Death Clutch - Brock Lesnar [33]
When we landed at JFK Airport in New York, we got herded like cattle onto a bus over to LaGuardia Airport, where we were supposed to get on another plane and head to Atlanta. Once we get to Atlanta, we’re supposed to take this little puddle jumper to Savannah. Once the crew would get to Savannah, it’s back to the same old monotonous daily grind again. Get your bags. Grab a rental car. Find a gym. Look for something to eat. Hope for some sleep, because you have to be ready the next morning to spend your whole day taping TV.
That’s when I snapped.
Nathan Jones had lost his mind a month earlier, and he was just minutes away from wrestling in his hometown in Australia. But the weird thing is that, when Nathan snapped, I kept thinking that everything he was saying made sense.
“Nothing is worth this stress” . . . “It’s all games, but then they tell you how seriously they take their own business” . . . “I just don’t want to be here anymore.”
So we land at JFK and get bussed over to LaGuardia, and that’s when I started drinking again. I was sitting at the airport bar, and I decided right then and there that I wasn’t going to get on yet another airplane and go all the way to Savannah. Why? So I could wrestle Bob Holly again? I had no idea what they had in store for me at the TV taping, and I didn’t care. I had enough. This was it. The end of the line. I was going home.
I got up from the bar, walked through the airport to the ticket desk, and bought my own plane ticket to Minneapolis. When I got on the plane headed home, I ordered another drink to celebrate, but they cut me off. I wasn’t happy about being refused alcohol, and I almost caused a major scene that could have turned out really ugly. Not a smart move on my part, but when your head is all full with this other nonsense . . .
Lucky for me I wasn’t kicked off the plane and I made it home. Those poor flight attendants. They could have blown the whistle on me, but they didn’t. I guess this is my chance to say “I’m sorry” in a pretty public way to them, and thanks for not making a bad day a whole lot worse.
I had it in my head that I wasn’t going to do the TV taping in Savannah. In fact, I was going to pull a Steve Austin. I was home, and I wasn’t leaving again. Not to go back on the road. No way that was going to happen! This is where I can say I really understood what Austin was thinking that day he walked out, and why I never took it personally. When Steve walked out, it wasn’t about working with me. It was about everything but me.
I didn’t want to leave because of Eddie Guerrero, or Bob Holly, or anyone else. I just had to get out. I had lost my faith, which happened because I had no family after being on the road three hundred days a year, and all I had was the Federation. How could I provide a nice life for my daughter if she never got a chance to see me? And what kind of financial rewards could I earn if I am slowly being worked back down the ladder? I was finally thinking clearly, or so I thought.
I don’t know why I got on my plane the next morning and flew to Savannah, but I did. I think Rena talked me into it. “Go to Savannah, settle up face-to-face with Vince, handle your business the right way.”
I love that woman.
When I showed up at the building in Savannah, the producer told me I was supposed to go nine minutes on TV with Bob Holly. I blew a gasket. I went straight to Gerry Brisco, and told him, “You recruited me, so I want you to know I’m leaving. I’m outta here.”
I wanted to tell Vince to his face, too. I had dropped the title to Eddie Guerrero so WWE could draw with the Latino market, and my match with Goldberg at WrestleMania is supposed to be so big the title isn’t needed to sell it? I’m supposed to crush Bill Goldberg at Mania in thirty seconds, but I can’t get through Bob Holly in nine minutes?
I remember watching Brisco look for Vince, and I was just boiling. Vince was in the ring with HHH, so I just walked