Excerpts from The Story of a Nobody, and the Pursuit to Become a Somebody




In just a few short years, one man became the master puppeteer of a multibillion- dollar industry, and the only rule was to conform to his commandments. Seldom would a wrestler dare carry a thought in the back of his mind which could be taken for rebellion against this dictator. Those who dared contradict the man were cast into the fiery hell of wrestling in armories and gymnasiums in Nowhere, USA for little more compensation than gas money at times.



Mom never seemed to find the right guy for her. In reality, she probably rejected a hundred guys who would have taken care of the three of us, but I think Mom feared stability because of her insatiable desire to rebel against the standards set by her conservative parents. Mom loved to party, so most of the men she dated were barflies— not the cool guy kicking ass on the dart board, either. She’d pick the guys who, of those who had jobs, would get off work and stay at the bar from happy hour till closing time every night.



My brother would sit by the cassette player and record all the good songs off the radio, and we’d sit around listening to them. He’d tell also dirty jokes and record them onto cassette. I tried doing the same, but my jokes were never really funny to anybody except me. They still aren’t usually funny to others, but I still laugh at them. I found more humor in my own bodily functions than anything. Don’t shake your head, guys. Tell me you’ve never giggled after you cut the cheese and I’ll call you a liar. I still think they’re funny. Free entertainment. Screw you guys, I still watch cartoons, too.



Growing up as trailer-trash, nothing was cooler than the thought of making a fortune doing something like wrestling. Had I been the offspring of a wealthy, happily-married couple, maybe I would never have been drawn to the sport. I believe the pattern of a person’s life is outlined by fate, with the person’s own decisions mapping out the details.



Mom could not be located and I ended up spending the remainder of the night in the police headquarters of some Denver suburb. They weren’t charging me with anything; the police knew I was just a scared little shit who couldn’t find his mother. Scared or not, I toughened up really quickly when they told me I was being put into a foster home that night.



When Manny stopped yelling at me, I explained to him that I was just a guy trying to get some experience, and that if he had a problem with his students wrestling, then maybe he needed to take his concerns to the booker. He threatened to kick my ass to remind me he was a tough guy and assured me that I would never wrestle anywhere ever again.



After a brief stare-down, I decided to seal my fate as a member of the U.S. Armed Forces. “Sir, I will put this mask on, and I will do it standing right next to you,” I said. “The only thing I ask is that you accept responsibility for my actions while and after I do so, even if one of us gets hurt.” Twenty-four hours later, I was on a Greyhound bus en route home with my separation orders from the military and a pending honorable discharge. I had to pay for my own bus ticket back to Kahoka.



I had reached an internal crossroads. With everything that had happened in the past few weeks, I felt like God was telling me wrestling was not the path He made for me. If wrestling is not the path God has chosen for me, I thought, then I’ll pave the road myself. I knew in my heart I only wanted to be a wrestler, but my mind was telling me to turn around. Both the heart and the mind want to navigate in the journey of life. When the two have different courses of action planned, indecision and doubt arises. My mind and my heart were trying to take me down two different roads.



Let’s look at your average stripper. She has a great relationship with her equally-dramatic, white-trash mother who takes advantage of her. She despises her hard-working father whose only sin against her was that he cared enough to be hurt when she fell astray. She either has three children she is neglecting or has had a half dozen abortions. She insists on being called a “dancer,” but she likely doesn’t dance worth a shit. She’s easily offended when someone says something negative about her step-above-prostitution job. She dresses like a whore, even when she’s going to the grocery store. Sprinkle the top of this fault casserole with her frequent drug use and her endless addiction to drama, and your basic stripper is one fucked-up chick.



While the baby face is on top, the crowd should be up—they should be cheering. When the heel is getting heat on the baby face, he should also be getting heat, this time meaning a negative reaction, from the crowd. When a baby face is down, the crowd will not stay behind him if they are not given hope that the baby face is about to come back. The baby face will do a move or a short sequence of moves during the heat, giving the crowd hope; these are called hope spots. The heel will then stop the baby face’s hope spot and continue his heat. Doing this brings the crowd up and down throughout the match. It’s called an emotional roller coaster, and it is what I wanted to master in wrestling. I never tried to do a thousand different moves in a match, but I learned, and some would say mastered, the fine art of taking a crowd on an emotional roller coaster.



Why is the outcome of wrestling predetermined? Because amateur wrestling is a contest, and it’s damned boring to the average viewer to watch. The general public finds the entertainment value of amateur wrestling as interesting as a television broadcast of some schmuck push-mowing his lawn. Have you ever thought about inviting friends over to watch a Greco-Roman wrestling meet? If you have, I’m willing to bet you are single and you own stock in Jergen’s lotion. Professional wrestling has evolved from amateur wrestling to a theatrical athletic exhibition. If it was any other way, nobody would watch it.



I lived for this moment. Even if just while I was in the spotlight, I felt like I ruled the world. I owned the crowd; they were my puppets. When I wanted them to forget about their own problems and give me the reins to their emotions, I controlled them. When it was time to bring the crowd down to continue the emotional roller coaster, I brought them down.



There’s always someone trying to be the tough guy in the bar. It’s not the guy bellied up to the bar, drinking draft beer and telling stories of his black belts and military medals of honor. Those guys are, for the most part, harmless and lonely. It’ll be the quiet guy who says nothing, just staring at his target. Those are the guys to watch out for. I haven’t met many badasses who’ll tell you they’re tough before they’ll show you.



I was mastering the fine art of making people think I was a determined, naïve, wide-eyed, lovable, all-American boy, just barely out of high school, doing nothing more than chasing my dream while learning the ropes in wrestling and in life along the way. Or, in simple-folks’ vernacular, I was learning how to bullshit the people. Once again, we sold out of my pictures, as I expected.



I certainly had my own internal conflicts, as Matt the man wanted to be humble and to be the same person he had always been, but Matt the Missile was a cocky prick at times. It can be hard for a young wrestler to differentiate between himself and his gimmick as a wrestler, but it’s a vital part of the maturing process.



My mom runs a karaoke business, and I am a keen observer of human nature. In the years I have been watching amateur speakers and singers on a microphone, I have noticed that a person can hand a mic to someone, stand nose-to-nose with him, and ask, “How are you feeling?” Ninety-nine percent of the time, though the person is inches away, he’ll still put the mic up to his lips and tell you he’s fine.



I spent the majority of the trip to the Fourth of July WLW show in Malvern, Iowa thinking about Steve Fender. An athletic, cocky new graduate of the Harley Race Wrestling Academy, Steve came across as an asshole to me. He looks like a prick, and I really thought he was one. I thought Steve was a disrespectful ass-kisser with his nose up Skippy and Malia’s asses. I would have liked nothing more than to have a reason to pick a fight with him.



Everything in this book is written as truly as I know how to be. I am opening my heart and mind and translating my feelings, memories, and thoughts into words. If the truth bothers you, I’m neither the author whose work you want to read nor the person you’d want to ask if your ass looks big in those jeans.



Right behind the stage is a small area with about ten guys watching the action on monitors and talking into headsets. Paul Bearer, Sgt. Slaughter, and Bruce Prichard were the only people in this area who I can remember off the top of my head. Prichard, the former Brother Love, gave Steve and me some final instructions and reminded us that the six minutes we were given for our match included Kaientai’s intro.



Some independent wrestling promoters are good businessmen and good people. On the other hand, most of them are pieces of shit, always trying to find a way to screw the workers over. I can usually spot an indy promoter when I walk into the building. Sitting on a set of bleachers as if it were his throne, barking orders to a bunch of hang-abouts and lackeys, the promoter generally loves the wrestling business enough to invest time and money into it but is selfish enough to use cheap talent and, in turn, send the crowd home unfulfilled and unwilling to buy another ticket to an indy show.



Japanese porn is quite a bit different than American porn. First, both the male and female genitals are clouded out. Second, Japanese porn star chicks make different noises than American girls. Japanese porn sounds are more like high-pitched grunts as opposed to the basic pleasured North American moans I’ve grown to adore.



Dozens, sometimes hundreds, of people approached us each time we went out in Japan, seeking autographs, handshakes, and pictures. Roppongi was no different. Everywhere we went, we were noticed, and it was really nice, for the most part. At times, though, just like being spotted by a fan in the U.S., it could be a real pain in the ass. I hate it when I’m eating or something and a fan won’t go away until I am finished.



The Japanese style of wrestling, called puroresu, is much different than the American style. The style is much more stiff and believable. For the most part I prefer it that way, though I think a couple of the guys go overboard and become sadists. Working stiff makes everything more convincing, but there’s not a whole lot to gain by breaking bones. I think once a person is working snug enough to make fans suspend their disbelief, there is no point in being more stiff beyond that point.



When Path Finder hit his stupid corkscrew suicide dive onto me as I was seated in a chair, he came down on my knee. Usually, this would have been my fault, but because I was sitting in a chair at the time, I couldn’t adjust much for him. I had been hobbling throughout the rest of the match, and when I got back to the locker room, Scorpio told me to sell the knee until my plane landed in the States. “Misawa is going to issue a press release saying you returned home early because of a knee injury,” he said. “A lot of people at the airport will know who you are, so make sure you keep selling. They can’t read in their newspapers that you’re hurt while you dance around the airport.” It’s believability, folks. It’s living your gimmick when you leave the arena, and it’s one of the reasons people in Japan believe.



I tagged out for a minute to think things over. I decided that, whatever was happening, I was going to get out of the ring as quickly as possible. Tim tagged me back in, so I finished Daniel with a fisherman’s buster and slid out of the ring.
Two Indian wrestlers were right on me, clubbing me in the back with stiff forearms. I stood upright and nailed the first young wrestler with an elbow to the chin, dropping him to the floor instantly. I blocked a punch from the second wrestler, fish-hooking him in the nostrils as I hooked my arms around his neck and face. I threw him to the ground and booted him in the face.



Juvi and I stumbled into our hotel between five and six the next morning. Our bus was scheduled to leave at nine-thirty a.m., so I just showered and got my gear ready for the next show. Our show that day turned out to be at Differ once again, and this time the show started at noon. I had assumed the event would be another early-evening show. Still feeling a little drunk, I began chugging water to sober up.



After arguing with the two girls for a couple of minutes, Scorpio finally sent them on their way. “Matt,” Scorpio lectured, “you gotta watch your ass. Those girls work for a massage parlor that’s ran by the Yakuza.” The Yakuza is the Japanese mafia, and they don’t fuck around. They’ll slice a guy up without hesitation if he crosses them. “Those girls wanted thirty-five hundred yen each to give you a massage.” Scorpio explained. “You’re lucky they didn’t have a chance to start the massage, or the Yakuza would be here already and you would’ve been dickless. I think I got everything in check, but don’t stay in your room alone tonight.”



So anyway, Bret was telling us the story, and I had just watched Shawn Michaels’ shoot interview on RF Video a few days before. I said, “Well, I have always thought it was a great work.” Bret assured me it wasn’t. Then he started talking about the “Hitman Hart: Wrestling With Shadows” documentary that was released in ‘ninety-eight or ‘ninety-nine. He asked me what I thought of the video and I said, “It was pretty decent, but awful onesided for my tastes. I don’t mean to sound disrespectful, but come on. Nobody’s perfect. The movie made you sound like the always-victimized, perfect angel. I would have liked it better if you would have taken a look at the other side of the coin a few more times.”



IWA Mid-South fans are different from any fans I had been exposed to before. They are as dedicated as any fans in the world, but different things make them tick than the average wrestling fan. Most IWA fans read the Internet wrestling sites and know everything available to the public about the business. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit intimidated by them at first.



Freedom of speech, press, and expression is important, but I believe in educated expression. If you aren’t an authority on a topic, then your opinion should be presented as nothing more than a personal assessment and stance toward a given topic. Learn about the topic before you claim to know about it. I don’t know about needlepoint, so I don’t talk about it. I don’t critique the work of needlepoint enthusiasts because I don’t know shit about what it takes to create a masterpiece of needlepointery.



Am I against all female wrestlers? Not at all. I appreciate girls like Miss Natural, Heather Savage, and Hellena Heavenly. They’re easy to get along with and they respect the business. They have taken the time to try to learn how to work. It’s the selfish ones who don’t care how bad they make the business look, that have no desire to improve, that I can’t stand. It’s the one who worries about breaking one of her artificial nails in a match; Excuse the hell out of me, ma’am, I thought this was professional wrestling for a minute. Toughen up or get your ass out of the sport.



Being the glutton I was, I began to drink heavily every night, even when I had nobody to drink with, and I’d sleep in until it was time to get ready for work the next day. When we didn’t have shows on weekends, I’d be hardpressed to go to a bar and spend less than a hundred dollars.



Harley has one of the greatest wrestling minds ever. He’s incredibly smart about the business. That’s not saying I always agreed with his decisions, and I know he respects me for having a mind of my own. When the way people are used depends on what is best for the business, the company, and the show (in that order), I have no complaints. When I see something I think is wrong, I speak up. We’re trying to make WLW look like a serious, competitive wrestling organization. If Bull Schmitt worked his way up to the number-one contender, why would Omori get a title shot before beating Bull? It made no sense to me.



I wasn’t in a whole lot of pain at first because I was so drunk, but I knew I was hurt. I lost feeling at the bottom part of my left arm to my fingertips and piercing pains shot from the base of my skull down my spine and to the point of my left shoulder.




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