They cheered for Johnny King too. He wasn’t as slick as Matthews, but he had much of his charisma, and a good finishing move. There are some very successful wrestlers who don’t have more than two or three moves. Jerry had told me of one world-renowned grappler who, in his words, ‘wouldn’t know a wrist-lock from a wrist-watch’.
The cheers died when the lights went out. The hall fell, if not silent, then into a single excited whisper. And then the thunderflashes boomed, the lasers speared the sky, and with them a great roar boomed; the ten-thousand-strong crowd cheering with a single voice. Daze was the one superstar in the GWA who was never introduced. He didn’t need it. Not at all.
I had thought that the Black Angel’s entrance was impressive, but it was understated compared to that of the giant. The lights went out again, all of them save the low voltage emergency exit signs; the special effects fell silent, and all we were left with was the smell of cordite in the pitch-dark hall.
Then suddenly flame spurted from four canisters taped to the top of each ring-post, and he was there, inside the squared circle, having been lowered from the roof on a cable in the darkness. I had been warned to stand in the corner, and I did, but it still startled me as the huge black shape came out of the heavens.
He went to the four corners of the ring, arms raised, glaring out, milking the applause. Ten seconds after the fourth corner was my cue. I raised my mike. ‘And his opponent. .’
Rockette sashayed down the aisle to a chorus of boos, the least popular man in Glasgow at that moment. Dressed in a high-collared, sequinned blue jacket and matching tights, he strummed his heavily varnished acoustic guitar all the way to the ring, until he stepped through the ropes and handed it to me.
I had seen the battle several times before, so I didn’t wince too often as Tommy Rutherford was battered all around the ring. I didn’t care in fact; after his rudeness in the dressing room I had come to agree totally with the twelve-year-old autograph hunter.
I had seen Diane before too, and twice that afternoon in costume, but she still gave me a buzz as the light picked her out at the top of the walkway, and as she made her way steadily down towards the ring in her tight-fitting evening dress, her brown skin gleaming through the laced-up side-panel.
‘You still strutting your stuff up there, big man?’ her taunt began, as she moved round the ring towards the English language commentary table where Jerry was seated. ‘Bet you wish you could strut it for The Princess, don’cha.’
Daze dropped Rockette and stepped towards her as if hypnotised. As he did, the Londoner crawled across the ring, beckoning to me. I did a little mime for the crowd and the cameras, to confirm that he wanted the guitar, then passed it to him through the ropes.
Acting as if he was still half out of it, he hauled himself to his feet and lurched towards his opponent, who stood staring out of the ring. The crowd screamed a warning, but the giant took no notice as Tommy Rutherford took a full swing and crashed his instrument as hard as he could across his shoulders and against the back of his head.
I had seen one of these spoof guitars in Newcastle the week before; it shattered into a thousand pieces on impact. This one didn’t; instead it broke in two, at the point where the fret-board joined the chamber. There was no sound of splintering, only a ghostly twang as the strings vibrated with the force of the blow.
Daze stood there, swaying for a moment, then turned, on cue, towards Rockette. . and hit him, just once, very fast, very hard, with his right fist — a short, boxer’s blow to the middle of the forehead.
I’m a country boy. I know potatoes; I’ve seen them in sacks, big ones too. That’s what Tommy Rockette looked like as he went down; a great big sack of potatoes. ‘Now that wasn’t in the script,’ I whispered. Fortunately, my mike wasn’t live.
Daze dropped to one knee and picked Rutherford’s dead weight clean off the canvas. As the crowd, who had no idea what was in the script and what wasn’t, roared its approval, he hoisted him up to shoulder height, as rehearsed, looked at Diane, saw Jerry coming to stand beside her, and threw him.
Catching an unconscious man must be much more difficult than catching someone who is awake and cooperating, but The Behemoth managed it. He staggered slightly as he made the catch, but he held on. Very quickly though, he laid his burden on the mat, then as he had done twice that afternoon already, rolled under the bottom rope, jumped to his feet and squared up to Daze.
As the first of the mock blows were thrown, and as the referees rushed into the ring en masse to separate the two, I heard the commentators talk us through the end of the show, and out of recording time. At the same time I looked at Tommy Rockette, still lying on the floor. He wasn’t hearing anything.
But me; already I could hear Everett backstage, in about five minutes’ time. I wasn’t looking forward to it.
Chapter 19
It took longer than five minutes for him to get round to me, but when he did, he was not pleased.
‘Look man, I’ve never held one of those spoof guitars,’ I protested, as he glowered at me in the small office. ‘I’ve never held any sort of a bloody guitar. I’d barely know a Gibson from a glockenspiel.’
‘Christ, Oz,’ he bellowed, ‘the prop is made from balsa!’
‘Yes, but it’s varnished so that it looks pretty much like the real thing, so if you don’t know what it should weigh. . Everett, I took the guitar that Tommy handed me, as instructed, and I never let go of it, as instructed, until I handed it back to him. I’m sorry you’ve got a lump on your head, but like they said at Nuremberg, “I was only obeying orders”.’
My protest of innocence seemed to be working, for his expression softened a little. ‘I take it that Rockette knew it was a real guitar,’ I said.
‘Oh yeah,’ Everett muttered. ‘He knew all right.’
‘So he’s the saboteur? Did Reilly promise him a deal, or what?’
He shook his head, frowning. ‘It’s not that easy. The bum has nothing to do with Reilly, and he had nothing to do with the earlier stuff. Once he came round, Jerry had a talk with him, in private. The Behemoth can be very persuasive, and he was in a hurry for some reason he wouldn’t tell me, so he didn’t mess around.
‘Tommy realised very quickly that he either ’fessed up there, or wound up in a hospital ward. He told Jerry that this stunt of his was strictly personal. Essentially, the Rockette character is a jobber at the top level, but Mr Rutherford has a big ego. He thinks he should be a mainliner, one of the guys who gets to wear the gold.
‘He told Jerry straight out that he should have been going in with the Angel for the Transcontinental belt. And he said that when I gave the shot to Scarletto instead, he didn’t like it at all. He tried to make out that the thing was almost an accident, though. Said to Jerry that he picked up the wrong guitar in the dressing room, and that he was on his way to the ring when he realised it. Said that he almost went back to change it, but he was so pissed at me that he decided to give me a whack with the real thing.
‘Of course, I don’t believe that for a minute. He decided right back in the dressing room.’ Everett rubbed the back of his head. ‘Son of a bitch knew exactly which guitar he was picking up.’
‘Why did he have a real one anyway?’
For the first time since, still in his ring gear, he had marched me into the small room and in the process had given me claustrophobia, Everett smiled. ‘The guy can play it for real, and he thinks he can sing. So every so often, like tonight, we let him go outside and warm up the crowds while they’re waiting for the doors to open.’
‘That was some shot he caught you with the thing. Are you okay?’
Daze grinned again. ‘Thing you gotta learn about me, little buddy. I really am as tough as I look.’
‘So is that the end of Rockette?’ I asked him. ‘Have you fired him?’