Death Clutch - Brock Lesnar [46]
My lawyers fought back, but the judge was taking his time in making a decision. You can’t tell a judge to hurry up “because Brock wants to know whether to get on the plane to Japan or not,” so during my whole flight over to Japan, I’m wondering if I’m even going to get to work when I land. I kept thinking how pissed off I was going to be if I had to turn right back around once I landed in Japan because the judge ruled against me and in favor of WWE.
The judge, however, never granted the TRO, and I wrestled on . . . and got paid for . . . the December shows. When I got back to the United States, I was told that WWE “formally withdrew” its motion, because they knew it was a loser. They never really wanted the judge to make a decision. In my opinion, WWE’s motion, like most of their threats, was just a legal form of harassment intended to make me lose sleep and spend as much money as possible on lawyers. I went back to Japan again for their major annual show on January 4, 2006, and did a few more shows after that. I’m sure it burned Vince’s ass that he couldn’t do anything to stop me.
I was a vengeful person for many years. “An eye for an eye” wasn’t just a saying to me: it was a way of life. In time, I’ve come to learn just how much this kind of negativity wears you down, but back then I wasn’t ready to accept that truth. My finishing maneuver in New Japan was the very same one I used in WWE.
In WWE, it was called the F-5. In New Japan, it was called “The Verdict.”
That was my way of sending a message to Vince and his geek squad lawyers.
I planned on kicking WWE’s ass in court, and I wanted the world to know I was still a top dog whose bite was every bit as bad as his bark, if not badder. Once the Inokis realized that Vince was not going to be able to stop me from wrestling for them, they went ahead and built their company around me. We were off to the races, and before anyone knew it, I beat Fujita and Chono in a Triple Threat Match to win the IWGP World Heavyweight Title.
One of my old coaches used to tell me that 80 percent of the things we spend our time worrying and having nightmares about never actually happen. We spend so much of our lives racking our brains about things that will never materialize. It’s all such a waste of valuable time, but I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t understand this until I got into UFC and focused on the truly important things in life. Back when I had to travel all the way to Japan just to earn a living, the sword was still at my throat, and it was tough to have a positive outlook on anything.
With all that negativity around me, it didn’t take long for me to get back on that vodka-and-Vicodin kick. Brad called me the other day to ask about this book, and he was reminding me of a match I had with a Japanese wrestler named Nakanishi. Brad thought it was one of the best matches he ever saw me fight, and we both remembered that I was half shooting on the poor guy. Unfortunately, that’s all I remember about the match. Brad remembers so much more about it, but when you’re poisoning your system with pills and alcohol, your memory is one of the first things that gets affected.
I can come up with a lot of reasons why I got back on that drugs-and-booze train again, but they’re all excuses. My back was killing me at the time, and I was in constant pain. I went into the hospital for an MRI and found out I had ruptured two vertebrae, which meant I was flying across the world to wrestle with a broken back. The doctors were telling me my situation was serious enough that they were strongly recommending surgery. No thanks. Not for me. I knew too many athletes who had back surgeries, and never recovered. I was going to