Honky and Hannibal

It was 8am on a blustery Sunday morning in February and I was driving down the highway on my way to pick up Honky Tonk Man from his motel in Oshawa Ontario. From there I would be driving him to meet the rest of the crew where we would transfer to a van to travel to Cornwall for Honky’s afternoon show. What in the Sam Hill am I talking about you ask? Fair enough.

As a freelance producer, I am always on the hunt for a good yarn that can be pitched as programming. A colleague of mine from my sojourn at a PR company mentioned that in his free time, he put on wrestling events with a roster of the old guard mixed with local up and comers. I sat spellbound one afternoon as he recounted his weekend of trying to corral Bushwacker and Honky into the ring after a drunken car trip from the Toronto airport to the event in St.Catharines. It was a like a Japanese horror flick mixed in with a touch of Laurel and Hardy and I immediately smelt a documentary brewing. I asked him to connect me with his contact so I could get a piece of this action. I was introduced via email to Hannibal, a young wrestler with a big dream. Hannibal longed for a spot in the big leagues and to make that happen, he produced wrestling shows around small towns throughout Ontario where he would fly in former big names as the headliner and fill in the rest with local talent, himself included.

Hannibal had a vision for a no holds barred reality show on life on the road as a wrestler that included hookers, drug deals and drunken rages all caught by a hidden camera. Basically, ambushing his colleagues, illegally setting them up and selling it to A&E for a time slot leading into Dog the Bounty Hunter.

I was thinking of something along the same lines but a little more transparent. No hidden cameras, no set ups, just let the shit fly as it may but make sure I have a folder of signed release forms before it does. The last thing I need to add to my life is a mob of angry wrestlers with my home phone number.

After some planning and cajoling a couple of very skeptical cameramen colleagues (who kept shaking their heads in a “What is she getting us into this time” way) we were set to shoot a promo with Honky Tonk Man, Hannibal and whoever else showed up to the ring in the shit bag bar on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of February. My only instruction was to have a 12 pack of Molson Canadian on hand for the trip. As I pulled into the parking lot of the motel, I started to have second thoughts. I had watched “The Wrestler” the night before as a due diligence research attempt and was still wearing the hangover of its grimness.

I walked down the dim hallway to find Honky’s room door open and the man himself splayed on the bed, fully clothed, his red bomber jacket done up and his suitcase by the door. He looked a little bleary eyed but his hair was black shoe polish perfection.
“You Vickie?” he asked as he crawled off the bed. He was big and I was fascinated and repelled much like a child’s reaction to a clown that gets too close to their face. I couldn’t stop staring. I watched him squeeze his frame into my 1993 Volvo and it all seemed suddenly terribly wrong, like I had just invited a silver back ape to split gas costs on a weekend adventure. So I did what I usually do when I’m nervous, I talked non-stop. I couldn’t shut up for five seconds for fear of dead air. He was polite but clearly not a morning person.I was kicking myself for not repairing the glove compartment door latch which slammed open on to the Honk’s knee incessantly as he kept trying to shut it with growing impatience.

I was greatly relieved when we pulled into the parking lot to meet my camera crew for the rest of the trip though by the looks on their faces, they weren’t any more comfortable than I was.I asked Honky if I should call him Honky or by his real name, Wayne and he confirmed that Honky was his preference. I had to admire his commitment to his character. As we pulled into a Tim Horton’s, I asked if I could get him a coffee and his response was, “You get your coffee, I’m going in a different direction” as he reached for his first beer of the day around 9:15am.

We settled into the back seat to begin our first interview en-route to Cornwall. Four beers later, the conversation was in full swing. In his Elvis southern drawl, Honky bemoaned the loss of etiquette with the new regime, “ There is a handshake that is soft and gentle that says, you’re not going to hurt each other” “ And where are the girls waiting at the end of the show?” he barks. “There are no girls circling the parking lot at the motel anymore.”

When I point out that he is a married man, he rolls his eyes and says,” My wife would have to be stupid to think nothing happens on the road.”
Did he mind playing to small town crowds versus the heady days of sharing a bill with Hulk Hogan to 100,000 people? “Not really” he says, “It’s all the same, same people, same show, besides my family hates having me at home too long. I get in the way” Home for Honky is a suburban neighbourhood in Arizona where he lives with his Canadian wife and two teenage kids. He claims he gets restless if he stays at home too long and I admit, I’m having a bit of trouble picturing him at the student/teacher meetings or neighbourhood barbeques. No matter how you paint it, he doesn’t blend.

I asked him if there was some part of him that enjoyed being in pain and he quickly replied, “That’s sick!” shocked at my inference. I told him he was now getting to know a little bit about me…
He spoke of a secret language the old guard used that isn’t so secret once he starts sharing it with me on camera. It was a way they could communicate without anyone knowing what they were saying and it went something like; Givezay mezay a beerzay.
A four year old could crack the code but it was delightful and I made him say things over and over for my own personal entertainment. Honky was hitting his stride and we were all under his spell as we pulled into the parking lot of the venue a few hours later.

One thing that really caught me off guard about Honky was his obsession with cleanliness. It bordered on concerning. He spoke about chastising younger wrestlers for not laundering their costumes often enough, his annoyance at people wanting to shake his hand while he was eating food, his constant supply of anti-bacterial gel. This is all fine and well but when you are climbing into a ring, exchanging blood and bodily fluids for a living, I wondered if he had chosen the wrong career path.

The sign outside the bar read, The tonkman which was a pretty good indication of the state of the venue. It put the shit in the word shithole. Apparently it had been closed the previous week due to an unpaid heating bill and the chill hadn’t yet left the building. In the middle of a filthy room sat the ring surrounded by fold out chairs. Three Gothic looking women were standing unpacking some cameras. I found out they were sisters, fanatic fans who recorded shows diligently and put them on a website called “ The Three Angels” I can’t imagine they were too pleased to see us in the mix but I wanted to try to get an interview with them anyway.

From across the room, I saw a figure that could only be described as a human pit-bull with a slicked back ponytail. This of course was Hannibal, the 24 year old entrepreneur and budding headliner. He came over to introduce himself and seriously, he made Honky look like a newborn kitten. This guy was a brick shithouse. He was restless and distracted, clearly disappointed that the ticket sales had not gone well.
“How can I fill a room in a bar that has been shut down for a week?” To top it, the WWE was coming to town the following weekend, a show he had little chance of competing with. “ I’ve lost hundreds of thousands of dollars putting on these shows” he tells me and I make a mental note that I should have asked for money up front for the hotel and car rental fees he offered to cover. I ask him what he thought of the movie The Wrestler and he calls bullshit on the fact that they would be able to afford a doctor in the dressing room. Honky on the other hand, found it incredibly accurate.

I set up for a quick pre-show interview with Hannibal as he crushed down a brewskie. When I asked him why he kept doing this he told me, “I love to bleed, I love to make other people bleed” Okay, I think.,this man is exactly where he should be because his thinly disguised rage tells me that if he wasn’t doing this, he would be out there killing somebody. When he wasn’t wrestling, he worked as a bouncer so his outlets for aggression were pretty much covered. Still as I watched him flex and do push ups and grease his bulging biceps, I felt kinda sick for the guy who had to meet him in the ring.

I always thought of wrestling in the WWF (or WWE as it is now called) as a male version of soap operas, ridiculous rehearsed drama with tight pants and over-bleached mullets. I had never really considered the fact that these guys really do get hurt. They hurl themselves from atop the ropes into the ring belly first, they crack things over each other’s heads, they get cut and bleed , all for very little money at this level anyway and not too much acclaim. Who in their right mind would sign on for this?
As I milled around the backstage area watching the line-up for this event gussy themselves up, banter back and forth, help each other tie masks and exchange stories from the front line, I could see that this group of daytime mechanics, IT workers, nine to fivers, were transformed into weekend warriors with their own fan base albeit a small base. They returned to the grind after a weekend bout exhilarated proudly wearing their battle scars. What the hell, I guess it beats drinking in front of the television all weekend. As I was asking Hannibal about the authenticity of the violence the MC for the evening interrupted the interview to jump in front of the camera and send a challenge to anyone that questioned if it was real, “ If this isn’t real, I’ll fuck my hat!” he bellowed. Yes the metaphor was skewed but I got what he was trying to say.

Honky was sequestered in a corner wearing his warm up tights and sipping on a bottle of Screech an ardent fan from Nova Scotia had brought him. He poured me a shot, (which for the record was disgusting) and answered a few more questions. He didn’t like joining in with the fray and purposely kept himself set up at a distance from the rest of the wrestlers in the open room. A few local wrestlers tentatively approached him to express their awe at being on the same bill as the one time great and he graciously received them but didn’t shake their outstretched hands what with the germ thing and all.

Pre-show, Honky goes out to sign autographs and sell Polaroid’s of him with fans, holding his Intercontinental Champion of the World belt. I even succumb and jump in though he generously didn’t charge me the $20 dollar fee as I had bought him the beer travellers. He is resistant to the new -fangled digital world and tells me his biggest challenge is finding film for his vintage Polaroid camera that churns out the fan photos instantly.

I took my place in the bar as the show began. A crowd of maybe 75 people had spread around the seating area leaving wide gaps of empty seats. I sat through a few of the warm up acts, a variety of Value Village costumes and large bravado but nothing too threatening or graphic. I noticed the “Three Angels” at the back of the room, their long jet black hair and all black ensembles, standing side by side all with cameras attached to their faces. Couldn’t help thinking that if they spread out a bit, they may get some different perspectives instead of 3 versions of the same shot but I wasn’t about to step on any toes. I started to approach them to see if they would be willing to talk on camera and when they caught sight of me, they scattered like cockroaches in all directions making it clear the interview with the angels was a no go.

I slipped backstage to catch some footage of Hannibal who was up next. He was in the waiting area flexing, pacing and making menacing faces so I decided to stand back a bit though we caught it all on camera. His opponent was a strapping guy with dreadlocks, a large floppy brimmed fuchsia hat and sunglasses. An unassuming guy from Quebec, he was quietly warming up as opposed to Hannibal who looked like one of the lions before the gates are opened in a gladiator arena.

As their match began, Hannibal turned into something,frankly rabid. He paced with a crazed look in his eyes and made a disturbing gaga gaga gaga sound over and over. Within a minute the match had already crashed out of the ring and into the audience with speakers being smashed over heads, tables being broken, and blood splattering dangerously close to the camera bag. The small crowd seemed to come out of their complacent trances and started yelling taunts as Hannibal and his opponent crashed through the folding chairs. POP! BANG! ZOW! I saw my cameraman briefly run by me screaming like a girl. This would take months of free drinks to repair, I thought to myself. Hannibal was the clear victor, no surprise there and afterwards he paced around the backstage area drenched in blood with no apparent wish to wipe it off. Unlike the other performers who ended their matches backstage with slaps on the backs of their opponents and handshakes, Hannibal didn’t acknowledge his opponent at all. He seemed to take this a lot more seriously than meets the eye. When I finally got him to stand still for a question, he told me he felt a lot better now that he was bleeding. Bleeding was a great release for him.

Next up, the big headliner, Honky Tonk Man. We stand behind the curtain filming him as he is about to go on. He looks over and gives us a mock terrified shudder and wink. He is decked out in a black one piece unitard with silver sequined musical notes on it and a fabulous over the shoulder cape. As his theme music blares through the speakers he slips through the curtain and is on. The crowd seems genuinely pleased to see him as he waves and points on his way up to the ring. He slips into the ring and begins to sing, actually lip- synch to his signature tune, “I’m a Honky Tonk Man”.
He entices the lack lustre crowd to clap along with a grain of success. His opponent is a short nerdy DJ from a local radio station who has brought a 20 something buxom blonde as his cohort. She balances tentatively on stilettos as she pulls at her skin tight leopard print tank top and mini skirt. They exchange insults, Honky from the ring and DJ from the floor. Someone from the crowd pipes in that the DJ’s sidekick looks like a hooker and Honky gamely picks up on that thread. He tells the DJ he has no right to call himself a wrestler with his beer belly and tennis shoes and as I’m looking at Honky now in his mid-fifties, wearing a tight unitard I can’t help thinking, people in glass houses…
The grudge match begins and let me just say, Honky is phoning this shit in. He isn’t breaking a sweat and with the exception of some real aggravation when the blonde sidekick starts pulling his hair ringside; this is easy money for a Sunday afternoon. My cameraman tells me afterwards that he was close enough to hear Honky say to the DJ while in a headlock, “Lets wrap this up and get something to eat.” As he exits the ring, the clear winner once again, the ardent fan from Nova Scotia rushes over to shake his hand. He side steps it but gives her a bear hug that has her beaming.

Backstage, the wrestlers are packing up and eating Kentucky Fried Chicken. Honky, now shirtless, drinks Screech and picks at a piece of chicken. I notice the floor beneath the buffet table is covered in blood and the girl in me starts to gag a bit.
We are off to the after party thrown by a local dive nearby. Honky says he’d rather just go hang out in his motel room and drink but knows he must make himself available for the fans. The bar is already in full swing when we arrive with karaoke and deep fried appetizers and pizza laid out. Hannibal comes in before Honky to cue Honky’s theme song for his big entrance. As Honky enters, the music blares and he raises his arms in an entrance worthy of Caesars victory ride into Rome. The small crowd cheers and quickly surrounds him and the woman from Nova Scotia has tears in her eyes. She tells me that when she gets back home, she wants to laminate the picture she took with Honky and put it on her husband’s gravestone. Everyone wants to buy him a drink as he regales the crowd with stories from the golden era. I see him off to the side showing the blonde buxom side-kick the difference between a wrestling fake pull of the hair and a real pull of the hair. Afterwards, he autographs her breasts.
The country music is blaring as I see Hannibal pick up a midget and swing him overhead. Hannibal insists we travel to the bar he works at in Ottawa, though Honky is getting tired and just wants to go back to the motel. He has had an unnerving encounter in the washroom where someone tried to shake his hand after they had taken a leak.

Hannibal convinces him that he will be treated like a king and we climb into the van for the 40 minute trip to Ottawa. I decide to throw the camera on them for the ride and it is clear that Hannibal looks to Honky as a mentor or father figure. He even goes as far as saying he wants to marry Honky’s daughter so he can be his son -in -law which is met with a non-committal whatever from Honky.
It’s the old guard and the new guard comparing notes. Honky trained in a barn and came into the business before it was tarnished in his eyes though he did admit that steroids, drugs and alcoholism were tools of the trade. But he adhered to a gentleman’s code. Hannibal trained with a well -known instructor who ran a school that practiced physical and emotional abuse aimed at breaking the wrestler down to the wood. He shared a story where he was given a scenario to fight a female wrestler, as they were trained to be as tough as the men. The scenario was that he was to pretend she was his girlfriend and he had just found out she was pregnant and he wasn’t pleased. He was told to try to kick the baby out of her. At that point I broke all the rules of impartiality and blurted out, “You know that’s fucked up right?”
The good news is he did but he wanted this so badly that he would do anything to get to the big show. He trained in Ultimate Fighting as well just to increase his chances of getting noticed though his passion was for the WWE.It suddenly dawned on me why these guys really couldn’t transition into another field when they were getting long in the tooth. They may as well be branded like cattle because where do you take the skill set that they come with. They were chartered members of the island of lost toys. This profession carried not only physical and emotional wounds but a performance high that just couldn’t be duplicated in the real world.

As we entered the bar where Hannibal worked, he grabbed me from behind and bit my head. I think it was meant as a form of camaraderie or affection but he literally bit my head. I flattered myself for a moment that he considered me one of the inner circle but in reality he was just really, really drunk. This was a younger crowd and though Hannibal had gone ahead and set up the theme music for Honky’s entrance, the crowd viewed him more as an oddity as he waived his arms around in full character. They didn’t really know who he was but his mere stature; Elvis hair and loud clothing were enough to draw attention. They didn’t know why they should stop and applaud but they did anyway in a haphazard way. As Honky sat in a corner nursing a drink and Hannibal worked the room drunkenly trying to pick up women, I noticed a large screen television airing the Oscars. I couldn’t hear the sound but looked up just in time to see the announcements for the Best Actor award, an award Mickey Rourke was nominated for his role in The Wrestler. As Sean Penn took to the stage to accept the award, I felt deeply disappointed. More than ever I wanted Mickey to take this one home because I had just spent the last 15 hours witnessing how accurate and heartfelt his portrayal was.

As we left the bar to head back to the motel, Hannibal was nowhere to be found. The last time I saw him he was staggering and slurring and dragging a young woman around behind him. Honky was starting to break down as well. Though he held his liquor well and didn’t seem messy all day, it was now late and I can’t even track how many drinks he had not counting the 2 bottles of Screech. As we waited outside , I hear him yell at the doorman, “I’m the Intercontinental Champion of the World and I can’t get one fucking beer for the road?!”

On the way home he asks me repeatedly, “Vickie, how the hell are you going to tell this story that is different from any other one?” Every time I try to answer him, he cuts me off and asks the question again which wasn’t a bad thing because I really didn’t have an answer to that question. It’s so easy to mock him but at the end of the day, I liked him, not in a let’s keep in touch way but there was a sweetness to him. He was funny as hell, kind to his fans and gracious to his fellow wrestlers and had found a profession that he truly believed in for 30 odd years.
We dropped him off at his motel around 2am after we assure him we aren’t stashing any more beer and as he staggers to the door, he turns and says with a grin, “You will never be the same after meeting the Honky Tonk Man. You will never be the same”

Promo for Honky and Hannibal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYX1P2YrAMY