know when I was coming up, Owen Hart helped me out and took me under his wing. I lived in Canada at the time and he lived in Calgary, so a lot of times he would have to connect in Toronto, so we would end up on the same flights from Toronto and we’d sit next to each other and talk a lot. He would teach me a lot about the road and little tricks on how to make life easier when we travel. It meant a lot to me when I first got with the company for a guy like Owen to sit down and help me out like he did.
It’s crazy though, because when I was first starting out on the Independents, you never knew what to expect. You might have a two-hour drive and end up wrestling in front of fifty people. If you’re lucky, you’re wrestling in front of six hundred people. At the same time, you’re not making any money, so you’re sharing a hotel room with five or six other guys. You’re squished into somebody’s car and you’re just trying to save enough money to eat. That’s what changes when you get to WWE. Now you’re flying most places and you can afford a nice rental car, a nice hotel, and a nice meal.
I wrestled once inside a barn in Tennessee in front of like fifteen people. The guy who ran the show, it was inside his dad’s barn, and I remember during the middle of the show, his dad came home with groceries and was walking through the crowd with groceries under his arms, shoving through people to get to his house that was attached to the barn. He was trying to put his groceries away while the match was going on. It was pretty funny.
Keep Your Mask On
Rey Mysterio
My first road trips were from San Diego to L.A. at the age of fourteen. Back then, I had to wear my mask because we would wrestle in bars and they would sneak me in through the back because I was underage. They would tell me, “Rey, put your mask on and don’t take it off. Keep your mask on at all times, and if someone asks, tell them you’re just a short wrestler or a midget.” Whatever I did, I couldn’t take my mask off. Back then it was a trip, because here I was sneaking into bars and I was wrestling guys twice my age.
And the people who were at these bars, they showed very little interest in the matches anyway. In my case, I had to win these people over with my wrestling style. It’s not like we were wrestling in these bars with any big names. So back then, I was doing so much high-flying because not a whole lot of people who were there knew much about wrestling, but they would go crazy over any little dive or special headscissor or Frankensteiner. They would go crazy for those moves, and it was cool for me to break in that way. All my first road trips were either to wrestle at bars or to wrestle outside churches in Mexico, and you have to think, back then all I wanted was the opportunity to step in the ring. I didn’t care if it was five people or five hundred people. There were times I wrestled in front of twelve or fifteen people, but I performed like I was in front of fifty thousand people. Every time I step into the ring, it’s about putting on the best show possible for the fans. It’s been quite a road.
Two Different Worlds
MVP
It’s kind of disappointing when you’re wrestling in front of twenty or thirty people, but still, you lace ’em up because what you have to realize is, even in front of that many people, you’re still learning your craft. So then, when you wrestled in front of two hundred people, you were like, “Wow, we have a good house tonight.” Oftentimes I actually stop and reflect, thinking about when I first started and wrestled in a hall in front of thirty people. Then I think about being in Ford Field at Wrestle-Mania in front of eighty thousand people, with millions more at home tuning in. Talk about one extreme to the other. But whether there’s twenty people or twenty thousand people, it all comes down to the fact that, hey, these people all bought a ticket and they’re here to be entertained. And it’s my job to entertain them. Now, the adrenaline rush will certainly get you more pumped up in front of a larger crowd, but honestly, there’s no difference in my performance between two thousand and twenty thousand . . . I do what I do. Sometimes it hurts less in front of twenty thousand people just because you’re so amped up, but the fans make it all worthwhile: the bumps, the bruises, the travel. At the end of my match, win, lose, or draw, when the crowd chants “M-V-P, ” there isn’t anything better than that.
The WWE universe is very demanding. They know garbage from the goods, they know what they’re watching. The fans, they decide: We like him, they cheer me, and to me, that’s one of the coolest things that could happen. Fans walk up to me all the time in the hotel and they tell me, “You’re a future World Champion.” I just tell them, “I hope so.”
“Sure, it’s tough sometimes, but we love what we do.”
—RANDY ORTON
“The wrestling industry is one big cycle,” Randy Orton explains, dissecting what it means to live life on the road and make the sacrifices necessary to hit it big in WWE. “When you start out, when you’re a new guy, if you have potential and one of the older guys in the locker room sees that, a lot of times they’ll guide you and take you under their wing,” he says, helping sum up one of the most overlooked but vitally important aspects of the time shared together on the road. You see, riding in rental cars around the world isn’t just about finding your way to the arena and to the top of the business (or about bad hotels, or even worse food), it’s about helping out your fellow Superstars along the way. It’s about those four-hour drives breaking down matches and story lines as you talk about your relationships and family back at home with your adopted family on the road.
It’s about doing whatever is in your power to live your dream, while everyone in your car is living theirs right alongside of you.
Nobody does a better job talking about this lifestyle and what it means than third-generation Superstar Randy Orton.
So I leave you with his words. Maybe the most important in the book if you’re looking for that one thing that makes the wrestling industry continue to tick (and I’m not talking about anything Randy bought in Mexico).
Leaving a Legacy
Randy Orton
When I was coming up along with John Cena and Brock Lesnar, we all had our mentors. I was lucky because Triple H singled me out. I’ll never forget, one day he saw me practicing in the ring. I was locked in a figure-four, and the cameras weren’t on, but it was the way I was selling the move that he really liked. From what he saw, I was selling the figure-four the way it should be done. So after I got out of the ring, he pulled me aside and told me he’d been watching me and that he wanted to start this group and he’d get back to me on it. Eventually that group became Evolution. So I got to ride with Evolution and ride with Ric Flair and ride with Triple H, and I learned so much from these guys. At first Batista wasn’t in, and it was just me, Ric, and Hunter, and we had so much fun in New York City, riding around in limos and flying around in helicopters in order to shoot the video package for our entrance. And I really got the chance to bond with these guys, and they told me about things inside the ring, outside the ring, how to act, how to be a locker room leader. Eventually, one day I knew that it would be my turn to take somebody under my wing. That’s the way it goes. Every so often a new wave of guys comes in, and that time is now. I used to be the young guy, but now I see these younger guys coming in who are four to eight years younger than I am already.
When I look at guys like Cody and Ted and Kofi Kingston—who is my opponent—I’m in a position to help make these guys. Then eventually, they’ll be in that position as well. It’s a learning process. Being successful in this business takes time. Unless you’re a golden boy or a Brock Lesnar or someone who can just be thrown right into the mix right away, you have to work at it. It’s a building process. And it’s not something that just takes a couple of years. It took me a good five to six years before people started believing in me, and there are so many aspects to that: coming up with a finishing move, having a move set that people recognize, having a character that you believe in and are confident in, so that when you walk through that curtain and walk onto that stage, those fans watching you know by the look in your eyes that you mean business. They know that they can believe in this character. That’s really what you need to do . . . find a character you can have confidence in. When a new guy walks to the ring, you can sense that nervous energy. He doesn’t know what to do, so he’s looking around, and you can tell he’s not confident in himself. And when a wrestler isn’t confident in himself, it’s hard for him to get over because the fans can sense that. Right away they’ll crap on that because it’s no good. They’re not paying for that. They’re paying to have reality suspended. They want to believe in something. They want us to put on a show that they can get wrapped up into and lost in. They want to believe.
That’s where a lot of these critics come in and call wrestling fake. To me, that’s the most disrespectful thing anyone can say. I’ve seen Hunter tear both quads, his groin, and get his throat crushed. I’ve had two shoulder surgeries, a broken foot, a nasty dislocation, broken digits, jaw problems, a broken collarbone, concussions . . . and that’s average. Guys have had neck surgeries and broken arms, lots of knee problems and back issues. So to call this fake, that’s like a slap in the face. We love what we do. It’s not like your normal nine-to-five in some office where you dream of working somewhere else. We get to travel and see the world. And sure, it’s tough sometimes, but we love what we do. And the guys who love what they do and who have the hearts for it, they’re the ones who are able to channel those passions. A lot of times lately, there are guys coming up who are second and third generation. These are guys who were born into the business, and they have that respect. There are all kinds of ex–football players and ex-Olympians in training camp now, but when they come up, we call them the Tin Men because they don’t have hearts. That’s a nasty little moniker that they’ve been given, but it’s true. You have to know this world. And you have to want to protect it and know what’s best for it. Guys with big heads and egos come in, and they don’t know any better, but their career is over just like that, and they never understand. But you have to do what’s right to make each other look good. You have to do what’s best for the business.
Ted and Cody, Kofi Kingston, Harry Smith, Tyson Kidd, and Nattie Neidhart . . . people like that who come up, they have the heart. Mike Rotunda’s two boys who are training, Taylor and Windham, they have the heart. They are training in FCW right now, but they are about to become part of that cycle where the young and hungry come up with all that potential and all that talent, and it’s up to guys like me, guys like Hunter and John Cena and guys who have been a part of this cycle, to step in and help these young guys out. And eventually there’s another wave and another wave. That’s just how sports entertainment thrives. And a lot of those lessons that need to be taught, they’re not learned inside the ring. They’re learned on the road.
I’d like to thank all of the WWE Superstars and Divas who met with me in various hotels and arenas throughout the country to share their thoughts and stories from life on the road. I’d also like to thank all of those stars who called on their days off to fill me in on the tour’s most recent ribs, rental car wrecks, and hotel horrors. Special thanks go out to Dean Miller for all of the introductions, Mike Archer for hooking up his boy “Ballgame,” and Jaime Jensen for helping set up my first road trip (and breaking the gas cap off the rental). As someone who grew up a follower of everything Ricky Steamboat, it’s amazing to see the experience from the other side of the curtain, and no fan should ever take for granted the sacrifices (both physical and mental) each of these men and women make in order to entertain the WWE universe.
To Kofi Kingston: One day I’m going to show you how a true Madden abbot plays the game. And Randy, you owe me a ride on that bus.
To the B-Man and Sunshine, thanks for going to bed early so Dad could finish his book. Your WWE Title and Divas Championship will be ready in about eighteen years. Extra special thanks to my wife, Nicole, who makes the return of my every road trip that much more special.
