Countdown To Lockdown (29 page)

10:25 p.m.

Maybe I should have gone to bed a little earlier. By the time I hid the eggs, filled the Easter baskets, and wrapped a couple gifts, it was a little past four. Then it was off to bed, where, try as I might, I couldn’t get my match with Sting out of my mind. Which is good. It means this thing is coming together in my mind — just one step away from
actually making it happen in the ring. I was always pretty good at visualizing my matches, seeing them in my mind, making them feel so real that I just had to physically make the action come to life come bell time.

When I was a kid, maybe eleven or twelve, I attended a town-run summer basketball camp for three hours every morning. Every year, Coach Stan Kellner would come lecture about “basketball cybernetics,” a unique brand of goal-based visualizations that he had pioneered.

To this day, I remember Coach Kellner’s rules for success:

1. See the picture.
   
2. Think the picture.
   
3. Be the picture.
   
4. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes.
   

Coach Kellner would ask some random kid in the crowd what his goal was. “Jump higher,” the kid might say.

Then Coach Kellner would bring the kid out and ask him to jump as high as he could. In one case, the kid could barely skim the bottom of the backboard. But after a few minutes of Coach Kellner’s cybernetic guidance — of seeing, thinking, being the picture, and not being afraid to make mistakes, the kid would give that jump another try. And I’ll be darned if that kid didn’t jump almost a foot higher, hitting the rim with his palm, to the amazement of all — the kid himself being the most shocked of all.

Maybe basketball cybernetics weren’t going to springboard a slow white kid with absolutely no spring in his step to basketball stardom, but for about fifteen years in the wrestling world (1985–2000), I certainly saw, thought, and became the picture a lot of times, and as just about anyone who’s caught my matches might have guessed, I really wasn’t afraid to make mistakes. Especially if mistakes had the potential to look even better on tape than successes. Kind of like a classic Reggie Jackson home-run swing — it was even more exciting when
he missed. So, kind of like Reggie, whether it was a clout or an out, I wanted to make sure the fans saw a show.

I was thinking a few days ago about the last time I actually practiced a move before a match. And I kept coming back to Philadelphia in September 1996, my “Mind Games” match with Shawn Michaels. For years, it was my favorite match, twenty-six minutes of pulse-pounding, innovative action, and to this day it’s probably in my top three. Shawn once told me that the match had gone a long way in helping fans see him in a different, more hardcore light, and I know it did a great deal for me as well. On that day, I practiced one move, just making sure I could do it safely, as I kind of had the guy’s life in my hands.

Some guys have a style much more intricate than mine — out of necessity, they’re going to need to practice a few more things, work on timing, make sure their opponent is safe. But for me, the lessons I’d learned from Stan Kellner were enough to see me through.

Unfortunately, seeing the picture, thinking the picture, and being the picture at 4:00 a.m. doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for sleeping, especially with children who are intent on catching the
Eastern
Bunny. It was officially 6:02 a.m. when I heard Hughie’s voice, talking about presents he’d already unwrapped, and asking his brother Mickey if they needed to wake up Mom and Dad before heading out for the big
Eastern
egg hunt.

The little guys seemed thrilled with their presents, too — a lineup that on paper looked to be the worst assemblage of gifts ever presented under the Foley roof on a major holiday. Two 99¢ gliders, a $1.99 kite, four Burger King value-meal Hulk toys, a couple DVDs left over from Christmas, and three stuffed animals I found in an old box a few days before Easter. Oh yeah, my wife had also bought them a couple of “green” coloring books, complete with helpful pointers on reducing one’s carbon footprint.

Sometimes my wife can drive me crazy with all her green talk and seemingly radical ideas about getting off the grid and living on the coast in some Central American country. But I think she’s onto
something when it comes to the food we eat and the amount of chemicals and preservatives we willingly pour into our bodies.

So I’ve been trying to eat healthy, even organic, trying to flush some of that bad stuff out of my system before
Lockdown.
Sure, I ate a little junk for Easter, but not too much, especially by my junk-food standards. But that gives me one full week to try to get things right, so I will be at my absolute healthiest right before deliberately putting myself in some mighty unhealthy situations at
Lockdown.

In no particular order, these are some of the steps I’ve been taking in preparation for this match:

1. Drink more water. I’ve been told I may need to drink as much as one ounce of water for every two pounds of body weight per day. Which seems a little excessive, especially if you don’t want to spend most of your day in the urinary position. But I am drinking more.

2. Eliminate caffeine. Caffeine started out high on my list of possible suspects in my extreme case of the dry mouth. By now I’ve deduced that the main culprit is the FX fog at the Impact Zone, but even so, like millions of people out there, I’d become a little too dependent on the world’s most popular drug to get me up for the day. So long, coffee. So long, soda. Hello, herbal teas and organic carrot juice.

3. Organic cleanse. By now, everyone’s heard these horror stories of people walking around with up to thirty pounds of undigested fecal matter sticking to their intestinal walls. Wow, that’s a lot of poop. I don’t know whether I buy it, but clearly there’s some stuff sticking around that I don’t need, so I’ll give these pills a try. My good friend, the actress Sandi Taylor, one of the world’s most beautiful women, recommended the Master Cleanse to me, but without mentioning the ten-day fast that is part of the program. So I may give it a try down the line, but I’ll probably need a little more energy at
Lockdown
than the Master Cleanse can provide. I’m sure Sandi will love being mentioned in the same paragraph as the words
fecal matter.

4. Adrenal support. Dixie Carter’s personal nutritionist checked me out and felt that my slow metabolism and constant fatigue were the result of sluggish adrenal glands. So I need to take some supplements (which are on their way), and adjust the way I eat. Rethink it, really. From the time I was fifteen I’ve had the importance of a high-protein diet drummed into my head. Some guys I know would force down over one gram of protein per pound of body weight per day — yeah, I’m talking about you, Kane. This new way of thinking would see a whole lot less of that type of thing. More fresh fruits and vegetables. Less protein. Don’t I need that protein? I asked. Yes, Mick, I was told, you would … if you were twenty-five and in the gym two hours every day. Which, come to think of it, I’m not … and I’m not.

5. Massage. Flush all those toxins out of the system.

6. Stretching. I was told this might be adding to my leg fatigue. I might not become RVD, who stretches more than any man I’ve ever seen, but it sure wouldn’t hurt to be a little more flexible. Which has got me thinking — maybe D.D.P.’s
Yoga for Real Guys
is the answer to my problems.

7. Secrets of the Kama Sutra. These ancient sexual techniques may actually be the fountain of youth Ponce de León searched for in his life-time. All right, I made up number seven, and probably couldn’t reveal a secret of the Kama Sutra if our nation’s future depended on it.

I don’t know if all of it, some of it, or any of it will actually work, but in a business where so much of success is psychological, it certainly couldn’t hurt.

Speaking of hurting, I had to abandon my hindu squat program in its infancy, after noting a direct correlation between the onset of the hindus and the onset of extreme lower back pain. Maybe it had something to do with my technique, which was kind of hideous when I observed it with the help of a full-length mirror at the Doubletree in Orlando. Granted, most of my experiences involving full-length
mirrors could be accurately described as hideous, but this was different. I’m not sure my legs really even bent all that much. My back bent. My butt stuck out. But that was about it. I’m not sure how hindu squats even got their name. Ever check out the quads on Gandhi? Not much of a leg guy.

April 13, 2009

Long Island, New York

11:57 p.m.

Eleven fifty-seven p.m. Probably not the best time to start writing, especially when my back is kind of crying out for a rest. But maybe I’ll put in an hour or so with the pen — see if anything interesting comes out of it.

I went to the circus at Madison Square Garden today — my first
time at the circus in three years and my first time at MSG since the
Royal Rumble
last January. It was a good time, maybe even great; taking in the death-defying acts, even getting to see the animals up close at intermission. Unfortunately, I kept thinking of the untimely demise of poor Chuckles the Clown on the old
Mary Tyler Moore Show
— the one where a rogue elephant mistook Chuckles (who was in the guise of Peter Peanut) for a real peanut and tried to shell him. I had no real way of knowing if such an incident were possible but thought it best to err on the side of caution.

I kept
seeing
the picture, though.
Thinking
the picture, too. I haven’t
become
the picture just yet, as that’s a trick best pulled off in Philly, on the night of the actual show. But I can really see this thing happening now.

Of all the conceivable roadblocks that could pop up, wardrobe would seem not to be of major concern. After all, I kind of wrestle in my street clothes — cutoff flannel, Cactus T-shirt, black sweats, sneakers. Except this coming Thursday, three days from now, just three days before the big match, I kind of make it a point to talk about getting out of the sweatpants and putting on the classic Cactus Jack black and white. And the classic Cactus faux-leopard boots, too. What, all this time you thought it was real leopard skin? It sure sounded good when I said it, and the promo I cut — the one where I get the heat on myself and feed my own comeback — is getting a lot of buzz. At least that’s what I hear. I’m not going to look into the buzz myself. No, I’m going to keep myself firmly ensconced in the bubble I’m in, shutting out feedback, negative or positive, from the world outside. I’m like former president Bush on the eve of war, hearing only what I want to hear.

Turns out I’m promising something I don’t actually have. No Cactus Jack tights to be found, classic or otherwise. And time is getting tight. So, I did what every hardcore, one-eared survivor of countless Japanese Death matches would likely do — went shopping with my daughter for plus-sized ladies’ tights. In case you didn’t guess, those tights aren’t for my daughter, who’s five eleven and weighs in around
a buck twenty. Lane Bryant? No luck. Danskin dancing apparel? No dice. Dick’s Sporting Goods? Don’t even think about it.

I’ll look for men’s black thermal underwear tomorrow.

My son Dewey actually had a date tonight. On the way to the theater, I offered up a couple of suggestions, time-tested secrets, really, on how to ensure a little in-theater physical contact. You know what I’m talking about, right? Yawn, stretch, out goes the arm, contact. Dewey had a better idea. “How about the popcorn trick, Dad?”

“What’s the popcorn trick?” Noelle asked, her interest apparently piqued at the mere mention of the move Mickey Rourke first made famous in the 1982 film
Diner.

Dewey proceeded to give Noelle a slightly more descriptive definition than I would have preferred, explaining how Rourke had slipped his … member through the bottom of a popcorn box, giving his date a little more than she had bargained for when she reached down for a handful.

“Oh, that’s gross,” Noelle said. “Like, what did she do when she found out? Did she, like, scream, or hit him?”

“Oh no,” I said, not particularly caring for where the accusation was heading. “Actually, he managed to convince her it was an accident, like an honest mistake.”

“Well, how could that be a mistake?” Noelle asked.

I actually weighed the pros and cons of continuing this conversation with my daughter before opting for a slightly more conservative approach.