Death Clutch - Brock Lesnar [45]
Vince loves to tell everyone how much he hates managers, agents, and especially lawyers, but he plays the attorney game better than anyone. I had to pay my lawyers in Minnesota, and also a law firm on the East Coast that was licensed in the state of Connecticut. It looked to me like WWE’s strategy was to make me go broke. Request more documents. Another extension of time. Another request for more paperwork. If they could spend me into a hole, I’d have to drop my lawsuit and come back on my hands and my knees, begging for forgiveness.
It was a smart strategy on Vince’s part. Hey, just the cost of living was hard enough to manage, but I was funding a lawsuit for my freedom. I knew I couldn’t back down, but paying all these legal fees was bleeding me dry.
I told my lawyers to cut a deal for me with New Japan, but the Inokis were leery of getting sued by WWE.
Oh, did I forget to tell you that WWE stopped all my royalty payments when they decided to sue me?
I had no income, and everyone was scared of the big bad monster WWE and their legal tactics. I can see how Vince beats all these other guys into submission. He almost did it to me.
I had to think long and hard about what to do next. Do I just cave in, suck it up, do what I have to do to make a living? Do I keep fighting this uphill battle, where I have to pay two sets of lawyers, against a company that appears to be intentionally running up my legal tab as a defensive strategy?
It took me a little while, but I finally made the decision to keep fighting. I could never look at myself in the mirror if I just tucked my tail between my legs and put up with the way WWE was trying to treat me. I had my lawyers finalize my deal with New Japan so I could have a few bucks to live on while I spent everything else on the lawsuit.
When I cut my deal with New Japan, I made sure to get Brad Rheingans in on it, because I wanted to use his experience with New Japan’s management to my advantage, and keep him by my side in all my dealings. Plus, I figured going to Japan would be a great experience. I’d pick up some excellent coin, eat some fresh sushi, have some good times with Brad, and deliver a great big “screw you” to Vince.
That’s how I entered the world of Japanese professional wrestling.
NEW JAPAN PRO WRESTLING
My first match in Japan was a Triple Threat Match against Fujita and Chono on October 8, 2005. It really didn’t matter who they put in the ring with me: I knew the Japanese crowds were looking for a monster heel. They wanted someone they could “ooh” and “aah” about, and I was going to be that guy. I was happy to be working and making money again, but my whole time there, I was waiting for bad news to drop at any moment. That’s the mind game a lawsuit plays with you.
As soon as New Japan started advertising my first match, the WWE lawyers tried to stop me from appearing. They threatened New Japan, and claimed they were going to get an injunction to prevent me from doing the match. Right up until the time I stepped on the plane to Japan, I was actually expecting my lawyers to call me on my cell and say, “Go back home, Brock, WWE pulled such-and-such legal maneuver, and the match is off.”
Lucky for me, WWE’s lawyers were full of shit. WWE never sued New Japan, and they never got an injunction to prevent me from working my scheduled match. But that wasn’t the end of the hassle.
I was scheduled to wrestle on a couple of shows in Japan in December, and then go back to work their big annual show on January 4, 2006. I thought all of the shows would go off without a hitch, because while the WWE’s legal dogs had barked a lot, they had shown themselves to have no bite. They made all these threats about forcing me to sit out the October show, and they kept backing down every time. I thought it was a case of the Boy Who Cried Wolf.
I was wrong.
Right before I headed out to Japan for the December shows, WWE filed what is called a Motion for Temporary Restraining Order, or a “TRO.” I wasn’t too well versed