Update

Well, well, well...where to start? Once again, it seems like forever since I updated my site. An awful lot has taken place since I last sat down with my laptop....and most of it has been good. It's good to be the KING, and it's even better to be the KING and be back in the World Wrestling Federation! First, let me say "Thanks" to everyone who has e-mailed me with congratulations and well wishes on my return to the WWF...there have been thousands of you. And to the thousands of fans who have greeted me enthusiastically when I have walked down the ramp at the live WWF events I have worked since my return....it has been exciting to say the least. By now, most of you know that back in October of last year, I was touring Australia with an organization called World Wrestling Allstars, along with stars like Jeff Jarrett, Buff Bagwell, Roaddog, and Bret Hart. Then, less than two weeks later, I had signed on to wrestle and commentate for the XWF in Orlando, Florida, at Universal Studios, with such stars as Hulk Hogan, Jimmy Hart, Curt Henning, and the Road Warriors. And on the same day we were shooting tv shows for the XWF, the World Wrestling Federation called and said they thought the timing was right for me to return to witness the end of the "Alliance." Needless to say, my head was spinning...I was about to become the first ever wrestler to be under contract to three separate organizations in less than a month! Of course, if you know anything about contracts and legal issues, you know that what I am talking about would be impossible without some major cooperation. I can't say enough about the honesty and professionalism of the people associated with the XWF. I was legally under contract to them for a period of at least 90 days and had they not honored their word and let me out of that obligation, I would not have been able to sign with the WWF. But as I said earlier, most of the things that have happened to me lately have been good, and I can honestly say that each of the organizations that I was associated with were first rate all the way, and I enjoyed my stay in each of them. I wish everyone associated with the WWA and the XWF nothing but the best and I honestly believe that both of these companies have the potential to be very, very successful. And that brings us to the WWF!

When was the last update??? Anyone remember?? I know, it’s been a long time. A long, long time. And, yes, I do get your e-mails everyday asking for a new update. And I do read each and every one of my e-mails. But sometimes it is very difficult to find the time to sit down in front on this computer and put my thoughts into words. I really admire people like Jim Ross who have the discipline to make sure they turn out writings like the "Ross Report" each and every week without fail, and on time as well. Somehow, I just can’t seem to do that. So for now, we’ll just have to settle for the best that I can do....an update, whenever I can do one. Right now I am sitting at the WWF TV headquarters in Stamford, CT. It is twenty till one in the morning and I am waiting to do some voice over fixes on this weeks Smackdown show that will air tomorrow night...well, actually, tonight! My co-host, Michael Cole is on the Asia tour that left yesterday and that leaves me here in Stamford to do the stuff that he usually takes care of. I hope to be finished sometime around 3 in the morning, which will be just in time to make it back to the hotel where my car will pick me up at 3:45 am and take me to New York’s Laguardia Airport where I will catch a 6 am flight home to Memphis. Ahh, the glamorous life of a WWF Superstar! There’s nothing quite like it. People don’t realize the grueling schedule that most of the WWF wrestlers and production people keep. You just see the great performances put on in front of the cameras...but behind the scenes, there is a tremendous amount of travel and hard work. But I don’t think any of them would trade it for anything. I know I wouldn’t.....Hey, wait a minute...I did, didn’t I? I traded the WWF Superstar lifestyle for the honor of a woman I loved...only to have that very same woman leave me six months later. How smart was I??? For nine long months I was away from the WWF, and during the last three months of that I was alone for the first time in my life. I think most of you who have checked out my website and updates know that it was the worst of times for the King. Thank God for my friends and family and you fans out there who consoled me and helped me get through something I thought I wasn’t going to make it through. I must admit that the months after Stacy left me were a whirlwind of pain and confusion in which I tried to stay as busy as possible to keep my mind off my personal problems. In the month of July, 2001, I wrestled in Nashville for promoter Bert Prentice. Appeared at a sports card collectors show in Houston for Tri Star Productions. Signed autographs at a sports card store in Red Bank, New Jersey. Wrestled on independent shows in Ravenna, Ohio, Wilmington, Delaware, and Wildwood, New Jersey. Played on my softball team every Thursday night of the month....and then I really got busy! August saw me wrestle at the Fair in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Do an autograph signing at a sports memorabilia store in Orlando, Florida, and one in Tampa, Florida. Wrestle at the old ECW arena in Philadelphia. Wrestle again in Wildwood, NJ, also in York, Pennsylvania for Darren Wise. Do a video shoot in Atlanta for a home video to be sold in England. Appear on TNN’s "Pop Across America" television show shot in Memphis. Appear on Comedy Central’s Insomniac Theatre. Unveiled a new ARCA/NASCAR race car with my picture and logo on it. Wrestled in Ocean City, MD. And my softball team won a doubleheader in the City Tournament to win our League Championship! September was a little lighter schedule...thank goodness! I started the month out wrestling on a show in Gallup, New Mexico along with Chyna and Grand Master Sexay. Got to attend and actually "start" two NASCAR races that my car ran in, one in Duquain, IL. and one in Salem, IN. Wrestled at the Savannah, TN fair, and then at the end of the month, spent 11 days appearing, along with my racecar, at the Mid South Fair in my hometown of Memphis. October cranked up again with a really full schedule. I did an autograph session with several NASCAR drivers before the Sam’s Town 250 Race in Memphis. Traveled to Trinidad to work a match with Buff Bagwell. Wrestled in Little Rock, Arkansas, against an opponent who was managed by one of my all time favorite wrestlers...a guy who I used to go and cheer for when I was in high school...Crazy Luke Graham! I made two appearances for Acclaim Video’s new wrestling video game, "Legends Of Wrestling." One in New York, and one in Las Vegas. And then I spent the last 13 days of the month wrestling for the WWA in Australia. As most of you know, I really enjoyed that experience, and highly recommend visiting the beautiful country of Australia to anyone. In the first part of November, I wrestled on three different shows in Maryland, did a personal appearance with my racecar in Ripley, TN. and once again started taping our Saturday morning wrestling show that is on WMC TV5 in Memphis. On November 12th, I headed for Tampa Florida and Universal Studios to work with the XWF and my old pal, Jimmy Hart. It was while I was in Florida at these tapings that the call came from the WWF. Now keep in mind that throughout this entire time of traveling and wrestling all over the world...what I actually was doing, was, "Desperately Seeking Stacy." I called her, I wrote her, I poured my heart out on the internet hoping that she would read it, but to no avail. She wouldn’t reconsider and come back. She had a new man and a new life and she was gone. And it’s taken a long time for me to realize it, but she is gone for good. We are still in the midst of divorce proceedings and I really don’t know when all that will end. I will never forget one of the e-mails that I received from Stacy in which she said..."You need to go out and find someone new, someone you can have fun with. Don’t sit around waiting for me to come back, because I am not coming back. There is nothing you can do or say that will ever make me come back." Well, at first I tried that. I tried to meet as many women as I could. I have never done the club scene in my life. I don’t drink, smoke, or dance, so I always figured I would be out of place in a club or bar. I was right. I tried clubs, simply because that was the only place I thought there would be a lot of girls. I had friends introduce me to girls they knew. I had a friend in Hollywood actually hold a casting call for a valet for me. I had a model search in Memphis to find a co-host for our TV show for me. And I did meet some girls. I even hired some of them to work with me as a valet on some shows. But it seemed that all I wound up doing was comparing every girl I met to Stacy. This girl didn’t look like Stacy, that girl didn’t feel like Stacy, so I was having no luck whatsoever. After 12 years of being with Stacy, there was not only a love, but a familiarity, and a comfort zone that I was so used to that I felt I needed to replace. I realized that I wasn’t going to be content unless I found another "Stacy"...someone who looked and acted exactly like "my" Stacy. Well, that took me awhile too, but I finally came to grips with the fact that, there is no such person. Everyone is different and they have their own unique personality and good and bad qualities. I know that the right person for me is out there somewhere. I will meet her someday, or who knows....I may have already met her. Someday I will be completely over Stacy and be able to give my heart to someone else. Most days, I feel that I am already there. But, out of the blue, every now and then, that "missing Stacy" feeling will creep in. Maybe that’s normal, I don’t know. Joni says it is. But I hope that it stops eventually. Wait a minute, did I mention Joni? Well, Joni is the beautiful girl that my Webmaster, Alan Whitenton, so graciously refers to as "The King’s new Babe." You probably saw her on the opening page of my website. First off, let me say that Joni is not my "new babe." She is a very special girl that I met on Thanksgiving when she came to one of our shows to talk about working as a valet for our Memphis Wrestling TV show. She is a drama major who graduated with honors from the University of Mississippi. ( I have never met a person more proud to be an Ole Miss Rebel) She is not yet 30 years of age, has never been married, and has no children...plus, she is beautiful. Sounds like quite a catch for somebody, don’t you think? Only problem I have with her is that she lives in Jackson, Mississippi, and I live in Memphis, Tennessee....200 miles apart! But she has been gracious enough to make the trip up and appear as a valet on our TV shows the past couple of months and she has certainly added immensely to the programs. As you can also see, she is very photogenic, and a welcome addition to my website. I am sure I will be telling you all more about Joni in the future. Well, back to the business of the call from the WWF. As I said, I was in Florida for the XWF tapings and it was the second day of TV when I got a call from the executive producer of WWF television. We talked about the current situation in the WWF and he said they felt the timing was right and the storyline was such that they not only wanted me to return to the WWF, but they wanted me there on the upcoming Monday’s RAW! Needless to say, without the owners of the XWF being first class individuals, that would have been impossible. But after I met with Jimmy Hart and one of the XWF owners, it was decided that they didn’t want to force anyone to be there if they would rather be somewhere else, and they let me out of the remaining 45 days of my contract. I can’t say enough good things about the people who run the XWF. I was looking forward to the challenge of working with them, but as anyone could understand, the WWF was where I always wanted to be again, and they helped make that happen. Of course, Vince McMahon, Jim Ross, and the executive producer of WWF Television really made it happen by offering me my old job back, and when it was decided that I would walk out as Paul Heyman was being dragged off after being being "fired" by Vince, I knew it was going to be a classic!

Before I go any further about that first night back on Raw, let me talk a minute about Paul Heyman. I think a lot of people figured that because Paul was put into my spot after I left the WWF, that there were hard feelings between Paul and myself. I think a lot of people that knew the history between Paul and myself, dating back to when he worked in the Tennessee territory for Jerry Jarrett and me, thought there were hard feelings there. I think that some people remember when the ECW invaded the WWF a few years back and I called ECW, "Extremely Crappy Wrestling" thought there were hard feelings there. I think that some people who heard or read some of the comments I made about Paul’s color commentary work after taking my place, thought there were hard feelings there. But the truth of the matter is, I consider Paul and I friends. We don’t call each other on the phone and shoot the breeze, or hang out together, but we are friends in the fact that we respect each others abilities and accomplishments, and have always worked together in the business to do whatever it took to put on great shows. To this day, one of the best and most talked about series of matches I ever had in Tennessee involved Paul when he managed Austin Idol and Tommy Rich, as Paul E. Dangerously. We drew huge crowds in Memphis, Louisville, Evansville, Nashville, and all of our cities with Paul managing those guys. He may not have as fond of memories of the Tennessee territory because not a lot of money was made there, but I know Paul will admit that it was an invaluable learning experience for him. And then some of you may remember a few years back when the ECW invaded the WWF. I was the only guy from the WWF who volunteered to go and work for Paul at his ECW Pay Per Views. I really had a great time working those shows for Paul and got to meet and appreciate a lot of his talent in the ECW. As far as the comments I made about Paul taking over from me on WWF commentary, they were never meant to be derogatory. I think Paul was put into a very difficult situation in the fact that the fans were used to J.R. and I as a team. We had a chemistry that took years to develop and I think the fans were comfortable with us and felt they knew us almost as part of their family. When that team was broken up, it was going to be very hard on whoever came in as a replacement. That person happened to be Paul. It wasn’t that Paul didn’t do a good job, it was just "different" from what the fans had been used to since 1993. And change is hard to get used to. But be that as it may, Paul once again did a great job of making my return to the WWF a very memorable event. His kicking and screaming as he was being dragged up that ramp and the look on his face as we passed each other, was priceless.

Oh, and did I mention that another thing about that particular show that made my return so special to me, was that it was also the show in which the "Nature Boy" Ric Flair made his return to the WWF as well! What a night!!
November 19, 2001 was the date I was reunited at the announce table with Good Ol’ J.R. Jim Ross, I think, had been my biggest supporter while I was gone, and had continued to lobby to bring me back...not only because we were friends, but because he was more aware than anyone of the unique chemistry he and I shared. It was a familiarity and a comfort level that we both enjoyed and it made the broadcasts seem effortless. Quite frankly, J.R. is so good at what he does, does so much research, and is so well prepared for each show, that the broadcasts are pretty much effortless for me. I just kind of show up and react to what I see going on in the ring and J.R. takes care of all the hard stuff. My first night back on Raw, after being gone for 9 long months, was so easy and enjoyable that I looked over at Jim in about the third commercial break and said...."It seems like we just did this last week." We really didn’t miss a beat. And a funny thing was, it was that way with everyone in the company. It seemed like I hadn’t been gone at all. Everyone was still the same....everyone treated me the same....and it was great to be back "home" with everyone. I immediately fell right back into my old routine of arriving at the arenas and then heading off to the nearest mall to kill some time and do some shopping. Steve Lombardi, (Brooklyn Brawler) told me the other day..."King, you shop more than any man I’ve ever known in my life!" I guess it does seem odd. I think most men hate to go shopping at malls, but not me. I love to shop for clothes, and electronic gimmicks, and I can spend a couple of hours in a book store any day. I used to really like to shop for Stacy. I would always come back from the mall with something neat to surprise her with. That was the biggest change about coming back to the WWF. Coming back without Stacy. It was tough going to the same cities, doing shows in the same arenas, and staying in the same hotels, that Stacy and I had been together in for the last year and a half. Still to this day I will be somewhere or see something on the road that will bring back a memory of she and I together. But that too shall pass....at least I hope it will. I really miss having someone to travel with on the road. Most of the guys already had traveling buddies when I came back, so I just pretty much make the trips by myself. One of these days I’ll hook up with someone who likes to see the world. And speaking of seeing the world, since I have been back in the WWF, I have been traveling more than ever. I had a ton of independent bookings that I had taken before my return...some of them all the way up into August...and the WWF is kind enough to let me honor those commitments. Since I’ve been back in the WWF, the response from the fans when I am introduced each night has been phenomenal! I want to thank you all for those reactions and for the thousands of e-mails of congratulations I received as well. Since I’ve been back, I’ve been in Oklahoma City, Wichita, Milwaukee, Chicago, Anaheim, New Orleans, Lafayette, Miami, Orlando, Washington, DC, New York, Dallas, Shreveport, Greenville, Richmond, Norfolk, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York again, Jonesboro, Little Rock, Chicago again, Rockford, Providence, Boston, and as I am writing this, I am on a plane on my way to Austin, Texas, all for the WWF! Whew! That makes me tired just looking back at that list. All those different cities in the short time I’ve been back. And that doesn’t include the other bookings I have made in the meantime....In November, I did an autograph signing at a mall in Lexington, KY, made an appearance at a boxing event in the same city, did TV tapings of our Memphis wrestling show at Harrah’s Casino in Tunica, MS. In December, I wrestled in Nashville for Bert Prentice, wrestled in Lexington, KY, went to a Cleveland Browns game in Nashville against the Titans, and the next night, hosted a New Year’s Eve event at a great club near Nashville called "The Thirsty Turtle" In January, I did an appearance in Reno, Nevada, wrestled in Clearwater, Florida, did a personal appearance at a Monster Truck Show in Naples, Florida, where I actually drove a school bus at a high rate of speed while being rammed by another school bus in the first ever "School Bus Demolition Derby!" In February, I wrestled again in Nashville, was in Las Vegas again, flew to L.A. and taped an episode of the "Weakest Link" TV show along with Edge, Terri, the Dudley’s, Kane, Debra, and Stone Cold Steve Austin. Did two TV tapings of our Memphis Wrestling Show in Dyersburg, TN. Had an autograph signing appearance in Coventry, R.I. and got to spend the night at WWF TV Headquarters to do some "fixes" on my commentary for last weeks Smackdown show!

From 3/15/02: It’s 5 am on a Saturday and I am sitting in O’Haire Airport in Chicago. I’ve been here since 4:15 am. The hotel I stayed in last night only had shuttle service to the airport on the hour so with a 6 am flight, I couldn’t wait until 5 to leave the hotel. There is a television monitor here at the gate where I am waiting on my flight and I am watching an update on some of the firefighters who responded to the World Trade Center disaster back 9-11. It’s been six months now since that attack and I was sitting here thinking how it sucks for travelers like me who have to spend extra time in airports because of the extra security now due to the terrorists. But as I watch the scenes from that day again on the TV I realize how many thousands of lives and families were permanently changed in that attack. It’s still unbelievable to watch those towers collapse. And as I watch this footage, It’s still amazing that those brave Firefighters helped so many people get out of those towers who would have otherwise perished. Those Firefighters and Policemen are REAL heroes! Speaking of New York, that is where I am flying to this morning. I have a personal appearance there on Staten Island this afternoon, then another one tomorrow afternoon in Brooklyn. And speaking of heroes, last night I had the pleasure of wrestling at Great Lakes Naval Base near Chicago. It was a show just for the servicemen and their families. I wrestled "Crowbar" from the old WCW. It was the first time I had ever wrestled him and I thought we had a really good match. At least the crowd seemed to really enjoy it. It was a great crowd and I really enjoyed wrestling for those guys.