Rich Rollins: A Life of Hard Knocks

 

            As a seventeen-year-old kid, the wrestling business is hardly where you would want to make a living. The pay isn’t worth anything, the pain is more than enough, and the people are usually glory-seeking jackasses on ego trips. But none of these things were racing through my mind as I stepped through the ropes for my first professional match against Benny “Titus” Taylor in the freezing Columbus High School gym in Chicago, Illinois.

            “Hey kid, you think you can take a German ‘plex from the top?” he asked me prior to the match. As a veteran of all of seven matches himself, Benny was God to me as I looked at him somewhat like the mix between a rainbow trout and a startled deer.

            “Sure.” I was in trouble.

            I must have ran the match through my mind a thousand times in the few days beforehand, picturing how I would steal the show in my first match ever. Oh man, was I in for a surprise! For starters, Dave Meltzer, a respected writer for a local wrestling dirtsheet was in attendance, and all the boys in the back were on their best behavior. Knowing that this match would appear in underground magazines all over the East Coast, I just had to blow them all away… or be buried by criticism right off the bat.

            “Monkey flip,” were the first two words out of Benny’s mouth as we locked up, and he shot me into the ropes. Now in MY book (and yes, this is my book), a monkey flip consists of hooking your arm underneath the opponents and literally flipping him over. Apparently, nobody bothered to tell Benny. Instead, I reached out my arm for “Titus” Taylor to grab, and instead of hooking it, he bent over and sent me high into the air with a surprise backdrop.

            BAM!

            I landed flat on my face, confused as hell as to what just happened. Instantly I noticed that a trickle of blood was flowing from my nose, as I had accidentally landed directly on it. “Great,” I thought. “Busted open in my first match, and we aren’t even two minutes into it!” All things considered, the night had gone pretty well up until then.

            Benny’s eyes were full of awe as he picked me up and locked on an armbar. “Boy, that was the best damn monkey flip I’ve ever seen!” were all he said. Even now, I don’t know what he had been smoking in the back before our match.

            Surprisingly, the rest of the match went off without a hitch. He delivered his German suplex from the top rope and got the pin, thus finishing off Rich Rollins’ first professional match. My exit was met with mixed applause as Benny stood in the ring, gloating. I never did see any review from Dave Meltzer after that.

            I had been training for almost three months now at Killer Kowalski’s school, the same place that such worldwide superstars as Triple H and Chyna had trained at. For those people who think what we do is a hoax, I invite you to sign up for a few months at Kowalski’s, you heartless pricks! Not really, because I honestly wouldn’t wish it on anybody who didn’t have the motivation and drive to be a pro wrestler, because it was bar-none the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

            To dispel any rumors, no, wrestling is not a real sport. I’m not going to blow steam by bragging that what we do is “legitimate,” but that doesn’t mean it don’t hurt like a bitch! Many critics believe that the majority of wrestlers (and their loyal fans) are nothing more than poorly-educated, beer-swilling trailer park garbage who fill their every waking moment with preaching on how “real” the whole thing is. In truth, if you ask any wrestling fan around the world, they would answer the all-too-familiar accusation of “wrestling is fake” with the all-too-familiar response of “no shit!”

            Wow, I didn’t mean to go off on a tirade there, but there you have it. If you are still reading this book, you obviously have some interest in what we performers do for a living. If you don’t, I really hope that you walk away with a new appreciation for our great “sport of kings.” Anyway, back to business shall we?

            As far as training went, I had it easy. Living in Chicago, just about anywhere you want to go is a bus ride away. Now, this wasn’t the original Kowalski training gym, but more of a franchise mini-gym that was occasionally visited by “the man” himself. Most of the time, the local kingpin booker and wrestler in his own company, David Finch, took the helm at teaching us the basics. As a bonus, he would offer many of the more talented of us small spots jobbing to his groomed wrestlers at local Chicago Wrestling Alliance house shows, the company that would eventually be bought out and turned into Primetime Wrestling. This was where my above-mentioned incident with Benny Taylor came in.

            For the next few months I gained valuable experience setting up rings and helped out with some of the smaller CWA shows for David. Fortunately, I was able to wrestle a few more matches against some of the more well-established of the Chicago group, even tangling once with Kid Wonder, the current Primetime Championship Cruiserweight champion. What I learned over those months was that not matter hard you tried, if you weren’t part of “the kliq” in this business, you wouldn’t go anywhere. Finally, I decided to pack my bags and leave Chicago altogether.

            Through the miracle of on-line contests, I somehow secured two ringside seats for the World Wrestling Federation’s WrestleMania XII event at the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim California. With nowhere else to go, I bought a beat-up old 1969 Mustang I found for pennies at a local junk heap and headed west for California. I had grown up idolizing the superstars of Vince McMahon’s WWF through the windows of local bars around my neighborhood, usually fighting crowds of drunken hobos to keep watching. I had also heard of a new start-up group called the Extreme World Wrestling Championship that operated outside of Los Angeles, so I figured that California would be as good a bet as any.

            “So, who are you gonna take with you to ‘Mania?” my best friend Alexander Johnson asked me. “You do have an extra ticket, right?”

            “Sure I do,” I replied, smiling. “I thought that I might sell it so I’d have some cash for souvenirs. Shirts cost almost $50 you know!” The look poor Alex gave me could have melted stone. Laughing, I assured him that he would be accompanying me to the Grand Daddy of ‘em All at the Pond.

            I’m sure we all know how WrestleMania XII turned out. I watched as my idol Shawn Michaels beat Bret Hart in over an hour of the most beautiful wrestling I had ever seen. Not only that, but Alexander and I both had a good laugh as Hunter Hearst Helmsley, the pet-project of Killer Kowalski, was crushed in under two minutes by The Ultimate Warrior. ‘Mania served as a great kick-off to the wrestling life I had always wanted to live, and it was the day after that it started.

            The phone in my single-bedroom apartment rang at seven o’clock in the morning, dragging me out of bed. “Hello?” was about all I could muster.

            “Is this Rich Rollins?” a high-pitched voice inquired, way too perky for the current time of day. “I need to speak to a Mr. Rollins.”

            “Yeah, you got me,” I replied.

            “Well, I’m a representative of Extreme World Wrestling Championship, and we heard you were in town. You went to Kowalski’s, right?”

            I was stunned. I had come to California to search these people out, and instead they found me. I almost dropped the phone. “Uh, I was with the Chicago branch for about four months. I only met Kowalski a handful of times, though.”

            “Great, kid! We want to talk with you about signing up with us. A few of our  scouts seen you out in Chi Town, and from what I heard, they loved it. Pretty lucky for us to have you move right to our front doorstep, eh?”

            I found out the man’s name was Gerry Warden, and we talked for about an hour. I was to meet with the owner of the company, “Extreme” Barry Lean, the next week at their gym in Los Angeles. My hopes were high as I proceeded to work my ass off in every sweat box I could find in my area, determined to showcase my best side to these people. I didn’t let myself down.

            Barry Lean was a fat man, to be as nice as possible. He was also Canadian, and had met with the legendary Stu Hart once on a tour of Alberta. We hit it off immediately, and ended the meeting with a handshake and a contract that promised me at the minimum $760 a week. I was to work their first show in September, and was booked a full schedule.

            My first EWWC match was against a man named Diablo. He was a lucha-style high-flier from Mexico City who was somewhat of a cult favorite with the local fans. He was known for his crazy daredevil swan dives off the top rope onto the concrete, and had suffered many late-night emergency visits to the hospital because of it.

On this warm September night, Diablo wanted to try a move that he had invented months earlier in a match against Brian Lawler, son of the WWF’s color commentary man Jerry “The King” Lawler. Most present-day wrestling fans would recognize this move as “Sugar” Shane Helms’ gut-wrenching Vertibreaker, a move that scared the holy hell out of any sane wrestler who valued the feeling below his neck. Essentially, Diablo would hook his arms around mine, lift me on his back upside-down, and drop me straight on my head. A Japanese wrestler had been paralyzed by a move similar to this years earlier by Yoshiro Tawakami, only it was called the Ganso Bomb then, and it didn’t require you to be behind the person performing the move. Quite frankly, I was scared out of my mind now.

            The Mexican Demon shot me into the ropes, and I caught his telegraph with a flying head-scissors. Taking a deep breath, I steadied myself as Diablo got to his feet and I set him up for a powerbomb, the prelude to his “big move.” He suddenly lifted me over his head, hooked my arms with his own, and held me upside-down in front of the three hundred or so EWWC fans in attendance. I closed my eyes as he dropped down, and before I knew it, everything was all over. Literally.

            Diablo had once again lowered his opponent too far, thus sending my head straight into the canvas with the full force of his body coming straight down on top of me. My neck didn’t break ala Sabu in ECW of ’96, but I had a pretty nasty concussion on my hands. I laid there as he covered me for the academic three-count, and then continued to lay there. That Mexican bastard didn’t even check to see if I was alright as he triumphantly marched back up the entrance as a medical team took me out on a stretcher. My first serious injury in the business, and in my first match with a new company. Things were going swell, I’ll tell you what (note sarcasm).

            Barry Lean was worried as I was wheeled to the back of a waiting ambulance. He squeezed my hand, and all I honestly remember were his words, “Sonofabitch, I’m sorry kid.” I was able to walk into the hospital, and after two hours of diligent waiting on the doctor to arrive, was diagnosed with – you guessed it – a concussion. I was told that at least two to three weeks would be mandatory to let it heal, and Barry flipped.

            “Three weeks?! When Worlds Collide is in two weeks! Doc, we need him,” were the only words he could speak.

            “When Worlds Collide?” I asked him, my mind still half dazed.

            Barry explained that a rival federation, the Extreme Wrestling Federation, had challenged EWWC to an inter-promotional super-card event, where a tournament would be held to crown an undisputed Extreme Champion. He was fired up about it, but in my current physical state, the word “extreme” didn’t sound too appealing.

            The doctor let me go, and I took a week off to get my bearings straight. Diablo did come up to me as I left the hospital and made sure if I was alright, so I’ll downgrade him from “bastard” to “ass hole.” I’m sure he’d appreciate that. Anyway, I spent major time in the gym, keeping myself primed and ready for the big event. I was determined to work around the concussion, and decided the best way to do that was to work slowly.

            It worked.

            After fifteen days, the concussion was no more. I had wrestled a six-man tag two days earlier, and ended up pinning a man who’s name escapes me at this moment. During the match, I had blown only a single spot because me head started throbbing, but I was fine after that. Gearing up for When Worlds Collide, I was training every day until I couldn’t move, ready to take on the world and let them know that Rich Rollins was here.

            There were sixteen men in the tournament, most of whom I can’t remember. But I do know that it took place at a sold-out stockyard, with a gate of about $40,000 and nearly ten thousand people. The sheer magnitude of the event shocked me, because I had never wrestled in anything so huge, let alone outdoors. The event kicked off with a bang, as a young talent named Kid Karnage demolished my good friend Diablo in under three minutes. I was so shocked as I watched from the back, because Karnage was even younger than I was! At sixteen years of age, this kid could really move. Finishing off the Mexican Demon, Karnage delivered a mid-air snap suplex… off to the top rope. The boys in the back honestly thought Diablo was dead for about two minutes, but the tough Latino boy got to his feet and hobbled away.

            In the third match, I faced a man named Buh Buh John, a fat man with a tattoo of a naked woman on his left shoulder. The interesting artwork proved to be very distracting, as he seemed to enjoy showing it to the crowd and getting a good response. I used his vanity to my advantage, and delivered a standing dropkick that sent him to the ropes. Coming back, I landed a float-over DDT for a surprising two-count. Now focused, the Big Man lifted me with seemingly no effort, and sent me crashing to the canvas with Emerald Fusion. Not relenting, he grabbed my arm and dropped three consecutive legs over it, painfully extending the shoulder socket.

            After about seven minutes of playing the rag doll, I had had enough. As Buh Buh John grabbed my for a body slam, I slipped around his back and delivered a bulldog, jumping off the ropes and forcing him to eat about six inches of canvas. Letting him stand, I bounced off the ropes and nearly took his head off with a superkick, dropping down and covering him for the win. The crowd seemed pleased at this upset, and cheered as I left the ring area.

            Backstage, I ran into a friend of mine named Johnny “Blade” Buchanon, who was getting ready for his match in the tournament. He told me that while I was out there, Kid Karnage had gotten into a fistfight with his partner and my former opponent, Kid Wonder. Apparently, Karnage had quite an ego, and had argued with Wonder about the eventual end of the tournament. Harsh words were exchanged, and it came to blows with Kid Wonder being the loser. He had left, and it caused a large hole in the tournament game plan.

            “What are they gonna do?” I asked Johnny. He shrugged.

            “Wonder was my first opponent. I think they are giving me a bye,” he winked.

            We both sat down and watched as Curtis Cloud and Yoshiro Nemata engaged in a stunning twenty-minute technical masterpiece, using moves I had never even heard of. I was still a green horn at this point, and watched with more enthusiasm as these two lightweights tore the house down with more reversals and near-falls than I could count. Yoshiro was the eventual winner, pulling through a schoolboy and grabbing Cloud’s tights for a thunderous win. I gulped as I realized that he and I would tangle in the second round.

            The tournament went on without much of a hitch as Johnny was informed that he would be Kid Karnage’s second-round opponent. The two of use shook hands and wished one another luck, as we both had tough opposition to overcome. What I witnessed as I watched the Karnage/Johnny “Blade” match makes me want to cringe even today.

            Things went alright at first, with Johnny taking the offensive and beating the Kid back with some impressive high-risk maneuvers, including a Frankenstiner that Karnage rolled through and got a two-count on a small package. Flustered, Johnny tried to tangle back up, but Kid Karnage got him down on all-fours in a quasi- high school wrestling position… and dropped his knee straight down on Johnny’s ankle. Even from the back, I could hear the sound of bone snapping instantly as Karnage broke his ankle clean. Johnny screamed in pain and grabbed his foot, but Karnage began kicking him until he stopped moving. Going to the top, Karnage delivered a moonsault for the victory, sending the crowd into a frenzy. People were yelling and shouting things at Kid Karnage that I won’t even write down in this book. And most of them came from me.

            I was the first person to meet Karnage as he stepped through the back curtain, smiling. Without warning, I decked him across the face and tackled him, pounding his head with my fists.

            “You son of a bitch!” I screamed, attracting the attention of many guys in the locker rooms. “Dirty little fucker!”

            It took about three guys to pull me off of Karnage, and once I was up he exploded. For the second time in one night, Karnage was involved in a legitimate fist fight, only this time with somebody used to fist fighting. The referees pulled us apart and told us to go away, but everybody in the back gave me look of approval. I spit in Karnage’s face before he was torn away.

            Johnny was helped to the back, and I immediately ran to his side. He told me not to worry, and told me something I would never forget.

            “Knock that fucker’s dick in the dirt.”

            My second round match against Yoshiro Nemata went by so fast that I don’t remember much of it. We ended up somewhere in the crowd, bashing one another with chairs until the fans actually pushed us back to the ring. Nemata tried his trademark spinning heel kick, but I caught it and took him down hard, locking on an ankle submission. As I held on all I could think about was Johnny’s ankle, and how badly I wished I was holding Karnage in my hands at that second. Before I knew it, Nemata had tapped out and my hand was raised in victory. I helped the guy up and walked out, the adrenaline pumping hard.

            As it turned out, the final round match for the title of “Extreme” Champion was Kid Karnage versus me, Rich Rollins. All the boys in the back were gathered around monitors, each just waiting for the opening bell. Karnage smiled to me as the crowd got pumped up, and I snapped. I speared Kid Karnage half way across the ring, driving him into the canvas so hard that I know I heard a “Ewaa!” come from his lungs. Furious, I grabbed the top rope for leverage and began stomping his face with my boot sole, each blow growing more stiff than the last. Finally, Karnage rolled away and outside, where he wiped the blood pouring from his nose on his shirt. I followed him, but didn’t notice until it was too late as he grabbed a chair and swung it, still open, into my skull. I saw stars for a minute, and realized two things: first, I was on the floor and second, blood was flowing heavily from my forehead.

            He took me around and slammed my head into the metal guardrail, then reached under the ring. What he pulled out scared the living daylights out of me, and I’m thankful I’ve never seen them used since. In his grip was a cheese grater, and the sick grin on his face was full of malice. He brutally whacked me in the head with the damn thing, but I didn’t allow him to actually scrape it across me. Rolling into the ring, I caught him with a closeline as he followed, and delivered a jumping legdrop from the second rope. The blood from my head was dripping to the mat, coating it with a slick red surface I could almost see my reflection in. I ascended the turnbuckle, ready to deliver another legdrop, when Karnage surprised me and delivered a dropkick that left me winded and sitting atop the turnbuckle unprotected. He hooked underneath my head and arm, and away we both went as he sent me crashing down to earth with a superplex.

            Crawling out of the ring, Karnage lifted up the ring apron and pulled out… a four-by-six-foot board coated in barbed wire. A quiet murmur in the crowd began to build as Karnage laid the board down in the center of the ring and whipped me to the ropes, his intent to backdrop me onto the wire. I halted at the last possible second and hit his face with the most brutal superkick I have ever delivered, sending a deafening cheer through the open-air stadium. Kid Karnage fell straight onto the barbed wire, crying out in pain as hundreds of barbs ripped his flesh. Somehow, I felt no pity for him.

            For the last time I climbed to the top turnbuckle, and stood looking at the sold-out crowd of 10,000 people rising in unison to see what came next. I took off as Karnage still laid on the barbed wire, ready to crush his skull with my elbow. But the Kid shocked everyone, including me, by rolling out of the way, causing me to go crashing into the wire. Pain shot all through my body as I felt my underarm tear listening to the collective “Oouaah!” from the audience. I couldn’t even move as a heaving Kid Karnage hooked my leg and pinned me to become the “Extreme” Champion at When Worlds Collide.

            I was through with the “extreme” side of wrestling. I was torn and beaten, and had suffered more pain in three weeks than I had my entire life put together. “Extreme” Barry Lean tried to talk me out of it, but I had to call it quits two weeks later when another prospect came calling: Primetime Wrestling.

            The feeling that I come full-circle was strong as I walked into the massive complex building that Primetime worked out of. I had remembered my days working for their small promotion in Chicago almost two years back, busting my butt in freezing gyms for the chance to wrestling in front of a crowd. That feeling was magnified ten-fold as I started with the company, quickly working my way up the ranks and winning my first tag-team championship with a man everyone should remember: Sammy Davis Jr.

            No, not THAT Sammy Davis, but it almost seemed like it. He was a slicked-back, black leather wearin’ badass who had heard of my exploits at When Worlds Collide. We met after my first week in Primetime, and became good friends and travel partners. I learned a lot from Sammy, as he was a veteran of the business and showed me many of the ups and downs that came with it.

            “Son, you’re one helluva renegade, you know that?” he told me as he watched the footage of my seven-foot swan dive onto the barbed wire at When Worlds Collide.

            “Really?” I asked, taken aback. “What makes you say that?”

            Smiling an old, wizened smile, Sammy said, “’Cause you got heart like nothin’ else, and don’t back down from nobody.”

            And a legend was born. Rich “The Renegade” Rollins and Sammy Davis Jr. became collectively known as the Rat Pack, taking Primetime Wrestling by storm and scoring the tag-team championships after only a month. My days with Primetime were good ones, and I had many friends over there, but the good times had to come to an end when Sammy and I split. He wanted to retire on top, and I couldn’t blame him. We had dominated the tag scene for three months, and had nothing more to prove. Sammy and I shook hands and he left, telling me that he would be, “keeping an eye on me.”

            Shortly after, I vacated Primetime Wrestling myself, not wanting to venture too far up the ranks as a rookie just yet. I wandered the independent scene for nearly a year, toning up my skill and generally learning the ropes. I hopped from show to show, headlining some and jerking the curtain for others. I ran across some good friends of mine along the way, like Johnny “The Blade,” who had healed his ankle and was working full-time as a wrestler/booker in a Southern territory where he grew up. It was while I was down South that I heard about the Cyber Wrestling Union.

            Johnny was an avid collector of information from federations all around the States, and had a list of his “Top 100” prospects that he’d visited. I scanned the list, and saw the Cyber Wrestling Union listed as #1, far ahead of most of the others. I thanked Johnny and headed out, ready to head for some major recognition in a top federation. All my dreams came crashing down when I arrived.

            Kid Karnage was the World Heavyweight Champion in the CWU, and seemed not to notice my arrival. I was shocked, and so were a few of the others who were already there. A guy named 8-Ball walked up to me and told me that he’d been in attendance at When Worlds Collide, and asked me if I had followed Karange here. I told him I hadn’t, and he shook his head in disbelief.

            My first match was against a man named Steve Blake, or at least it was supposed to be. Instead, I was attacked by somebody in the darkness before my match, bruised and beaten, unable to continue. Blade instead got a title shot at Kid Karnage. Even though he lost, something was very screwy.

            After a few matches and a week of interviews, I was instantly acclaimed as the CWU’s “hottest prospect.” Knowing this, I was confident as I entered a triple-threat cage match to crown the first CWU Intercontinental Champion against a Japanese man named Gigas and the GCW’s own Toxic. The match was a classic, as the three of us went all over the place. But the end was apparent as Toxic and I traded blows on the top of the cage, and I tossed him off the cage and onto the top of my brand new 1969 Shelby Mustang. He laid there, out cold, as I turned and delivered my new finisher, the Anarchist Elbow, onto a prone Gigas and my first singles title. It was the single greatest moment of my career at that point.

            Rich “The Renegade” Rollins, new Intercontinental Champion… it sounded good to the ears of all fans of the CWU. But it wasn’t enough, because there was only one person I wanted: Kid Karnage.

            Karnage had just finished up a bloody feud with Steve Blake, which culminated in a barbed-wire Hell in a Cell match that somehow involved fire, too. Karnage had come out the “winner,” and Blake disappeared to somewhere in Miami. Seizing the opportunity, I took my new Intercontinental championship and challenged Kid Karnage to a tile-for-title match. But unfortunately, Karnage had disappeared as well.

            Apparently, Kid Karnage had gotten into a political piss-fight with the Cyber Wrestling Union’s owner an operator, Nathan Krotzer. Things turned sour, and Kid Karnage jumped ship because he said “there wasn’t any challenge” in the CWU. My ass… he was scared stiff that I was going to destroy him in a long-awaited rematch.

            Instead, a new face entered the CWU scene: a Hollywood playboy by the name of “Blockbuster” Kurt Richards. In his first interview, Richards blatantly insulted EVERYBODY on the CWU roster, instantly penciling him out as a complete jackass. When Nathan Krotzer announced a huge battle royal for the vacated World title, everybody joined in. Richards and I engaged in a bitter verbal assault on one another, culminating in one of my favorite matches of my career.

            The battle royal took place on the weekly television show Saturday Night Slam. The crowd was jacked for the fight, and they got what they had come for. Nearly twenty wrestlers fought it out in a Royal Rumble-style main event, with a new man entering every two minutes. It goes without saying that it all came down to “Blockbuster” Kurt Richards and Rich “The Renegade” Rollins.

            We both abandoned technical wrestling early on for a pure streetfight brawl, tearing into one another like never before. I was angry because I wanted to beat Kid Karnage for the title, not Richards, and I focused that aggression in the ring to demolish my opponent. But Richards was strong and quick, and got the better of me, almost tossing me out of the ring with a backdrop. I held on and rammed his head into a turnbuckle however, and came back with a beautiful superkick. Reeling, Richards was easy meat as I superkicked him again, tossing him over the top rope and claiming my first World Heavyweight Championship.

            The feeling of that moment as the crowd chanted my name was remarkable, and it stands out as the single greatest feeling I’ve ever had. I clutched that World title close to my chest and held my Intercontinental title in my hand, tears welling up in my eyes. Triumphantly, I stood atop a turnbuckle and raised both titles high. A wrestling journalist later told me that I looked much like the Ultimate Warrior after WrestleMania VI, as he defeated Hulk Hogan to become the co-holder of both the World and Intercontinental titles. I felt proud that I was in good company, historically speaking.

            The next night, Nathan Krotzer stripped me of the Intercontinental strap, but that was fine. It was to be determined in a tournament leading up to the next big Pay-Per-View, Friday the 13th. But until then, I had a rematch with “Blockbuster” Kurt Richards to worry about as the main event, and he proved to be quite a handful.

            While the weeks until Friday the 13th ticked away, I decided to do something everybody would thank me for. I pulled in a few favors and talked to a few promoters, and I tracked down Kid Karnage to a small federation in Eastern Colorado. For the life of me, I can’t remember what the name of this group had been, but it had both Kid Wonder and Kid Karnage, and it seemed as though they had made up their differences. When I showed up, his eyes all but popped. When he saw the CWU World Heavyweight Championship over my shoulder, he almost cried. He was the Hardcore Champion in this federation, and I challenged him to a final showdown between the two of us, to be televised jointly by the CWU and his federation. He agreed.

            The only stipulation was that he got to pick them. Apparently he had picked up and new friend by the name of Vincent Extreme (no relation to Vincent Reed), and was given the idea of a Circle of Blood match. Basically, both of us would be enclosed by a ring of cars laced with barbed wire, the ground littered with broken glass. The first person who couldn’t get up losses. Karnage was confident that he would break me and destroy the good name of the CWU. But he was dead wrong.

            Unbeknownst to Karnage, I had hidden my Shelby Mustang within the ring of cars, and was inside of it as the match began. As Kid Karnage looked for me, I took off and hit him with the front of my vehicle, sending him crashing into a wall of metal and barbed wire. Getting out, the two of us brawled back and forth across the ground and the cars, with legions of bloodthirsty fans screaming for somebody’s death. Then, out of the blue, Karnage pulled off a powerbomb on top of a car, leaving me out of breath and in considerable pain.

            Getting cocky, the “kid” scaled one of the cars higher than where I was, and took off with a legdrop. When it connected, the hood of the car buckled and we both fell into the empty engine compartment, a tangle of bloody bodies. Karnage worked his way to his feet first, and the referee counted along with the fans as I remained motionless.

            “One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight!”

            At this point, I raised a hand.

            “Nine!”

            Grabbing the edge of the car hood, I hoisted myself up and fell to the ground, landing hard on a shard of glass that punctured my left palm. Wincing, I pulled the glass out and didn’t notice as Karnage cracked a two-by-four over my head, knocking me flat. Lifting me up, Karnage grabbed the CWU Heavyweight title and spit on it, rubbing his saliva in my face.

Enraged, adrenaline rushed through my body as I tackled the bastard and drove him into a tangle of barbed wire, getting him caught in the process. Grabbing a mess of his bloodied hair, I hauled him on top of another car hood, and climbed to another high point above his head. In a stunning flashback moment, I remembered how I stood above Karnage two years earlier, ready to drop my elbow on him and a load of barbed wire. Funny how things work out, isn’t it? Without hesitation, I took off…

            … and landed the Anarchist Elbow, breaking Kid Karnage’s nose. Rolling off the car hood, I grabbed my Heavyweight title from his fingers and held it close, watching as the referee made the ten-count. A great rousing chant of “Renegade! Renegade! Renegade!” went up as the ref raised my hand and handed me the Hardcore title, announcing Rich “The Renegade” Rollins as the new Hardcore champion. Smiling, I looked at the belt… and spit on it, rubbing the saliva into the cracked metal. With that, I tossed the damned thing onto Kid Karnage’s battered and bloody body and walked away. I havn’t seen him since.

            After avenging the CWU, I lost the World Heavyweight Championship a week later to “Blockbuster” Kurt Richards at the Friday the 13th PPV. If I wanted to be trivial, I could blame the loss on my injuries that had piled up in my match against Karnage. But instead I’m going to do the right thing and say that Kurt Richards is a damn good wrestler. He may have been a jackass, but he was a talented jackass, damnit!

            For the next week, Richards and I once again engaged in a bitter verbal war, setting up an epic rematch for the following PPV. The score was tied 1-1, and this would be the final showdown between the titanic Rich Rolls and Kurt Richards. But something very interesting happened along the way.

            Dimensioner and Excalibur, collectively known as the Sick Freaks, decided to call both Richards and I out on the floor. As the Tag-Team Champions, the Sick Freaks felt confident that they could destroy both Richards and I in a title match at Black Monday, the new weekly television show. The battle was brutal, and not for the reason you probably think.

            At first, things went very smoothly. I locked up with Excalibur, engaging in some interesting power/reversal wrestling. As I walked over to Kurt Richards… he smacked me across the face, tagging himself in.

            I was stunned. Before I could retaliate, he was already locked up with the Sick Freak, and the ref shoved me to the apron. Infuriated, I watched helplessly as Richards annihilated Excalibur, who tagged in his partner Dimensioner. As Richards came back to tag the good ‘ol Renegade in, I leaned in…

… and dropped out of reach, causing him to miss me completely. Dimensioner locked around and under both of Kurt’s arms and landed a sit-down slam that gained a two-count. Tired of playing around, “Blockbuster” Kurt Richards powerbombed the hardcore icon and pinned him, square in the center of the ring. The two biggest rivals in CWU history had just become the World Tag-Team Champions.

            This whole scenario had actually been a joint idea of mine and Richards’, as we were good friends backstage. We had sort of a mutual respect relationship that drove the both of us to work harder, always trying to outdo one another. The fact that we were “bitter enemies” allowed us to have a lot of fun as tag champions, always winning but always fighting with one another as well. One night in San Antonio, at Black Monday, stands out vividly as our crowning moment as the co-champs.

            We were defending the titles for the second straight week, and were doing fine until Richards slapped my back to “tag” me in. Finally having enough of it, I slapped Richards across the face, and we stared at one another as the live crowd went ballistic. In moments we were delivering blows left and right to one another, totally ignoring the actual opponents who stood perplexed in their corner. One of them tried to interfere, but received a double clothesline from Richards and I, who didn’t even break stride as we turned on one another again.

The referee finally sent Richards to the apron, and I finished the match with my elbow, retaining the Tag-Team Championship. I left the ring area without even looking at Richards, and the backdrop for the greatest CWU Championship match in history was perfectly set up.

Except of course, it never happened.

Many of the mid-card wrestlers had started to really get into a heated fight, mostly centering around the antics of a man named Foot Ninja (known briefly as Finger Ninja in the GCW). Now personally, I thought most of Foot Ninja’s interview material was funny as hell, but a lot of the CWU roster (as well as the owner) felt it was immature and had no place in his federation. They were probably right.

Although, I can safely say that Finger Ninja is the only wrestler to have sex with his own father in an interview, at least I seriously hope so. He did tend to go to extremes to get a laugh, and a lot of it wasn’t all that funny. But he finally stepped on one too many toes, causing quite a large riot. In the midst of all of this, Nathan Krotzer had been disturbingly inactive and didn’t keep in touch with anybody, pissing many of us off.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to bash Nathan here or anything, but I will tell the truth and say that he was horrible as an owner and promoter. Now in my book (and once again, this IS my book), a guy who promises repeatedly that he “will change” had sure as hell better change. Nathan didn’t. So many people decided to leave, including Richards and I.

We didn’t leave together, but the vacancy of the World champion, his number one contender, AND the Tag-Team Champions was more than anybody could bear. Nathan decided to contact some outside help to piece his failing brainchild together. And the man he called: Steven Caldera.

For a month Seven ran the CWU single-handedly, while yours truly took a well deserved vacation. The morale and quality of the Cyber Wrestling Union picked up immediately, and things started to run very smoothly. Upon his leaving, Kurt Richards had handed the World title over to Vincent Reed, who was the secondary goof-ball of the CWU. Reed had won the Intercontinental title at Friday the 13th, and became the second dual World/Intercontinental Champion in CWU history, following myself. But for some reason that escapes me, he was allowed to keep both titles. Bastard! (You know I love you, Vince! In that non-sexual way, of course.)

Vince was good champion for the two weeks leading up to the PPV, which no longer had a main event as both Richards and I had split town. Many people speculated that Christmas Chaos would be the biggest disappointment in CWU history, but instead it became the most talked-about event of my career.

The new commissioner of the CWU, Steven Caldera, was determined to make a difference. The main event for Christmas Chaos was booked, and Vincent Reed would be defending his title against a mystery opponent, announced to many groans from the peanut gallery.

“A mystery opponent?” somebody (who will remain nameless) I actually overheard saying to Vincent. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Wrestling seems to be one of those fickle things were you just can’t get enough of it, and it held true as the ring came calling after only about twelve days after my departure. I decided to try something different however, and came to the new commissioner with a brilliant idea.

“What if I gave The Renegade a new persona?” I asked Caldera.

“Let me hear it,” his enthusiastic response had been.

            “Well,” I began, my mind racing, “I want to give him a darker side, something people will truly cringe when they see him coming.” I knew I had to sell this sucker now, because what I had planned was quite a stretch. He seemed interested.

            “I want my new name for now to be ‘Netharedege’,” were my next words, which received a blank look from the big man. I explained that the letters used to spell ‘Netharedege’ were the letters in ‘The Renegade,’ thus tying in the character switch. Netharedege was the evil alter-ego of Rich Rollins, that darker side that never saw the light of day… until now.

            “I like it,” Caldera said, a smile on his face. “Let’s go with it.”

            As Netharedege, I delivered a series of vignettes that lasted the final ten days before the pay-per-view, depicting the kidnapping of a CWU cameraman into the bowls of a cave and held hostage by a quiet, unnerving figure. A symbol of violins dancing on a background of fire accompanied all the vignettes, and became the calling card of Netharedege. The cameraman told the dark figure that he was looking for somebody from the CWU who had disappeared. After about a week in this dark prison, Netharedege let the man go for no reason other than to tell the world, “death was coming.”

            When creepy violin music began playing at Christmas Chaos, and Netharedege stepped through the curtain in the main event as the mystery opponent, there was a collective sound of disappointment that is funny to listen to now, as I watch the tape myself. Reed stood in the middle of the ring with the strangest look on his face, as if he were trying to determine if I was mentally ill or something. The match was an Iron Man match, designed as the end-all-be-all between myself and “Blockbuster” Kurt Richards, but turned out to be much more interesting.

            Not a single soul knew that I was Netharedege, which I am thankful was kept secret. I wrestled for fourty-five minutes under a black hood, dressed in a black robe and sweating my ass off under the glare of forty thousand rabid fans. With fifteen or so minutes to go, I hit a superkick, and confused everybody by delivering the Anarchist Elbow from the top rope, gaining the first pinfall. With a huge grin on my face, I ripped off the mask…

            “IT’S THE RENEGADE!” I remember hearing Chuck Leonard scream from the announcer’s table as the whole building shook with the reaction from the fans. I swear, I have never felt anything that powerful in my life, and the sheer volume of the roaring was overwhelming. Vincent Reed went white as a ghost, but quickly got over it and fought back hard, gaining his first pinfall with about eight minutes to go.

            As the score was tied, everybody was on the edge of their seat as Vincent Reed and I waged war inside the ring, pulling off the most spectacular technical work of my career. Reed fought on valiantly, but he just didn’t have the power to kick out as I superkicked him again, gaining my second pinfall of the match. With two minutes to go, Reed pulled out all the stops and took me to my limit as he tried to hold on to his title.

            With seven seconds to go, Reed hit his signature move, the Pump Handle Slam, and covered me. The crowd was going nuts as the referee raced the clock and counted the almost-three count immortalized in history in the CWU archives.

 

            “ONE!”

 

            5…4…3...

 

            “TWO!”

 

            2…1…

 

            BEEP!

            “THREE!”

 

            The live audience was as confused as we were in the ring as the match came to a close, unsure of the result. The referee ran to the ring announcer and spoke with him for what seemed like an eternity, and then I heard it.

            “The winner… and NEW World Heavyweight Champion…”

            The reaction from the fans was the most interesting thing I’d ever heard in my life. They were booing me out of the building! As the referee handed me the title and raised my hand, I had to duck as a cup full of beer flew past my head. Rich “The Renegade” Rollins, two-time CWU World Heavyweight Champion, had just become a heel. And he loved every minutes of it.

            To be honest, being a heel is a lot harder than being a babyface, mostly because you really have to think up good material to use that would signify a “bad guy” attitude. If you don’t do it right, you come off as a “bad ass,” not a heel. I am able to proudly state that as a heel, The Renegade could really shine and show off another side of himself that had not yet been seen before. I was hated more than anybody else in the history of the CWU, and was considered a sell-out by my most long-term fans. Despite my heelish ways, I still refused to ally myself with the diabolical Commissioner Caldera and his group of wrestlers he had brought in from the ACWF, a rival federation that had just gone under. The remainder of the Caldera-Era CWU, as we like to call it, was spent in the terrific ACWF vs. CWU feud that spanned for over two months and culminated in Steven Caldera becoming the World Champion… and the President of the CWU.

            And let’s not forget the fact that yours truly took a twelve-foot swan dive through a Hell in the Cell-type cage, courtesy of the return of “Blockbuster” Kurt Richards. But if you want to read about that, read Richard’s damn book.

 

 

                 About the Author:

                         Andrew Delling, the mind behind Rich “The Renegade” Rollins, lives in Wichita, KS. He’s a Virgo and single, so come and get ‘em, ladies! He is as “hardcore” as writers come, and plans to continue typing until his fingers rot off from exhaustion. Always ready for a challenge, he is proud to have created such a legacy with Rich Rollins, and plans to keep bringing E-Wrestling the best there is.