The Hardcore Truth

by Bob Holly

  I did think about why he killed Daniel. This is pure speculation, but I think maybe Chris and Nancy had been drinking — which I knew they liked to do — and got into a fight. He lost control and it got physical. It went too far and he ended up killing her without realizing what he was doing. Then it dawned on him — oh fuck, I just killed my wife. He had time to think about it and realized that Daniel was going to grow up knowing his mom was dead and his dad killed her and was in prison. He decided it was too much for that kid to grow up knowing, so he took matters into his own hands.

  I have no idea what led to the argument that set everything off. There was some speculation about whether Chris was having an affair with one of the girls in the locker room, but I guarantee he wasn’t. Just because one of the boys rides with one of the girls, it doesn’t mean he’s screwing her. One of the girls needed a ride and that was that. As strange as it sounds given what happened, Chris was 100 percent committed to his family.

  In the investigation that followed the tragedy, it was reported that Chris had the brain of an Alzheimer’s patient because of all the concussions. How could they say that when Chris never forgot a spot in that ring and always remembered every single thing you told him? With Alzheimer’s, you forget everything. I got the feeling they were just trying to attach the blame to something, either steroids or concussions. I disagree — if the authorities were going to point the finger at anything, they should have pointed it at alcohol. The report mentioned that there were empty alcohol bottles in the house. By the time he killed himself, any alcohol Chris drank on the Friday would have been out of his system. He could have drunk a huge amount on the Friday and had a zero blood alcohol level on the Sunday. I genuinely believe that if not for alcohol, none of this would have happened.

  You’ve got two people going head to head, both of them drinking; something’s got to give. Alcohol mixes differently with different personalities. Some people get brave, some get mean, some get crazy, and some do stupid things. Nancy wasn’t the sort of woman to back down and Chris snapped. He probably thought he was just going to shut her up and it all went downhill from there.

  We’ve all made some strange decisions when drinking but different people have different temperaments. They say you’ve got to look out for the quiet ones. Chris was one of them. Long-term drinking affects the way a person thinks. It alters the mind and damages the ability to make good judgments. The people who claim the tragedy was caused by ’roid rage are looking for an easy target. Those people don’t take steroids, so that is where they lay the blame; I bet those same people drink alcohol, and I guarantee that when they’re lit, they’ve got a short fuse. Whichever way you look at it, as far as I can see, alcohol was far more to blame in that situation than steroids or concussions.

  I felt a lot of guilt because I didn’t go to visit Chris the Wednesday before this all went down. When I spoke to him on the day he killed Nancy, he was hot at me because I hadn’t stopped by. He was adamant that he had wanted me to come to his house. That was uncharacteristic of him; looking back, I wonder if he’d been trying to reach out to me. I wondered for the longest time if I could have changed the course of events, if only I’d gone to see him. Would they all still be alive? It probably would have happened at some point regardless, but still, it’s not a nice thing to carry around.

  I think about Eddie and Chris from time to time, and what happened to them breaks my heart but I don’t think too much on it. Death is part of life. Are you going to grieve forever or are you going to get to work? I cared a lot about both of them but there comes a point where you’ve got to put your grief behind you and move on.

  PART 16: RELATIONSHIPS IN WRESTLING

  It’s difficult to maintain a relationship when you’re in the wrestling business. When you meet somebody, you might explain to her the way the business works and she’ll think she’s all okay with it. After a while though, it gets old. She hasn’t seen you in ages, so when you get home, she wants to go, go, go to make up for lost time, while all you want to do is rest because your body is beat up. It can go to hell in a hand basket pretty quickly. It’s especially hard if you’ve got a kid. A lot of people think they can handle it but discover they can’t. I should know — I’ve been divorced a couple of times. If the person you’re with hasn’t got the right mentality, you can forget it from the start.

  To be honest, if you’re in the wrestling business, it’s probably not a good idea to be married. Most wrestlers’ marriages end up in divorce. There is so much partying, drinking, drugs, women — that kind of stuff is all over wrestling. That was never me — I would go to my room after the show and stay there, and I still ended up divorced! Some guys go out drinking after the shows every night. Management doesn’t put any pressure on you either way. They don’t make it their business at all; they just want you to work.

  Relationships with other people in wrestling don’t work a lot of the time either. It’s not something that will get you in trouble with the office, but it could compromise how you’re seen by the company and by your peers. Melina and Batista had something going on when she was with John Morrison. John was an idiot for being okay with that; what man in his right mind would be okay with the girl he lives with messing around with another one of the boys? When he found out, he should have been a fucking man and whipped Batista’s ass. John could have taken Batista in a fight for sure. He was just afraid he’d lose his job because Batista was one of the top guys and was living in Hunter’s colon. I don’t get why Morrison didn’t just drop Melina. Nobody liked her anyway so he would have earned a lot more respect for walking away.

  If you act like a pussy, you’re going to lose everybody’s respect. When Matt Hardy found out that Lita was fucking Edge, he went around telling everybody who would listen that when he came back, he was going to beat the shit out of Edge. He asked for my advice and I told him, “You’re telling everybody you’re going to do it, you’ve got to deliver.” Everybody thought he was going to stiff Edge in their match. He even said to me, “Watch what I do,” right before he went out. After the match, he came back and said, “Did you see what I did?” I said, “You didn’t do a fucking thing!” I think that whole thing was a work anyway — Matt and Lita were finished so they tried to make an angle out of it and work the boys. If somebody was fucking the woman I was living with, I wouldn’t have a conversation about what would go down in the ring. I would head straight over there and kick the crap out of him. Everybody lost a lot of respect for Matt after that. Edge kept his mouth shut, kept working hard, and ended up in the main events. I felt like they saw a platform to launch Edge to the next level, so they only brought Matt back as a stepping stone anyway.

  CHAPTER 34

  BETRAYAL

  After I was cleared to come back following my latest — but not final — elbow surgery, Creative finally had a decent story for me. They brought me into a storyline as the hardened veteran who was going to test the new kid on the block. This wasn’t my usual thing. I wasn’t just going to be used for one match to put the new guy over, this was an ongoing program. They were going to use me to help the kid to develop his craft and understand how things work in a singles or a tag match. The kid in question was Cody Rhodes, son of the “American Dream” Dusty Rhodes. I was going to be his mentor, groom him, and help him get over.

  We laid it out like this: in the first match, I would beat him. Then he would come back and ask for another match. I would beat him again. He’d keep coming back and I’d keep beating him. Each time, he would get closer to winning while trying to earn my respect. It was a good angle. From there, we built to a point where I started teaming with him and helping him onscreen because he had shown he was worth my time. He got to beat me in a one-on-one match at the end of the storyline, and we settled into a run as a regular tag team after that. I liked working with Cody. Because of his dad, I guess, he was old school and was quick to learn. I thought he was a good worker.

  Cody
earned my respect for his work and for his attitude too. Before our third singles match, we were going to do a segment backstage in which I would try to get him fired up. Vince came over to me early in the day and said, “Bob, this is TV. I want you to slap Cody. When I say I want you to slap him, I fucking want you to slap him.” I said, “You ain’t got to tell me but one time.” We rehearsed the scene but not the slap. Cody wouldn’t be able to take that twice. Vince came over and told Cody that we had to nail this because it was going to be played live in the arena. “Are you on board with this?” Vince asked. “Yes, sir, no problem,” Cody responded. So they counted us down, we did our promo, and it came time for me to slap him. I fucking cracked him. I slapped the everlasting piss out of him. It sounded like a shotgun going off. You could hear the crowd in the arena going, “Whoa!” Cody sold it and whipped his head back around at me, and I could see that his eyes were sort of glazed over. We finished up, and as soon as the producer told us we were clear, Cody walked out of the room for a moment, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs. About five seconds later, he came back in. I asked him if he was okay, and he said he was fine. Vince was pleased, saying, “That’s what I was talking about. Good job.”

  Our run as a team was fun, for the most part. We won the tag team titles from Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch and held them for over six months. It didn’t really mean a damn thing for me financially but I got a couple of pay-per-view checks out of it. Unfortunately, Cody wasn’t getting over like the office thought he would. Any time we tagged on a house show, if I was on the apron the crowd would start chanting “Hardcore!” or “We want Holly!” no matter what Cody was doing in the ring. Even when he made the comeback, they still wanted me and not him. He just wasn’t getting over. I don’t know why. I’d tried my best to get him over and not be selfish with our TV time. He threw that back in my face in the end. Before one of our matches on RAW, his dad pulled him aside. I had no idea what was said and I couldn’t figure out what was going on. I didn’t think anything more of it, and we went to the ring. We had been given seven minutes, with the idea that I would start the match and then tag Cody. He would do some work, tag me back, I’d do some more, and then he would get the win. I wanted him to get the wins because he needed them more than I did. I worked about 40 seconds at the start of that match and tagged Cody in. Then I stood on the apron for another six minutes. He didn’t tag me back and he got the win. I walked into the ring, got my hand raised, and said, “Thanks for tagging me back in — whatever happened to that?” He didn’t say anything. When he got through the curtain, his dad walked right up to him, whispered something in his ear, and that was that. I knew they’d just pulled a fast one on me — it was their way of saying, “We’ll show you because you’re over and Cody isn’t.” After that, I didn’t trust him anymore. I’d helped him along so much. It wasn’t right that he treated me that way.

  He wasn’t the only guy back then who let me down. During the run with Cody, I had been working on RAW for the first time in years. Ken Kennedy had moved there earlier in 2007. I’d grown close to Ken on Smackdown in 2005 and we’d traveled together when I was on ECW because they filmed the Smackdown and ECW shows on the same night. On our days off, we’d talk on the phone too. We had one of those rare things in wrestling: a real friendship. I was going through a divorce at the time and he kept me sane. He always told me that if I got into an argument, I should just leave before I did anything stupid. He got me through a lot of stuff. And it went the other way too — when he got suspended for steroids in 2007, he had just bought a house, so he was worried about making his house note. I offered to pay it for him because I trusted that he would pay me back. I knew he was good for it, and I didn’t want to see this young guy get behind on his mortgage. He said he was okay but if he needed some help, he’d call me. We vented to each other, confided in each other, we kept each other’s head clear.

  That’s why I was so puzzled when he threw me under the bus.

  My neck bothers me to this day. Everything changed because of my injury in that match with Brock back in 2002. My neck doesn’t move the same way most people’s necks do, so it puts stress on other joints. If I hadn’t kept wrestling, I don’t think I would have had any problems with my neck, but I wasn’t about to quit. Maybe I should have. I was given a lot of pain medication during the recovery process but I stopped taking it after a couple of months. When I came back to wrestling in late 2003, I tried to work without medication, but after about six months, I started taking them again. It got out of hand. About a year after my comeback, I realized I was taking them just for the hell of it, rather than to manage pain. I was taking Lortab and I was getting it legally, so my prescriptions were above board. Benoit had hooked me up with a doctor who was very liberal with writing prescriptions, so I was able to get quite a lot — far more than I needed. There was no one incident that made me think, “Hey, I’d better get off these.” I just realized I was getting out of control. It was very hard but I got off them and stayed off for a long time. As the years went on, I took some pills when I needed them but I kept it under control.

  In mid 2008, we were down at a show in Bakersfield, California. I needed some pain meds because my neck was hurting and I needed yet another elbow surgery, so I asked Ken if he had anything. He said sure and gave me some meds. He then said that if I needed any more later, I should just go in his bag and get them. That’s normal. I can’t tell you the number of times Ken came to me, saying, “Have you got anything?” and I told him, “Help yourself.” Everybody in the locker room helps each other. It’s an unwritten rule. The office knows it happens but they turn a blind eye. They know we need it sometimes.

  Later that day in California, I needed some more meds. I finished doing my pre-tape interview and went into the locker room. About 15 people were in there. I grabbed another few pills from Ken’s bag. He came in with Umaga moments later, so I told him I’d taken four pills and would replace them when I got my next prescription filled. He said that was fine and went about getting some pills for Umaga. I thought that was the end of it but then, a week or so later, a rumor started floating around that I’d gone into Ken’s bag without permission. I called him at home to ask what was up and he assured me that everything was fine. Next time I saw him at TV, I talked to him about this rumor again and he said he didn’t know anything about how it started. In the end, I got a call from Johnny Laurinaitis, asking me what was going on. I told him what had happened and he said that it wasn’t what he’d heard.

  I found out afterwards, through talking to John Cena and Shawn Michaels, the rumor had started when Umaga had told a couple people that I had gone into Ken’s bag to get pills. Ken never told Umaga that he had said I could and, when the rumor started spreading, Ken could have stopped it by saying, “I told Bob it was okay” but he didn’t. He’d been lying to me the whole time, claiming he didn’t know what was going on and then not admitting that he hadn’t squashed the rumour.

  It was self-preservation for Ken. Word had spread that I’d taken stuff from Ken’s bag and, when the rumor reached management, Ken could have got in trouble, so he stooged me out. You don’t stooge the boys out and you always try to help each other. Everybody knows this. Maybe Ken didn’t get the memo. All he needed to say was that it had all been a misunderstanding; he’d have got a talking-to and that would have been it. I guess Ken wanted to look like a victim. But if I was going to steal from him, why the hell would I go into his bag in plain sight in the locker room?

  Ken really kicked me when I was down. I’d told him a lot of things that were going on with me, with my divorce and everything. I needed him to be a friend and instead his actions could have had serious implications for my career. As it was, I got a slap on the wrist from Johnny and that was that, but it could have been a lot worse. I confronted Ken and called him every name under the sun. I even tried to get him to come outside and settle it with me but he wouldn’t. For years after that, I wanted to get even with Ken,
but now all I want him to do is look me in the eye and give me an explanation about why he did what he did. I doubt I’ll ever get one.

  There ended up being a rumor that I got fired because of this whole deal with the pills. That is such bullshit. I had another surgery scheduled, so we finished off the storyline with Cody and they wrote me off TV. We did a switch: Cody turned heel on me and started teaming with Ted DiBiase. They ended up with the titles and I got my surgery. It bothered me that Cody didn’t call to thank me for my help or to wish me well after my surgery. I taught that little bastard a lot, so his lack of gratitude bothered me. I hear he’s using the Alabama Slam sometimes these days. I’d like to think that’s a shout out to me but who knows? He hasn’t beat anyone with it yet from what I heard, so I guess he’s not doing it right!

  Cody’s heel turn was well done and got over, and it left the door open for me to return after my elbow had healed. After all, I was still under contract for the better part of a year. A few months later, I called Creative to discuss new ideas. Cody and Ted were getting a lot of heat, beating people in chickenshit ways, so I pitched the idea that I would come back to get revenge on them. We would do a cage match and they would beat me down, so I’d bring Billy Gunn in and the two of us would do a program with Cody and Ted: veterans against upstarts. They said they’d think about it but I didn’t hear anything back. Then Johnny called to say that nothing was lined up for me. I told Johnny about my idea — he liked it and said he’d go talk to Creative for me. I got a call from him later just saying, “Sorry, Bob, they don’t have anything for you.” Johnny had been one of my main supporters over the years. He told me he’d gone to bat for me in meetings all the time and so had lots of the other agents. They knew how long I’d been loyal, how hard I worked, that I was always on time, that I stayed in great shape and did exactly what was asked of me. Yet it all came down to “We don’t have anything for you.” That was it — I was done. I told Johnny that I deserved more than coming back to sit in the locker room, doing absolutely nothing. So if Creative had nothing for me, they should just go ahead and send me my release.