Forgiven: One Man's Journey from Self-Glorification to Sanctification (46 page)

BOOK: Forgiven: One Man's Journey from Self-Glorification to Sanctification

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I hope that one day I will.

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Chapter 58

AND IN THE END . . .

What a great Lennon/McCartney line: “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”

I wish I could say that about the wrestling/sports-entertainment business, but I can’t. I gave and I gave, and I feel like I got very little back. But as I stated earlier, that’s the nature of the beast.

So here I am, in the back of my cd Warehouse — rednecks shop-ping, butt-cracks popping — as I come to the end of an unforgettable journey. Whatever happened to
Rope Opera
, you ask? Well, my masterpiece was placed in the hands of, again, two feminine males — not that there’s anything wrong with that — who just didn’t understand the concept. To them, sports entertainment was a hysterical slapstick comedy starring guys in their underwear who hit each other over the head with chairs. Guess what? Vince McMahon has a script to sell you. Me? I refused to alter my vision to fit theirs. I was never ashamed 337

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Vince Russo

to be in the business, and the last thing I was going to do was make a joke out of it.

So, what it all comes down to is this: to this day, I still am just a man trying to make a living to support his family. Whether it was at my peak of $535,000 per year at wcw, or my current salary of $250

per week, the money never really mattered. What matters now is every Friday night after me and my two boys, Will and VJ, close the store, count the money, turn off the lights and lock the door behind us, together we go to Applebee’s and eat $3 chicken wings. We’ll stay there til well past midnight, reciting movie line after movie line. And that’s simply what it’s all about.

Do I still watch the World Wrestling Federation? No — I can’t, and I can’t even tell you why. But I will say this — it’s just not the same.

It never will be.

Bizarroland was a place I will never forget. There were some good times, there were some bad — but if you’d ask me if I’d have done anything differently, if I could trade it all in, would I? The answer is . . .

no
. It is a part of me that will stay with me forever. It was a five-year run that helped me put everything into its proper perspective —

career, money, family. In the end, it was all about my wife Amy and my three kids. All the money and success in the universe weren’t worth my time away from them. Even though it hurt at times, I learned first-hand what really mattered most.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

!@#$% me — it was only the beginning.

See you in the sequel.

the end.

(I love writing those two words!)

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Chapter 59

STILL TO COME

(Written October 16, 2004)

That was the end of my original manuscript. The turn my life has taken since I typed the last word has been an incredible journey — the kind of journey you only read, or hear about. Definitely somebody else’s ride . . .

the ride that “could never happen to you.” But, it did. And today I live it every second.

I want to take this opportunity to set the record straight on a few things. If I offended anybody in this book, with God as my witness, I apologize from the bottom of my heart. My intention was to hurt no one, that’s why I spent months going through the original manuscript to assure that the severe ugliness was eliminated. However, the story was kept intact because I had to matter-of-factly show you Vince Russo, the old creature, for you to fully understand the transformation to this new life — my life today. I have no bitter feelings towards anybody I ever worked with in the wrestling business — not one — not even those from whom I’ve suffered great personal hurt. Today, thanks to what God has 339

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Vince Russo

instilled in me, my heart is overflowing with love. I just wish that the wrestling business in general could somehow, in some way, experience what I have experienced over the past year.

It pains me deeply to pick up books written by other wrestlers whose main agenda is to put themselves over while tearing down everybody else along the way. I just don’t understand it. In such a tight-knit fraternity, why is there such hatred, such jealousy, such deceit? My prayer is that one day, everybody in the business will care about those they are working with — care about their families, their well-being, their feelings and their lives. I almost sound like Martin Luther King here, but one day

. . . well, I’ll continue to dream, anyway.

As I finish up the final chapter of this book, I look forward to following it up with others where I can complete my journey in my own words.

Yet to come are my struggles — mental, emotional and physical — with wcw, and the love/hate relationship with a friend at tna, but most importantly what happened from there — the miracle in my life known as Jesus Christ, to whom every word I write is dedicated.

I look forward to sharing that story with you in the future, but for now, I’ll leave you with some advice . . . my favorite quote from the Bible. . . .

“At once they left their nets and followed him.”(Matthew 4:20) It’s that simple. See you on the second half of the journey.

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