Death Clutch

by Brock Lesnar

  I didn’t want to be an old man, pulling pads over my surgically repaired, broken-down knees, struggling to pull on my elbow pads with arthritic shoulders, popping pain pills to make it through one more big-money match. So as much fun as I was having, even right off the bat I was thinking about how I was going to get out. Curt’s words were ringing in my ears: “Get in to get out.”

  Once we got past the Hardys, the rocket ship was really strapped to my ass, and the fuse was lit. That’s when the whole deal went down involving the match that never happened with Stone Cold Steve Austin, one of the WWE’s biggest stars at the time. Why was he a star? “Because Stone Cold says so.” He was a big, tough, raunchy, rude, crude, beer-guzzling good ol’ boy, and the crowds couldn’t get enough of him.

  Paul knows the story better than I do, because he was behind the scenes with Vince, and I was just doing my job, being on time, wrestling my matches, collecting my paychecks. But I’ll do my best to tell you what I remember.

  I got to Atlanta, and the WWE road agent told me I would be working with Steve that night, and that I was going to beat him somehow. But minutes later, everything changed. I heard that Steve had walked out. Went home. With Steve gone, Vince needed to do something quick.

  Paul pulled me aside and brought me two steaks from Vince’s office. He always stole a couple of Vince’s afternoon steaks and brought them to me. I never asked if Vince knew. I was just happy to get the prime cut.

  As I worked on the steak, Paul explained the new swerve: Vince himself was going to wrestle Ric Flair that night, in Atlanta—a battle between two fiftysomething guys—with the story-line being a winner-take-all bet for Vince’s story-line 50 percent of WWE ownership against Flair’s story-line 50 percent. But just when it looked to the crowd like Flair was going to beat Vince, I’d come down, jump into the ring, and cost Flair the match. Vince would then owe a huge favor to the Next Big Thing.

  According to our quickly prepared script, Paul was supposed to call in my favor for me by telling Vince, on national TV, that if I won at King of the Ring 2002, I would get a title shot at the SummerSlam pay-per-view. The fans watching the show didn’t know it yet, but Vince had already decided to make me the youngest WWE Heavyweight Champion in history.

  Here I was, just a few months after my official TV debut, and only a year out of college, and I was being set up to take the WWE title in the main event of the second biggest pay-per-view of the year. I had been watching my checks get bigger and bigger every week, and I couldn’t even imagine how much I was about to make from those two events. The main event of a pay-per-view show is as big as it gets in our business.

  That’s just it. It was always about business for me. I wasn’t in it for the fame or the glory, though I had some fun with both for a little while. I was in it for the money. I wanted to feed my family, give my parents and my children the best lives that I could provide for them, and get out while I was still relatively young and healthy.

  That summer on my rocket ship to the top just flew by. I don’t really remember making my Madison Square Garden debut against Ric Flair, but I sure remember getting paid for it. I don’t remember how many times we went to the UK that summer, but I remember that my paycheck got bigger each and every time I went back. I don’t remember any specifics about the King of the Ring pay-per-view, but I remember it being by far the biggest payday I had to that point in my career.

  That’s what happens when you live on the road, and in front of the TV cameras. You can’t tell one town from the other, or one show from the next. They all just blend together. You get up in a hotel that looks like all of the other hotels, drive to the airport in a generic rental car, get on a plane, and don’t care where you land . . . because it’s always the same. The routine gets old really fast, and it never changes.

  Sometimes I’d get lucky enough to get into the town early enough so I go could go to a gym, and maybe find a decent meal. After that, though, it would be just killing time until I had to go to the arena. I couldn’t really do much, because fans recognized me everywhere I went. So, most often, I just stayed in my room.

  Once I got to the arena, I had to shake everyone’s hand. Because that’s the unwritten law. As if God himself made it the 11th commandment. I hadn’t seen the boys since we all stood around the baggage claim at the airport a few hours before, hoping our bags would come around quickly so we could beat everyone else to the rental car line. But we would always shake hands, and everyone would smile like they were glad to see each other. It was all so insincere and phony it made me sick.

  Meanwhile, while I’m going through the motions on the never-ending treadmill that road life had become, all I could think of was getting home so I could see my baby daughter Mya, because she would grow up just a little bit more every day I was gone. I was missing out on all these wonderful experiences with my child, missing out on all the greatest things about being a dad, and was doing the bullshit “shaking-hands routine” with a bunch of people I just saw a few hours ago like they were long-lost brothers. It was insane.

  It got to the point that I remember one day looking across the locker room at Ric Flair, who was then in his midfifties, and saying to myself, “That’s not going to be me.” I don’t mean that as any disrespect toward Ric. He gave his life to the wrestling business. He was truly one of the greats, and he deserves a lot of credit for what he did.

  But with all the greatness that his name is supposed to represent, and all the years he had spent on top, what the hell was he still doing there? He got in, but he never got out.

  I wasn’t going to be the guy missing his kids’ birthday parties and graduations.

  I wondered how many of his own kids’ birthday parties did Flair miss? How many of their graduations? I didn’t want to be pushing sixty years old and still wearing tights.

  Flair was known as the best, and if the business could break him, it could happen to anyone. Even me. That’s why, every time I looked at Flair, every time I saw him climb in the ring and let out his trademark “Wooooooooooooooo!,” I heard Curt Hennig’s voice in my head: “Get in to get out.”

  WINNING THE TITLE . . . FROM THE ROCK

  I only wrestled Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson three times. The first time was in Australia, right before we worked the SummerSlam main event at the Nassau Coliseum in Long Island, New York, for the Undisputed WWE Championship. I had won the King of the Ring and was headed for my first pay-per-view main event. There’s a lot of pressure on someone when they have to main-event with the top star of the day. You have to be careful not to hurt the Golden Goose, but you also have to make your match look good.

  To get me ready for the Rock, we did a match on television against Hulk Hogan. This was a big deal, because Hogan didn’t wrestle every week on TV. WWE was portraying him as the legend of all legends, and to make me the focal point of the promotion, we were going to do a major incident on television where I took Hulk Hogan OUT. I was honored to get into the ring with Hogan, but at the same time, I looked at things a little differently from everyone else. Yes, Hogan was the biggest star of the eighties and nineties. He drew huge gates and sold millions of pay-per-views. This guy had made more money than any other wrestler of his era, but here he was, squeezing out another run at age fiftysomething . . . just like Ric Flair.

  So we did this deal with Hulk Hogan where I took Hogan out violently on the WWE Smackdown! TV show. I knew the script, because Paul was the lead writer of the show, and we communicated all the time. Vince kept telling me we needed to make this as memorable a night as possible for the fans, because this was a big moment in my career. I was going to slay the immortal Hulk Hogan, bust him open, and leave him for dead. Other wrestlers had “jumped” Hogan from behind before, or “attacked” him to build interest in an upcoming match, but I was going to beat the crap out of him face-to-face. Vince didn’t just want me to “get over,” he wanted me over the top. There was a lot riding o
n that SummerSlam pay-per-view, and WWE was counting on a big buy rate to carry the promotion into the fall.

  The Rock was a proven commodity, but putting a rookie in the main event of your second biggest show of the year was a risk. Vince liked to take chances in life, but he called them “calculated risks.” The idea was to really pump up the interest in my match with The Rock by having me hit Hulk Hogan with the F-5, crack him over the head with a chair, bust his head open, and wipe his blood across my chest like Brock The Conqueror. It was pretty dramatic stuff. Vince figured if that didn’t position me as a top star with the WWE audience, and give me the boost and credibility needed to draw some serious money with the Rock at SummerSlam, nothing would.

  Behind the scenes, Hogan was being written out of the future scripts, and he wasn’t going to appear at the Australia show. With no Hogan to work the main event Down Under, it gave me and Dwayne a chance to work with each other for the first time, and to feel each other out before we got in the ring with everyone watching at SummerSlam. We were in Melbourne doing a Triple Threat Match (three wrestlers in the ring at the same time), with the Rock defending his Undisputed WWE Heavyweight Championship against both me and HHH.

  When Dwayne and I got in the ring together, we could both tell that we had instant chemistry. I know we stole the show. Everyone could immediately tell we were going to be big box office against each other. It was a week and a half before SummerSlam, and we were ready.

  WWE needed a new champion, because Dwayne was taking time off after the show to do a movie, so the key here was to go all the way with this kid, Brock Lesnar, because I had to carry the load for the company while Dwayne was off shooting films. Not everyone has what it takes to sell tickets on a nightly basis at major arenas, and sell millions of dollars’ worth of pay-per-views several times a year. That’s what a champion does. Vince thought I had what it took to pull that off.

  Dwayne, of course, is a very smart guy. He was going to have his character, the Rock, do a clean job for me because he wanted to grease the wheels for himself to come back when the time was right. Dwayne knew putting me over was right for business, and he was willing to take a loss for the team, on pay-per-view, in front of all of his fans. He saw the talent I had, and he knew it would be best for the company if there were no questions in the fans’ minds that I beat him “fair and square.” That way, after I had my ride at the top, he could beat me in a revenge match when he came back and he would look even better. It would be huge. WWE would make a lot of money. I’d make a lot of money. Dwayne would make a lot of money. That’s the pro wrestling business at its best!

  Dwayne also knew that it wasn’t only right for business to put me over clean, but that Vince had it in his own head that the Rock should lose clean to Brock Lesnar. If Dwayne wanted the door open for a return, he had to keep Vince happy, and have him think that “Dwayne always gave back to the company, looked after what was right for business.” Vince has ended more than one career when someone crossed him and put their own interests above the company’s. Dwayne was too smart for that, and he did everything the right way . . . the smart way.

  I don’t know how many other guys Dwayne would have been happy to lose to clean, but he did it for me because he knew I could carry the torch for the company until he got it back. It wasn’t a gift. It was business.

  On August 25, 2002, at age twenty-five, I became the youngest WWE Champion in history when I “defeated” the Rock for the title at SummerSlam.

  That night changed my life forever. I was now in a position to regularly score big paydays for a night’s work, and more. I was now able to buy a lot of things. I’ll always appreciate what Dwayne did for me and my family. If he hadn’t made me look good, things might have been a lot different.

  Beating the Rock at SummerSlam 2002 made me a true superstar in the eyes of the fans. I didn’t have just any title, I had the ultimate prize in sports entertainment, the Undisputed WWE Heavyweight Championship of the World. I wasn’t just another guy in the locker room, or a curtain-jerker, or a midcard guy, or a guy hoping and praying to catch a break. I was the main event. People paid to see me. And that’s exactly what I wanted, because that’s where the serious money kicks in.

  In my first-ever pay-per-view in some city I can’t remember, I beat Jeff Hardy in an undercard match and got what I thought at the time was a decent check. Now I was headlining pay-per-views, and making life-changing money every time. Not a bad night’s work. And it all literally happened overnight. Ten minutes in the ring with Jeff Hardy was really cool. But twenty minutes in the ring with Dwayne, and I was set for life.

  That’s why the match with Dwayne was such a big moment in my life. It wasn’t about who was better, who would really win. Come on, that’s ridiculous. It was about the fact I wanted to buy my mom and dad a house. I wanted to put money away for my daughter’s education. I wanted to be able to afford nice things in life for me and my family. I was the undisputed WWE Champion, on the fast track to fame and fortune. I was on top of the world.

  And I was already looking over my shoulder, because I knew that the clock was ticking and my days were numbered.

  THE UNDERTAKER

  As soon as I became Undisputed WWE Champion, the decision was made to let both Raw and SmackDown! have their own champions. So WWE branded two weekly shows that aired on different nights, and each brand carried its own roster of wrestlers.

  My very first television appearance as the WWE Champion was on a Monday Night Raw that was broadcast live from Madison Square Garden. I know all these famous arenas mean something to a lot of people, and there is a lot of history in the Garden, but none of that means shit to me. Today, I like fighting in Las Vegas, because I have a routine there that I’m used to. Minnesota is great because I can just drive home that night. Anywhere else is just another place to me—just another in a long line of arenas in cities I don’t get to see, with the same locker rooms where I have to shake everyone’s hand, and then say good night and safe travels before meeting up with all of them in a few hours in a new city I won’t get to see.

  At the end of that first night on TV as champion, Paul and I jumped ship and went over to the SmackDown! roster—all part of the script, of course, as everything is in professional wrestling—and Raw was left without a champion. With Paul writing SmackDown!, I saw how this was going to play out. When I left Raw, it opened the door for HHH (who is now Vince’s son-in-law) to be a champion. But that never bothered me. I really didn’t care, because as long as I could just keep main-eventing the pay-per-views, things would be fine. HHH would be the World Champion on Raw. Good for him. I would be the WWE Champion on SmackDown! When it came time for the pay-per-views, someone had to be the top dog. Sometimes, that depended on the person you were defending the title against.

  Advantage: Lesnar.

  Why? Because my first feud as champion was against one of Vince’s favorites, the Undertaker.

  I have to say, there were some guys I liked wrestling with, or I guess I should say “performing” with. In the business, we just say “working,” and I enjoyed working with the Big Show. I also liked working with Kurt Angle, Hulk Hogan, and Dwayne Johnson. I liked working with anyone who was what they called “over,” which meant the person meant something to the audience. I liked working with anyone who was going to have some box-office appeal, because I was in the business to make money. The fame and the glory goes away. The money can help you and your family afford a better life.

  Of all of the guys I worked with, I probably liked working with the Undertaker more than anyone else. Despite our personal differences, working with him was just so easy. He had that “Dead Man” gimmick, and he knew how to play it. Taker is a bright guy, too, and he knew I could make him look great. He also knew it was going to look believable when I beat him down.

  Another reason I liked working with Taker is that it was so much easier for me to bump around the ring for his mo
ves. He was a lot bigger than I was, and the fans not only loved his character, but they believed he was a legitimate badass. Bumping for a guy bigger than me is always going to be easier than bumping around all night long for the Hardy Boyz. It’s just a different-style match. With the Hardys, you have to build and build and build until it’s time to take that bump. With Taker, he’s so big, you can just bump around right away.

  There was also that mystique the Undertaker had. He was going to be the first person to really hand Brock Lesnar an ass kicking, so he was going to make it look good. I had no problem with that. As long as people were going to pay to see us go at it, I was happy.

  We had our first pay-per-view match in Los Angeles, at the show called Unforgiven. Vince wanted us to do this finish where Taker ends up throwing me through a big set of lights at the top of the stage. I didn’t like it, but I knew we were setting up the rematch, which would be a Hell-in-a-Cell match. That meant my first two pay-per-views as champion would be in the main-event position, which meant I was getting top pay.

  That Hell-in-a-Cell match against The Undertaker was my favorite match in WWE. That night, everything just clicked the right way. Taker was on his game, and I was ready to go. People were convinced The Undertaker was either going to beat Brock Lesnar, or get his own ass beat pretty good. This wouldn’t be just another monthly pay-per-view main event. This was going to be something special.

  And it was.

  NEXT IN LINE? THE BIG SHOW!

  My next opponent after Undertaker was originally supposed to be Hulk Hogan. He was going to come back, looking for revenge after I hammered him on TV. Vince wanted to do a story line where Hogan was looking to settle the score, and the Lesnar vs. Hogan match would air live from Madison Square Garden as the main event of Survivor Series 2002. I would be headlining yet another pay-per-view. Vince wanted Hogan to look really good, but fall short of beating me for the title. I guess the ol’ Hulkster didn’t like that idea too much, and next thing I know, we were going with “Plan B” . . . the Big Show!