The Hitman and the Heartbreak Kid
Speaking of John Michaels' entrance theme, it was simply magnificent.
In the nineties, that is.
And I felt like I'd just boarded a train bound straight for that decade.
It might sound corny, but if I had to put into words how that opening hit me — not that anyone needs the description — it went something like this: a sound so passionate, so electric I couldn't quite name it, and then—
[Oh~~~ Oh~~~ John~~]
A woman's voice crying out John's name — and then the song he'd recorded himself kicked in.
[I Think I'm Cute~. I Know I'm Sexy~.]
"Khh — now that's the stuff."
Nobody in this country could pull off that song. I couldn't, either. Too damn cheesy.
That era's metal — whatever you wanted to call it, it was irresponsibly, gloriously hyped.
But the man who came out with it, John Michaels, looked utterly grave. He'd shaved off the beard, and thanks to that, he was completely restored to his original self.
The music of the Sexy Boy who'd arrogantly declared that he was sexy, and that he was nobody's boy toy. It was music only Michaels could ever have carried.
And pro wrestling fans — men and women, young and old — would all feel the same thing.
This is absolutely bad-ass.
This was John's song.
Just as the Beatles' music from the sixties still doesn't sound dated today, to those who knew the road this man had traveled, John's entrance music felt nothing short of glorious.
But what came pouring down was boos.
[Boooooooooooo!!]
The people of Calgary knew the history between Greg and John. They believed Michaels had played politics and buried Greg into the dirt — and they were hostile to him for it.
But in the middle of all that, I watched something strange happen.
"Huh."
The moment Greg lifted the microphone, every jeer from that packed crowd died at once.
He let a silence hang for a moment, and then at last spat out his first words.
"I hated you."
Two legends began to talk.
"I hated your guts. You made me a laughingstock, and you mocked everything I'd ever done in this business like it was a joke. I couldn't stand you."
Right. That's how it was.
Back then, John had branded Greg outdated, painted him as a man who couldn't bend to the new order of things.
"But now that I'm older, I've started thinking a little differently. Back then, I should have fought you your way — and beaten you at it."
But he never could.
What the era wanted, in the end, was a man like John Michaels.
The dawn of the provocative, blood-soaked Attitude Era.
"The boos ate away at me. That 'outdated' label you hung on me — it never stopped following me around."
"But before all that — do you remember when I became the first world champion?"
"Of course I remember."
"Back then, I wanted to be an exemplary champion, just like you."
Michaels said it with complete honesty.
"But nobody would acknowledge me. I lost the belt again, and that's when I decided I'd have to beat you my way."
And so D-X was born.
"But you never stopped hating me for it, senior. You doted on Rock Cold like a favorite little brother, but my way of doing things? Nothing but condemnation."
"I wanted you to set the example for the other boys. That's what a senior man is supposed to do."
"But back then, what I needed wasn't criticism. It was recognition. And from the man who'd been the best, no less."
The crowd couldn't even breathe, hanging on every word the two men traded.
What on earth had actually happened backstage in that era? Details that had been buried in mystery for nearly a decade were coming to light, one by one.
"So you hated me?"
Greg's voice trembled.
"I hated you."
Michaels nodded.
"But I never dreamed that beating you in such a cowardly way would haunt me for the rest of my life."
"If we'd opened our hearts to each other just a little back then... there never would have been an era of Rock Cold."
"No. Probably not."
Michaels admitted it without resistance.
Greg reached out his hand first, and Michaels took it after only a beat.
And in that exact instant, all three hundred eighty fans in the building erupted, overcome with emotion.
Incredible.
I watched the scene unfold, my whole body itching with excitement. And this was the kind of immersion they were feeling — even though we hadn't scripted a single line of mic-work?
The chemistry between them was enormous, no question about it.
The crowd reactions were undeniable, and the cameras were catching gorgeous frames of it all.
I'm dying to know what Bart's reaction is going to be.
I smiled at the thought.
A conference room swallowed in darkness.
A single video, sent over from the business team, was playing at the field operations meeting — footage one strategic PR staffer had unearthed while combing through internet reactions.
Bart Maxen, who had rushed through a root touch-up just yesterday to hide his white hair, was indifferent at first.
Then he actually watched it — and slammed his fist down on the table with a roar.
"What in God's name is this!!"
The sound rattled the entire conference room, and every team leader flinched in their seat.
His face flushed crimson with fury, he kept shouting.
"Why are John Michaels and Greg Hart doing that in some place I've never even heard of!!"
"Bo—Boss, that's..."
"I said talk, damn it! Now!!"
Of course, nobody in the room had an answer for him.
They, too, had simply glossed over the whole thing — 'a video dug up off the internet' — without bothering to check a thing.
But even that much had been enough to set off Bart Maxen's temper in a catastrophic way.
WWF never, ever speaks of another pro wrestling organization.
That was the iron rule. Pro wrestling exists in WWF and nowhere else — that was the stance of this world's largest and singular corporation.
Which meant that video, by flatly denying it, was in effect a denial of Bart Maxen's entire kingdom.
He had never once imagined that the legacy he'd spent decades building could come under an attack like this.
But it didn't end there.
The conference room door swung open and Bart's secretary hurried inside. In the frozen air, wound tight with tension, she leaned in close to his ear and whispered a few urgent words.
Bart could hold back no longer.
"GRAAAAAGH!!"
The old man surged to his feet and hurled his title-engraved nameplate straight at the screen.
And it still didn't end there.
"Goddamn—! That son of a bitch!!"
Hurling anything his hands could find, he raged against the reality unfolding in front of his eyes.
"Ch—Chairman!"
Finally, the team leaders who could bear to watch no longer dragged him down and physically restrained him.
It was an ugly spectacle for the chairman of the world's largest corporation. But this whole affair had scraped Bart Maxen's pride as a man — raw, deep, and exactly where it hurt.
I will beat Sin. For that, I need your help.
That was what Greg Hart had said.
Bart, who had watched the man for years, caught the meaning hidden underneath. Greg Hart was retiring after this Wrestle Imperium — and he meant to bring John Michaels into his final script and rewrite his own ugly mistakes.
Bart could not accept that the story he himself had created was being warped at the very last act.
The fallen hero, Greg Hart.
The ill-fated genius, John Michaels.
And now, through the scheming of one particular bastard, it was all about to collapse.
"Let go of—!!"
"Please, calm yourself!"
"Where is that damn brat?! Bring him in here right now!"
"Wh—whom...?!"
"Sin! I mean Sin!!"
Gritting his teeth, Bart went on a rampage for a good long while.
The facilities team leader who tried to stop him took a fist — the cartilage in his nose caved in. Only after the shattering glass left Bart's own hand streaming with blood did he finally begin to settle, sinking down into the wrecked conference room.
He sent everyone out, sat alone in the empty room, and made a phone call.
That damned voice answered as if it had been waiting all along.
"Yes, Boss."
"...What did you do."
"Not much. Honestly, this time I really didn't do a thing."
"Greg Hart and John Michaels, reconciling? And you dumped that on some two-bit website?"
"Sounds like it made a splash, though."
"If that had happened on my show, tens of millions around the world would have seen it!"
"But it wouldn't have been a genuine reconciliation, would it? Just a reconciliation you manufactured."
Sin chuckled softly.
"Getting many calls?"
"You—!"
"Journalists are awfully quick these days. Not five minutes after it went up on our end, the phones started ringing — and when nobody picked up, they turned right around to you."
Bart's ears burned scarlet.
He understood, then, that he and his company had been played, completely and utterly. Reduced to the follow-up story of that revolting little promotion whose life expectancy was lower than a maggot on a fly's corpse.
For one instant, the humiliation nearly brought Bart Maxen to tears.
"...Tell Greg. Does he really think he'll get away with this?"
"Oh, he will. Because right now, that head of yours is spinning like a top trying to steal this profitable little 'idea,' isn't it?"
"I, to Greg—!"
"Talk to me. Bart Maxen."
Sin cut him off cleanly.
"What we want isn't complicated. Just let Greg retire quietly, with the respect he's owed. That's all."
"............."
"And what do you get? Simple. More money than you're pulling in now. And prestige. Not your idea, of course."
"And if I refuse?"
"Why on earth would you refuse? You're a pro wrestling nerd! You know exactly how killer this script is!"
"You—! You son of a—"
"You'd pay any price to make it yours. It's history that suits your pride down to the ground."
"You, I swear—"
"Didn't you say it once before? Men live on dreams. Bart. I'm offering to make your dream come true."
Sin tempted him like a devil urging a man to sell his soul.
No — it wasn't even that.
It felt as though the devil himself had sold his soul to Bart Maxen.
Amid the fury and the despair, he felt that truth keenly, bitterly, to the bone.
"Pay up. And promise me. Do that, and we'll all come back to WWF and run this whole thing over again for you."
"We couldn't possibly do that..."
"Oh — did I give it away?"
That video, filmed at Stamford Wrestling, was about to spread nationwide through the internet.
Which meant re-shooting it inside WWF was a non-starter, an absurdity.
"Well then, I suppose there's nothing for it. You'll just have to collaborate with Stamford Wrestling."
Crack!
The phone clutched in Bart Maxen's hand shattered to pieces.
The veins standing out along his arm, the muscle knotted over it — they proved precisely how furious the man was.
That one thing, at least, could never be allowed. He could not — would never — acknowledge any pro wrestling outside the world he himself had built.
But events unfolded in precisely the opposite direction from what Bart Maxen wanted.
The best he could manage was a short-term contract with Michaels and the purchase of the segment's rights.
The method Bart despised above all others: buying it with money and power.
Even so, I wanted to give him genuine credit for that decision alone.
Thanks to it, we were able to walk away with exactly the result we'd wanted.
February's pay-per-view — Cold Blood.
Naturally, the spotlight there fell on the match between Greg and me.
The story of Greg and Michaels had already spread through every media outlet by then. So the people watching that match did so with a very particular kind of anticipation in their chests.
Cheers for me.
Boos for Greg.
But Greg no longer gave a damn about whatever the crowd sent his way. Neither did I.
Because the story was unfolding, beautifully, exactly the way we wanted it to.
People couldn't accept the behavior of that wretchedly old man. The crowd was convinced that Greg had re-signed his contract and was now trying to bury me through backstage politics.
Don't stand in Sin's way — just retire already. That was what everyone was saying.
[Boooooooooooooo!!]
Against that endless chorus of jeers, Greg refused to yield and locked the Sharpshooter onto me.
Back then, Bart had once said to me:
'If a major injury ever left you unable to wrestle again — could you put it all down and retire?'
A cheap hypothetical.
But it wasn't a feeling I could claim to be a stranger to, and that was exactly why I wanted to make Greg Hart's ending magnificent.
And to inherit his conviction, and carry it forward until the day I retired.
"GRAAAAAGH!!"
I screamed.
Greg's Sharpshooter had my knee locked down tight and showed no sign of letting go.
Face-down on the mat, I crawled desperately toward the ropes, but the strength Greg braced against me was simply too great.
And so I grabbed the referee by the collar as he leaned in to ask for my submission, and yanked him hard toward me.
A coward's act — one no wrestler the crowd loved could get away with.
[Yeeeeeeeeaaaaahhhh!!]
But what came down was a roar of cheers.
That was how deeply Greg was hated — and how completely I was loved.
The ref, thrown off balance, crashed into Greg's back and the hold broke apart. Amid the deafening ovation I rose, clutching my knee, and set up for the finish.
I gripped the ropes in the ring corner and waited for Greg, burning with fighting spirit.
The closing stretch of the match.
I tore across the ring at full sprint—
Snnnap—!
I took John Michaels' kick flush as he stormed the ring, and went rolling across the canvas.
[Uooooooooooohhhhhh!!]
The voices of a crowd in shock rang out, brushing against my ears.