The Hardcore Truth

by Bob Holly

  PART 9: PUTTING ON A SHOW

  It’s an incredible production — a WWE show is like pulling together a Hollywood movie in one night instead of over several months. No rehearsals, no second chances — you’ve got your mark, you’ve got your time cue, and you’d better hit it. It takes so many people and so much more work than anybody realizes. Once you take the wrestlers out of the equation, you still need to make sure you’ve got the best of everything to put on the best show.

  Vince was always in Gorilla, micromanaging the show from there. He doesn’t miss a beat and that’s why the ship sails so smoothly. If you run over your cue and go into commercial time, that costs the company money. You don’t want to be the guy who does that because Vince will cuss you out in a second. I don’t understand why a lot of people tolerate that behavior. To me, once your boss yells at you and you allow it, you’ve just made yourself a doormat. A man has to keep his dignity. The more somebody lets Vince walk over him, the more Vince’ll do it because he can. That’s why he continually makes fun of Jim Ross. I wouldn’t care if my job was on the line, I wouldn’t stand for it. Jim Ross is one of the best commentators in wrestling history, and he shouldn’t be subjected to that, but I guess he’s worried about losing his job.

  A good commentator is vital to helping get the wrestlers over. They can make or break a match or a star. Jerry Lawler is one of the best but how he acts towards the women takes away from that. It gets old listening to him sound like a pervert. A lot of people hate Michael Cole but he is good. So is Matt Striker — he knows the history of wrestling, everybody’s background, every hold. He could turn out to be as great as Jim Ross. I like Josh Matthews but he’s too soft-spoken. You’ve got to have a commanding voice to be a good commentator, as far as I’m concerned.

  A good ring announcer is important too. Howard Finkel is the greatest ring announcer of all time and they pulled him from the road, then took him offscreen. I don’t know why because he loves the business. He’d be on the road 365 days a year if he could. Tony Chimel got heat because he replaced Howard — what was Tony meant to do? Say, “No, I’m not going to do the job you gave me?”

  There’s no place for managers right now. Back in the ’80s and early ’90s, you could just put anybody with Bobby Heenan or Jim Cornette and the fans would boo them. Now, the only time that works is when a clear connection exists between manager and talent — you’ve got to compliment the guy you’re managing or people won’t go for it. Like Paul Bearer and the Undertaker — they fit together logically and brought something to each other’s act. When ’Taker started talking more, Paul wasn’t needed so much, so they were going to groom him to be the timekeeper in Gorilla. It’s an important job and Paul would have been good at it but when they were trying him out, he made fun of the head of production, Kevin Dunn. He didn’t know Kevin could hear him in the production truck. Things didn’t work out too well for Paul after that. It’s a damn shame that someone who has been with the company for years ends up losing their job because someone can’t take a fuckin’ joke, but that’s how it is. After Vince, Kevin basically controls the whole company. Or at least he did before Hunter got in there.

  A good ref can give you a hand out of a sticky situation and help the match flow. If you forget something or make a mistake, the ref can cover for you. He is just as important as the wrestlers. Not all refs need to know how to wrestle but they need to understand every aspect of the business and how everything works in the ring. Earl Hebner was the best, which is why he always got the main events. Jack Doan and Scott Armstrong are really good too. I had some fun with Jimmy Korderas and Mike Chioda; whenever they would referee a tag match I was in, they would have to waistlock me to get me out of the ring so I would hang on and struggle as much as I could to blow them up! Great guys, great refs, both of them.

  Other people get put in the wrong job sometimes. I love Teddy Long to death but he’s not a referee. He is a great character though, and works well in his role as an onscreen authority figure. Vickie Guerrero is also great in her role — Eddie would have been so proud to see how good she is. She is one of the sweetest women you could ever meet and everybody loves her backstage. I can’t say enough about her; she is a great woman.

  Using former wrestlers as agents or producers is a good move because they know what it’s like to be in there and they know how to put a match together. Everybody has a lot of respect for the agents. All of the agents I worked with knew their stuff. Arn Anderson, Dusty Rhodes, Michael Hayes, Finlay, Barry Windham, Ricky Steamboat, Jamie Noble, Jerry Brisco, Mike Rotunda — all great at their jobs. When they told you to do something, you didn’t question it.

  I was asked if I wanted to become an agent at one point. I said no because Vince has a habit of screaming at them if something doesn’t go to plan. The first time Vince screamed at me, I know I’d knock his fucking teeth out. You can’t control what happens in that ring, all you can do is lay out what you want and hope your guys deliver.

  CHAPTER 22

  THE GOLDEN AGE

  During the Monday Night Wars, lots of people went back and forth between the promotions. It didn’t ever occur to me to go to WCW and, as I’ve said, the only conversation I ever had about it was initiated by them and lasted a matter of minutes. I didn’t want to start again. I was comfortable in the WWF locker room, with the people I worked with, the agents, and management. If I’d gone to WCW, I would have been starting all over, having to get to know a whole new team. In the WWF, people knew me and my capabilities. I felt like part of a family. As frustrated as I might have been at times because I wasn’t being used to my full potential, I’m big on loyalty. I’m not someone who sits there and whines about being a job guy. Maintaining loyalty and making a stable living is more important to me than winning in a fake sport. To some of the guys, it’s the other way around.

  I heard a lot of horror stories about Eric Bischoff and how he behaved when he was managing WCW. Rumor had it that he was pretty rough with people and treated them badly, but he was very polite to me in our conversation. When he came to WWE years later, he was fine to me. I have nothing bad to say about him.

  A few people who had bad experiences with WCW ended up falling into the WWF’s lap in early 2000. Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Perry Saturn, Dean Malenko, Shane Douglas, and Konan all walked out of WCW, unhappy with how things were going. The WWF wasn’t interested in Shane or Konan. I heard that Konan had heat with a lot of people although the one time I met him, he seemed like a good guy. Douglas had already had one run with the WWF and the Clique had squashed that. Shawn and Kevin weren’t around anymore, but Triple H now had that power, so I’m sure he had something to do with squashing any thought of Shane coming back. Eddie, Chris, Dean, and Perry all got signed. I thought it was a good move — they were great talents, all of them excellent workers. The political bullshit in the locker room was still there though. Even though we’d just got four of WCW’s best guys, they all lost their matches on their first night, including Benoit losing clean to Hunter, just to prove a point. I don’t know what the reasoning behind that was, if it was Hunter’s ego, or if management wanted to put the new guys in their place, or even if they just thought these guys were too short to do anything with. It didn’t make sense to me to cut off their momentum right from the start.

  Of the four of them, I became close to Benoit first. Our styles of wrestling seemed to go hand in hand and that’s what brought us closer together. We each had a mutual respect for the way the other worked and that made us bond. He wasn’t an ass kisser; if he had something to say, he’d say it to your face. Eddie was the same. He wouldn’t talk behind your back. In wrestling, you’ve always got guys who will kiss somebody’s ass to get somewhere — the politicians. Jericho, Benoit, and Eddie worked their asses off to get to the top. They didn’t do it the cowardly way. I always liked the stand-up guys who would tell you what they thought to your face. You knew where you stood with them.

&nbs
p; I thought Dean was a great worker and it was such a shame that he showed no personality in the ring. In the locker room, he shows all kinds of charisma — that man is a funny motherfucker and if he’d done that out in the ring, he would have got over. I’ve got no idea why he didn’t. Perry Saturn was a hard-nosed, “I’m going to kick your ass” kind of guy. His downfall with the WWF was when he took advantage of an extra named Mike Bell. The guy made a couple of mistakes and it pissed Perry off, so he roughed this extra up more than he should have. He threw Bell out of the ring and just about broke his neck. They didn’t use Perry after that. You can’t ever take advantage of your opponent because he’s trusting you with his life. I was sometimes rough on guys out there, sure, but Perry went way overboard. Benoit, Eddie, Jericho, me . . . we were all rough but we never hurt anybody so badly that they couldn’t come back the next night and work.

  It’s one of the things that kills me about the people on the internet who write about me being a bully; there are plenty of other wrestlers who are just as rough as I am and I’ve never hurt anyone so badly they can’t come back. It’s like the Steiners, the Road Warriors, and the Powers of Pain — they didn’t take pleasure in hurting people, they were just rough. It’s how they were brought up in the business and how the business was. Some of the newer kids just couldn’t take it because they didn’t have enough heart and they weren’t tough enough to be in wrestling. Anybody who wants to complain about getting hurt in the ring because Eddie or Jericho or I roughed them up a little needs to pay attention to the next story and they’ll learn about what heart is and stop whining.

  Mae Young and the Fabulous Moolah are two of the sweetest ladies you’d ever meet. All the boys respected the hell out of them and everybody rolled out the red carpet whenever they were on the show. By 2000, they’d already got over 100 years of in-ring experience between them, so that tells you how old they were. But they would still get in the ring now and then when they were given the chance. On one show, Crash and I were booked to do a tag team match against them, so we sat down in catering together to go over the match. Out of respect for them, I took myself out of the equation and told them that we would do whatever they wanted to do. Mae planned out a spot where she would be in the ring with Crash and I’d sneak in behind her. She would turn around and I’d clothesline her. I said to her, “Mae, I’ve got all the respect in the world for you but if you’re asking me to clothesline you, you need to know that I lay it in there.” She said, “Sure I know that, I want you to clothesline me.” I said, “No, you don’t understand — when I clothesline somebody, I try to rip their head off. It’s TV, I don’t want it to look bad but I don’t want to hurt you.” This nearly 80-year-old woman just looked at me and said, “Bring it, motherfucker.”

  In Gorilla, just before the match, I gave her a hug and thanked her in advance for the match, then asked if she was sure about the clothesline. She said, “If you don’t bring it, when we get back, I’m going to kick your ass.” Hell, I didn’t want to get beaten up by an 80-year-old woman, so I was going to do what she said and lay that clothesline in there nice and snug. We started the match and I locked up with Moolah, grabbed her in a headlock, and took her over. I landed right on top of her. I was 235 pounds at this point. She was 77 years old and she was taking everything I could throw at her. Unbelievable.

  The time came for the spot with Mae. She had her back to me as I was getting ready. When she turned around, I charged — she didn’t have time to prepare for it and I threw that clothesline from left field like I was hitting Bradshaw. I ripped her head off so hard that the poor lady cut a flip. I felt so bad! I asked her if she was all right and she said, “Yep, I’m fine,” and carried on. When we got to the back after the match, I went over to thank her and asked, “Mae, are you okay?” She patted me on the chest and said, “That’s how you lay a clothesline in, right there,” and kept on walking. Why the hell can’t some of the boys be like that?! That match was great fun and good entertainment.

  I always liked the hard-hitting wrestling matches. I found those fun. Some of the other guys had different ways of amusing themselves. We were doing a circuit of house shows in which they had Crash and me against Mick Foley and Al Snow and we were keeping it to pretty much the same every night. One spot always got a weird reaction though, and it confused the hell out of me because I couldn’t figure out what was going on. I would grab Al and lift him up above my head in a delayed vertical suplex, and for some reason the audience would start laughing. Well, I came to find out that Al had been amusing himself at my expense. I had one of my hands around his head, the other holding him up by the side of his singlet. One of his hands was around my head but his other one was hanging around my waist. One night I saw that even Mick and Crash were laughing at this spot, so I asked Mick what the hell was going on. “He’s jacking you off,” said Mick. That son of a bitch had been making a hand gesture at my groin like he was jacking me off! I thought it was pretty funny but I wasn’t going to let Al get one over on me. I told Mick that I’d find a way to get Al back. Mick was all too quick to point out that Al didn’t wear any underwear under his singlet. That was all I needed to hear.

  The next night, we were in a sold-out Montreal arena. We did the same match, the same spots. I grabbed Al for the suplex and I suppose he thought he was about to be a smartass again with his hand gesture. Boy, was he in for a surprise! I hooked his head, yanked the singlet so his private parts were on display for 20,000 screaming fans to see, and lifted him up high above my head. I held him up there for what seemed like forever. He was squirming and trying to get down but I wasn’t about to let go. I made sure each side of the arena got a good look. And let’s just say it was a cold arena that night . . . or that was Al’s excuse!

  Teaching Perry Saturn a lesson. (photo by George Napolitano)

  That wasn’t enough to stop Al fucking with me for his own amusement. I was doing a hardcore match with him and Steve Blackman on one show and Al had obviously talked Steve into helping him get me back. Steve probably jumped at the chance to rib me because of the number of times I’d scared him with my driving. This particular hardcore match went the wrong kind of hardcore; Steve got me in a headlock and held on tight. I was going nowhere. All of a sudden, Al came up behind me and stuck his thumb up my ass. I have no idea what he thought he was doing on that one.

  I got them both back when we did other hardcore matches. One time, I switched the cookie sheets out from under the ring. They put these lightweight sheets under there that you could hit somebody with. They would make a hell of a noise and it would look impressive but it wouldn’t really hurt. I arranged a spot in the match where I would use a cookie sheet and then replaced the lightweight ones with some heavy-duty sheets. In the match, Al whipped Steve towards me and I smashed him with one of those things — it had no give and Steve looked like he was out on his feet. You could literally see the bump immediately appearing on his head. He was still with it enough to tell me he was going to catch me and kill me after the match but I guess he thought better of it. Maybe he just didn’t want to find someone else to drive him from town to town. Steve hated to drive.

  Al was more easy-going than Steve. He hung out with Mick Foley a lot and the two of them loved going to carnivals. There was one particular carnival in Austin, Texas, that led to a really interesting situation. We had to go to Houston for TV the next day and Al suggested that I drop my rental car off and jump in with them. I didn’t want to go to the carnival so I told them I’d keep my rental and travel alone. Al and Mick kept asking me until I agreed. We would eat, drop my rental car, and go to the carnival for a little bit. Then we would drive on to Houston. Hell, I like roller coasters as much as the next guy, so I wouldn’t have minded going. They jumped in their car, I jumped in mine, and we headed to the airport. They took off but I couldn’t keep up because of the traffic. I got to the airport in the end, returned my rental, and stood out in the 40 degree cold, freezing
at the curb, waiting and waiting. No Al. No Mick. I waited for over an hour before I gave up. I had to re-rent my car, so it cost me even more. I got to the arena in Houston the next day and Al came over to apologize. Mick didn’t. He said, “I thought we were going to the carnival first!” I told him that wasn’t what we’d agreed to — why would I keep the rental car longer just to go to a carnival that he was going to go to anyway? And when they didn’t see me pull up at the carnival, didn’t they figure something was wrong and that I must be at the airport? Mick said, “Oh, I didn’t think of that.” So they just went into the carnival without thinking about me freezing my balls off at the airport. Mick still didn’t think he had done anything wrong.

  Road Warrior Hawk overheard all of this and he blew a gasket. He was about ready to kill Foley. He went off on him, telling him you never leave your boys hanging, and least of all for a fucking carnival! He was so furious, I thought he was going to jump on Mick and beat the hell out of him. Even I told Hawk to calm down and he kept shouting, “Fuck him, he doesn’t do the fucking boys like that!” ’Taker got word of this and all of a sudden, there was a call for Wrestlers’ Court.

  Wrestlers’ Court was already in the WWF locker room when I got there. It doesn’t happen anymore because they’re too corporate, but in the ’90s and early 2000s, it would happen now and then, only at TV or PPV. If one of the boys screwed up and got a lot of heat, they would get called up and chewed out in front of everybody else. It was just for the boys, no office staff or officials. Undertaker was the judge, usually with Bradshaw as prosecutor and Ron Simmons as the defending attorney. Ron, as a man of few words, wouldn’t really ever try to defend anyone. It’s a humbling experience, a humiliation. I would definitely not want to be in Wrestlers’ Court.