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This match wasn’t as good as the one I had with Rock and wasn’t the defining moment of my career that Austin had predicted. The body of the match was hard-hitting and solid, but the finish was a train wreck. It made about as much sense as an episode of Lost and boasted almost as large a cast. Ric Flair, Vince McMahon, and Booker T joined Rock and Angle in running in, each one making my win look more like a fluke, which was the last thing I needed. I needed all the booking help I could get to be a credible champion since my name value and status was far below the other three guys’. Instead I beat The Rock using his own finish after interference and then beat Austin by hitting him with the title after Jon and Kate Plus 8 ran in to assist me.

It didn’t help that the crowd was quiet during the whole match because they thought there was no chance in hell that I was going to win. But after Booker T hit Steve from behind with the title, I crawled over and pinned him to win the WWE Championship for the first time and became the only Undisputed Champion in the history of the wrestling business. But the fans were nonchalant and didn’t buy it even as Vince raised my hand and a blizzard of confetti and streamers drifted down around us.

It was the biggest moment of my career and the San Diego crowd was as silent as a fart in church—or however that saying goes.

But it was still my moment, and I was going drink it in slowly like a baby suckling on J-Woww’s teat. It was surreal to raise both titles over my head, and I still couldn’t believe I was the champion. I was holding the same championships that Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Ric Flair, and Ricky Steamboat had. Since my first match in Ponoka, Alberta, more than eleven years earlier, my goal had been to become the Intercontinental Champion. Now I was the first Undisputed World Champion, the only man in history who could make that claim, and it had only taken me 1,372 matches to do it.

I went through the curtain and looked to Vince for approval. He smiled and gave me a curt nod, but it didn’t seem that he was really blown away with my work.

Neither was I.

I found a secluded corner backstage, collapsed on a giant roll of carpet, and reflected on my night. I’d wrestled for thirty-five minutes straight and beaten the two biggest superstars in the world, and even though neither of the matches were bad, they hadn’t been the five-star classics I’d been wanting.

I wished I would’ve wrestled better. I wished the crowd had reacted to my victory more. I wished I had received a better reaction from the boss.

I wished—hell, it was pretty damn froot to be sitting there holding those two titles!

The company had given me the chance to be the man because they appreciated my work rate and believed in my ability to be a moneymaking commodity. Winning the titles was like a pat on the back, a reward for a job well done. I felt like I had just won an Oscar; I was Cuba Gooding Jr. after he nabbed the trophy for Jerry Maguire. Unfortunately, my own WWE versions of Lightning Jack and Snow Dogs were to come soon enough.

I left the sanctity of the carpet room and went back to the dressing room to find everyone gone. Roddy Piper once told me that the one drawback of being in the main events night after night was that when you went back to the dressing room, everyone was gone. After my first PPV main event, I realized how right he was. Nobody had stuck around to celebrate or congratulate me afterwards and I was literally the last one there.

But I hadn’t totally been snubbed by my peers. Benoit (who was still out with his neck injury) and Eddy Guerrero (who had been fired by the WWE for his latest relapse) called and told me how happy and proud of me they were. Chris went on and on about how I had won the title not only for myself but for all the wrestlers who had been told they were too small to make it. Rey Mysterio, whom I hadn’t talked to since I left WCW, called to congratulate me. Even Dave Penzer, the ring announcer from WCW (whom I had my first big heel moment with when I ripped the tuxedo