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The World According To Dutch: My First WrestleMania: WrestleMania 11. Pt. 2

Posted: Feb 23rd 2010 By: CMBurnham

As I wrote about in Part 1, my participation in WrestleMania 11 was compromised when I suffered an injury to my ankle when I misjudged a step while exiting the ring in the WWF publicity event in Times Square in NYC. I didn't know it at the time but I found out later that I had sustained a hairline fracture in my ankle and even though it hurt like a SOB, I didn't want anyone to know it. If someone in WWF knew that I had a hairline fracture, they would have yanked me off the show. In those days, if you didn't work, you didn't get paid so I couldn't afford to NOT WORK. If someone asked me why I was limping along, I just told them that I just had an ankle sprain. I didn't want anything to jeopardize my WrestleMania appearance and even if I had to crawl to the ring, I wanted to be on WrestleMania 11.

By being in the wrestling business for so long, I knew from experience to "NEVER TAKE YOURSELF OUT OF THE GAME." Never. That's an old saying in wrestling. Plus my pride wouldn't allow it. I had been in the game for too long and since this was my first WrestleMania, I fully realized that it could be my last. That prophecy turned out to be self fulfilling as I never did appear on another WrestleMania card. But the knowledge and experience that I had behind me at that point prepared me for that. Wrestling is a temporary business and at this point in my career, I had already lasted longer than I thought I would or should have.

The incident in Times Square had happened on a Wednesday morning and I now found myself on my way home as I made my way through La Guardia Airport. La Guardia is always crowded...it's New York City and everything is crowded in New York. As I limped along, I felt defeated. I knew something was wrong with my ankle and I had already called my wife and told her that I had to go to an ER immediately upon landing. As with all HUGE airports, the concourse was usually as far away as it can be and my trip was no exception. My gate was two left turns past hell and down a mile. I knew I should have had the ankle looked at in New York and I should have requested airline assistance to make my gate but I didn't want anybody associated with WWF to see that I needed it.

My ankle was swollen and and warm. I knew what that meant. Warm is not good. Warm signals infection and I damn sure didn't need that. If I had known then what I know now, I wouldn't have gotten on the plane. Flying in a pressurized cabin with an injury such as mine is highly dangerous. What can happen is called deep vein thrombosis which can cause a blood clot that could result in a heart attack. But like they say, ignorance is bliss and I made it home. But my ankle was throbbing and I was determined to make it to WrestleMania 11 which was in 4 days.

I arrived home and as soon as I landed, my wife picked me up and we headed straight to the ER. 4 X rays and two hours later, plus a tetanus shot, I emerged from the ER with a prescription for anti-biotics and 30 Vicodins with the news I didn't want. I had suffered a hairline fracture and a severe ankle sprain...and all the doctor told me was to stay off of it. Damn, I can't believe doctors go to school for 6 years just to give instructions like that. Hell, common barnyard sense tells you to stay off an injured ankle or leg. I knew that and I didn't have to go to medical school for 6 years to come up with that prognosis. But always remember one thing about doctors...half of them finished in the bottom 50% of their class.

In just a few days, I had to pick up and leave again to head back to Hartford. I couldn't believe that I had worked for 20 years and never really got hurt in the ring and then for this to happen. To tell the truth, it wasn't my fault and whomever placed the steps out of position should have taken responsibility but I knew nobody would. Not only was my ankle hurting like hell but my little gonads weren't in the best shape either. Little did I know then but my embarrassing escapades weren't over yet.

So here I was taking Vicodins like candy which actually made me feel pretty good. On a side note, I had heard for years that wrestlers took all kinds of pain medication and all that but truthfully, this was the first time I'd ever taken a painkiller. After taking them, I wanted to kick myself in the ass for not being an ADVOCATE FOR THEM. I am not against the use of drugs, I am against the ABUSE OF DRUGS. Drugs were invented for a reason. I had never taken pain killers before but I could see quickly how they could become addictive For the first time in my life, I had an injury that was serious and I was taking pain killers to keep moving.

WrestleMania was three days away so I would only have something like 36 hours at home and then I was right back out there. Nobody knew the extent of my injury because I was fearful that WWF would pull me off the card. I really needed more time but time was a luxury that I didn't have so I had to get up and go. The reason I had to go to Harford early on a Saturday morning was I had to attend an official WWF FanFest function Saturday night, which was dinner and a show with SUPER WWF FANS who paid a premium price to get to sit and talk to the talent that was on the WrestleMania 11 card. There would be people there from all over the world. The UK and Europe would be heavily represented there as would Australia and South America. With the WWF, when they say they are global, they mean it.

What my purpose was for that night was that I along with Ron and Don would sit at the same table as the WWF SUPER FAN participants and more or less hob knob with them for an hour or so. The only way I could have gotten out of the gig was to tell tWWF management that I was injured but that was the one thing I didn't want them to know.

Usually, I like talking to fans but at that particular moment, I would have rather taken a bullwhipping at sun-up than to sit down with a bunch of people, that I've never seen before in my life and be forced to talk to them. Hell, I didn't even want to talk to Ron and Don so why would I want to talk to them.

But one thing about Vicodins...they take away the pain and make you more talkative. I don't know what I said that day but whatever it was, it had to be good because I was in a talkative mood.

For the first time in years, my wife actually went with me to a wrestling event. I wanted her to go because she was the one who always told me that one day I would make it to WWF. So I wanted her to be there when I made the show. She hadn't gone with me since the days in Louisiana where we worked so much and the only way we could spend any time together was to actually go with me on trips. I flew in on a morning flight and she flew in later in the day. She caught the shuttle to the Hilton or Sheraton or whatever hotel we were staying. WWF always picked up the hotel for the talent on PPV weekends. One thing that was good about the Hartford Hotel was that it was connected to the Civic Center and a mall too. So my wife felt right at home.

I ended up going to the WWF FanFest that was held at the hotel we were staying at that Saturday night and sat around and talked about a bunch of bullshit wrestling stories. Well, I talked about some bullshit wrestling stories. Ron and Don didn't know any. So, it was more or less left to me to entertain this panel of Mensa candidates that were at our table. Seriously, sitting around a table talking to people that you don't know is an awkward experience. Some of the questions you get are along the lines of, "Hey dude....is the Undertaker a good guy?"
No, he's a f'n asshole. Next. What do they expect you to say? Now I'm not trying to be geographically biased here but I'm from the Deep South and the people around our table were all from New York and Boston. Hell, half of them thought I was speaking in a foreign language as they had trouble understanding my southern accent. Truth be known, I couldn't understand half of what they were saying either. Since I was taking Vicodins, the conversation was basically pointless to begin with. I just started talking about a bunch of crap that meant nothing and went nowhere. Did I say that Vicodins make you talkative? This was back in the days of the early Smark movement but before all those yahoos left the table, I had convinced them that we were all hillbillys from West Virginia who had just left their banjos in the room along with our wives who were all barefoot. I could see I was getting through to them as I watched them blosson from imbeciles to idiots all in the span of an hour.

I hate hate and I won't tolerate intolerance but I think the people at the table sort of prejudged us. Prejudge is the root form of 'prejudice'. I've found out that when people find out you're from the Deep South, as all of us were, they automatically draw the stereotypical conclusion about you. One is that you're a racist and usually, another one is that you're sleeping with your sister. I always hated that one. I've never slept with my sister. At the time, I'd only been dating her for a couple of months. As you can tell, I had a glorious time.

My ankle had started feeling a lot better but started throbbing shortly after arriving at the function when one of the WWF FanFest guests, who was a big fat bastard from Boston, stepped on my foot as he was trying to sit down. He was so fat that he should have bought two tickets because I knew his big fat ass couldn't sit comfortably in one chair seat. The bastard had to weigh over 400 hundred pounds and would have fit in with all the other fat asses on The Biggest Loser. Bastard. It never fails to happen that when you have one part of your body injured, somebody or something is going to touch it the wrong way. The activity seemed to drone on forever and I tried to be a gracious and friendly representative of the WWF even to that obese idiot who stepped on me but I was in pain. But I soldiered on through it. Damn, I was f'n glad when that bullshit ceremony was over.

After the function, my wife and I had dinner in our room. It was all I could do to make it back to the room. Of course, my room was at the farthest end of the hallway. I kept telling myself that all I had to do tomorrow was walk 150 feet down a carpet covered entrance way to the middle of the arena floor of the Hartford Civic Center in front of 16,000 fans and stand there. That's it. All I had to do was stand there. Actually, I thought it was one of the greatest things ever. In probably under 10 minutes, it would all be over and I would have accomplished a long held dream...to participate on a WRESTLEMANIA card but most importantly, pick up a helluva pay day. Hallelujah. I hoped that my ankle would get through it.

I thought I would get a good night's rest but no, karma must have pulled its truck up in my driveway because at 1AM in the morning, my wife and I were awakened by a fire alarm. I limped to the door and looked out and heard a voice over the loudspeaker advising all guests to stay in their rooms. Famous last words, I thought. Bullshit, I'm wasn't staying in my room. My wife and I threw on some clothes and we took off to the lobby which was something like 19 floors below us and since we couldn't take the elevator, it was by...yep, you guessed it, by stairwell. We made it to the lobby 15 minutes later and we weren't the only ones who didn't pay attention to the announcement to stay in your room. The lobby was packed. There was a small fire on the 12th floor and we passed fire department personnel on the way down. So you can imagine how my ankle was feeling at this point.

WrestleMania 11 had a lot of entertainment celebrities on the card like Pamela Anderson who would escort Diesel to the ring in his WWF Championship match vs. Shawn Michaels. Shawn, not to be outdone by the big Diesel, was scheduled to have as his escort, Jenny McCarthy, who would accompany him to the ring as well. I met both of these ladies before the show. I saw Pamela Anderson's breasts enter a room at 4:10PM and 3 minutes later, at 4:13PM, the rest of Pamela's body came through the door. And I thought Dolly Parton had big kaboobs. She was very friendly and outgoing as was Jenny McCarthy.

Early on WrestleMania Sunday, I got up late around 11AM, due to the BS Chinese fire drill we had experienced the night before, and ordered room service only to be told that brunch was over. God damn, can anything go right this week, I thought? I thought that brunch extended until 1pm but they told me that they had a fire incident the night before that affected their schedule. I had a meeting that I had to go to at 12 noon for the run through talk with Davey Boy and Lex and Ron and Don. We were scheduled to meet in the arena to go over the match. The arena was attached to the hotel which was attached to the mall and it was a long walk. Damn...I thought...is there anything close in this town? My ankle was still hurting and everything I was doing involved me walking long distances to get there. So I had to walk from the hotel through the mall to the arena down to the floor area to the dressing room. The Hartford Civic Center was a beautiful building and as I entered, all the workers and technicians were all busy at work preparing the arena for WrestleMania 11.

At 12 noon, we all met in one of the dressing rooms of the Hartford Civic Center on the floor level to find out what was going on in our match. This should take, at the most I thought, about 30 minutes. Then I could get my wife, eat and be at the arena at 3PM for checkin. Tony Garea was our agent . He walked in and uttered these famous words. in his proper English accent.

Tony started out by saying, "Guys, you're on first...go about 8 minutes...Lex and Davey Boy need to go over. Come up with a finish and I'll be back later." That took all of 45 seconds. Then he left. I guess he went to grab a cup of tea. Wow I thought, I wonder how long it took Tony to come up with that brilliant finish.

Of course, losing the match wasn't a problem. We expected that. What turned into a problem was not how we were going to LOSE but rather, how Lex and Davey Boy were going to WIN. I had never much dealt with Lex before but I had heard that he could be difficult. How difficult, I would find out.

After Tony left, they started talking. And talking....and talking...and then they talked some more. It was only a 8 minute match so how much talking and planning needed to go into it, I thought. I was used to walking into a dressing room and saying...OK....let's lock up...get a little heat...I'll miss something big...you make a big comeback...wham, wham, wham...and then...WHAM. Got it? Good. Let's go. Many times when I first started, you never got a chance to even see your opponent until you saw him in the ring for the match. But I know WrestleMania is different but still, 8 minutes is 8 minutes.

How hard is that, I thought? But they kept talking and 1PM rolled around, no detailed finish. 1:30PM, no finish. I was starting to get a little irritable due to not eating and my ankle was starting to throb a little thanks to the Human Fat Farm stepping on my foot the night before. Everytime Ron and Don would bring something up or suggest something...Lex would counter with, "Why would Lex do that?" Or he would say, "Lex wouldn't do that." WTF? In Davey's defense, he was amiable and agreeable to most anything. It was Lex was blocked most of our input.

They kept on talking. I didn't say much because it was their match and they needed to work it out since they were the ones who would be working it. When something was suggested, Lex didn't like this or he didn't like that and when 2PM rolled around, Tony Garea came back into the room and looked at me as if to ask, is there a problem? I told him that we were getting there but I was embarrassed to say we didn't have anything or I should have said, Lex doesn't have anything he likes. But I didn't. Actually, Presidents didn't take this long to deliver State of the Union speeches.

Ron and Don pitched another idea and Lex didn't like that either. Finally, I spoke up.

I could see that Lex considered himself a notch or two above Davey Boy and all of us due to his days in WCW. That pissed me off. If he was such a HUGE star, like he thought he was, he wouldn't have been in the first match with all of us. I told Lex that that I didn't care what "Lex would do or would not do" but what I pointed out to him was that he wasn't the only one in the match and if he just counted...he would see that there were three other people in the match with him.

So I gave a quick suggestion...of how the finish should be laid out. Damn, it wasn't advanced chemical engineering, it was basic pro wrestling. Hell, nobody came to see this match anyway. We should have all went up to Vince McMahon or Jim Ross or whoever booked us on the card and told them thank you. This was a freebie for us. Fans came to see Taylor/Bigelow, Shawn/Diesel, Jarrett/Razor, and all the other matches. I would almost bet nobody bought a ticket to see our match. Hell, I wouldn't have even paid to see it myself.

I should have taken over the meeting from the start but didn't but I told them that we were going with a formula finish and if anybody had a problem with it, let's work it out and get it over and done with. My finish took exactly 2 minutes to deliver, go over and agree to. I wanted to shoot myself. We had just wasted over two hours going over a BS first match finish and Lex acted as though he was the Main Event. If I had known I would have been in that room with Lex "I don't like anything" Lugar for over two hours, I would have pitched that finish the minute I entered the room. Seriously, I've worked with some prima donnas before but Lex was the biggest one I'd ever worked with and I've always liked Lex. One reason I probably liked him was that I'd never had a match with him. Meeting adjourned. Thank God. I had just wasted two hours of my life that I would never recover.

We all had to show up at the arena at 3PM which didn't give me much time to pack, eat and get back to the same dressing room that I had just left. But I was on the show and I was looking forward to going out in front of a sold out Hartford Civic Center crowd for WrestleMania 11.

Backstage at any big wrestling event is a beehive of activity. There's a thousand things going on at any given time. To stage one of these events takes at least 200 people and that's a conservative estimate. 12 production trucks, signal technicians, production people, cameramen, audio personnel, video technicians, sound and lighting engineers, announcers, talent, PAs, seamtresses, hair and makeup personnel, agents, etc. I have often wondered how the whole thing comes off. Backstage, were all the talent who would appear on the card. Undertaker, Michaels, Razor, Jarrett, Bam Bam, Vince McMahon, Owen Hart, Yokozuna, Billy and Bart Gunn, RoadDog and others. Oh yeah, I forgot, Lex was there too. It was hard to walk in the hallways backstage because of the sheer number of people and things going on.

I didn't really see Lawrence Taylor that much because he was housed in a private suite with his entourage of advisors, tax consultants, other NFL players, attorneys, family, friends, ESPN reporters, NYC sports writers and assorted running buddies. I heard that Taylor's entourage that day was over a 100 people. Oh yeah, Lex came by himself.

There were a few more celebrities on the show such as Nicolas Tuturo and the singing group, who were pretty hot at the time, Salt and Peppa. I didn't really know who they were but apparently, a lot of people did.

Finally, the show started. I remember standing at the GORILLA POSITION named for Gorilla Monsoon who anchored the spot for years. As they played the National Anthem, I was amped for the show. Standing at the gorilla position was another big thrill for me because I had set a goal and I had accomplished it. The pain in my ankle was still there but thanks to modern medical science and chemicals, I was surviving.

They played our music and out we went. Man, I was almost there. After the hard week of falling into the oddly situated ring steps in Times Square, to hiding my injury to make the show, going through the Chinese Fire drill at the hotel the night before and going over the match for 2 hours, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Ron always went first....then Donnie and then I pulled up the rear. It's weird with twins is that one always leads and the other one always follows. It was that way with the Harrises. Ron was the leader of the brothers but Don was the one who was the most lethal. Don was the quieter of the two but Ron was the rational one in confrontations. Don usually dismissed rational conversation in confrontations and went straight to the jugular which meant at times, he broke a few pool cues over guy's heads. Ron and Don weren't the ones to get in a rift with unless you were on their side.

Ron and Don looked great I thought...6'8"tall and looked taller because they wore 2 inch lifts on their boots. Why would two guys who stand 6'8 wear lifts in their boots I thought? They were already legitimately 6'8". Then the answer came to me. They wanted to look 6'10". Plus, I might add, I looked pretty damn sharp myself. The arena was packed...and it was a great wrestling atmosphere. All I had to do now was stay out of the way and I'd be clear. We all got into the ring for our beauty shot and then Lex and Davey Boy's music hit and the lights went down in the arena.

When our opponents music started, I stepped out of the ring and stood on the apron facing the entranceway and held on the top rope while I watched Lex and Davey Boy make their entrance. I didn't notice it at the time but behind me, Don was hitting the ropes and testing them for his match. Just as Davey Boy and Lex appeared in the entranceway, Don bounced off the rope I was hanging onto and you can guess what happened? It knocked me completely off the side of the ring onto the ringside area right in front of the entrance and there I was, floundering around like a beached whale trying to make it to my feet before Lex and Davey Boy got to the ring. One moment, I was watching Lex and Davey Boy's entrance, the next moment , thanks to Donnie's acute sense of timing and his apparent lack of awareness, I was flying through the air like being shot out of a cannon and landing on my bad ankle. The only thing that saved me from complete embarrassment were the lights being dimmed. Of course, Ronnie and Donnie thought that my circus cannon shot was one of the greatest things they had ever seen and joked about it later. They even said that it was funnier than when I missed the ring steps in Times Square. I failed to see any humor in any of that. Bastards.

I made it to my feet before Davey Boy and Lex got there but I was lucky in that I didn't get injured more. Usually, when you're trying to protect one area, you injure another one but in this case, I guess God had punished me enough for one week and said have mercy on this child.

The match went on...and the finish came off perfectly. It wasn't like anybody jumped out of the ringside seats when it was over except me who was so happy that this monstrosity of a week was finally over.

I watched the rest of the show from a visitor suite where they housed all the families and wives which was catered and very nice. WWF always does a great job of creating a nice atmosphere for families and wives. Donnie Harris' wife, number 4 or 5, was in the suite and she asked me if I was OK. I said yes but that butthole Donnie never did tell me he was sorry. Come to think of it now, he probably did it on purpose. Bastard.

They had a Post WrestleMania Party at a restaurant right across the street from the hotel and even though I was still limping and, by rights, I should have been limping back to a hospital emergency room again, I made the party but for political reasons. If there's a party thrown in the WWF and you don't show up, then certain members of the 'heirarchy' take notice so its' politically wise to show up. I did and made all the obligatory handshakes all around, met Lawrence Taylor and his crew of NFL players like Reggie White, Carl Banks, Chris Speilman and Ken Norton Jr. Shook hands with Vince and Linda McMahon and ladies and gentleman...the story ends here.

It was a great experience, it paid well and the most important thing is that I made it through it. Another chapter in the World of Dutch that if you didn't know...now you know. But the next time I stepped out of a WWF ring, I made sure I connected with the step before I took the next one.

Next time...a short story about a confrontation with a fan in a Florida town that resulted in the police being called and all of us almost arrested. On the next THE WORLD ACCORDING TO DUTCH.

Tags: Dutch Mantel, WWF, Bam Bam Bigelow, Jeff Jarrett