June 2000
The Hottest Show On Earth
by Keith Elliot Greenberg
With his characteristic silence, Blackman looked up and shook his head. All flights to Albany were cancelled, and soon the two Superstars were in a rental car, rushing up the New York State Thruway to make their shot. Setting their priorities, they made two detours - to a gym for a 45-minute workout and tanning session, and to a fast-food place for lunch.
As he waited for the food, Scotty was approached by a teenager who offered to do The Worm in exchange for an autograph. Before Taylor could answer, the kid was on the floor of the restaurant, displaying a wiggling variation of the Superstar's dance gimmick. Scotty signed his name on a piece of paper and told the beaming youngster, "You did that better than I could."
Welcome to life behind the scenes in the World Wrestling Federation: catching flights, darting into rest stops and hanging out for hours in the dressing room, before bursting through the curtain and transforming from a working guy into a superhero. It's a grind that might cause the average person to lose focus. But the Federation isn't for average people. And for Scotty Too Hotty, this is his destiny. When he was 14-years-old, he sent a letter to the Federation's community relations specialist, Sue Aitchison, vowing to rock arenas in the very near future. "It's the only way I ever wanted to live." he said.
Scotty glanced at a sheet listing the night's matches, and saw that he and partner Brian Christopher (a.k.a Grandmaster Sexay) were slated to tangle with two members of the Radicalz, Perry Saturn and Dean Malenko. The road agents would tell the performers how the match was going to end, but then it was up to them to figure out the rest.
In their own private spot, Scotty Too Hotty and Grandmaster Sexay held a brief meeting with opponents Saturn and Malenko to go over sequences. Scotty raced back and forth in the dressing room to get the blood flowing, and suddenly hit the ground and started doing push-ups. When asked if he was scared, he sot back with a smile, "No, excited."
Despite the talents of the four wrestlers, the match was remembered more for its comedy than its athleticism, particularly a series of spots featuring Grandmaster Sexay's low-hanging pants slipping down. Finally, Taylor took the loss for his team - even though Malenko was holding his opponent's trunks as the referee logged the three-count.
"You know what's funny," Scotty Too Hotty observed after returning to the dressing room. "No one cares about wins and losses. If you ask the fans what the finish was two hours from now, most won�t be able to tell you. But they will remember that I did The Worm."
The card continued, but Scotty's thoughts had shifted from the mayhem in the ring to his strategy for getting to the next venue, the Continental Airlines Arena in New Jersey, for a live Raw is War broadcast. While others were planning to drive all the way to the Garden State that night, Taylor booked a room in Newburgh, New York - the half-way point, where he�d also squeeze in a workout at Gold's Gym. His tag team partner had a different itinerary. "We never travel together," Brian Christopher illuminated. "We tried it once, and we hated it so much that we never did it again."
Scotty Too Hotty and Grandmaster Sexay were scheduled to join Rikishi Phatu in a battle against Triple H, Road Dogg and X-Pac. Before the arena filled up, the Superstars gathered in the ring to figure out a game plan. The playfulness of the night before had diminished to a degree, not that everything was going to be broadcast live. "If you screw up on television," Scotty stated, "everybody knows it."
Scotty Too Hotty hit the ring with his partners, prompting the audience to holler for The Worm. Taylor soon gave the fans what they wanted, writhing on the canvas before slinging X-Pac and Triple H into the corner and bodyslamming the Road Dogg. But, like the night before, Scotty's squad dropped the match - this time when Rikishi got zapped by X-Pac with the ring bell and then pinned by Triple H.
Afterwards, both teams convened in the dressing room. Scotty shook hands with the Road Dogg, Rikishi and X-Pac embraced. After offering suggestions about ways they could have improved the flow of the match, the group dispersed. Scotty headed for his hotel in Newark, New Jersey, an hour or so away from the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island, where the World Wrestling Federation was taping SmackDown! the next night.
When Scotty Too Hotty looked at the scheduled matches at the Nassau Coliseum, he received a pleasant surprise. He was going to be featured in a singles bout against Essa Rios, to be taped for Sunday Night Heat before the taping of SmackDown! began. Soon, the youthful wrestlers were in the ring, charting the course of battle.
"It's pretty hard, because he mainly speaks Spanish," Taylor said. "In a match, you might be able to communicate simple things like, 'Give me an elbow.' But there's a lot he won't understand."
Although Scotty Too Hotty's match was not recorded for SmackDown!, it fascinated the fans nonetheless. Both athletes put everything into the encounter. Rios delivered a flying headscissors and senton splash onto the arena floor. But when he missed a moonsault, Scotty executed a bulldog headlock, popped the crowd by doing The Worm, and got his first victory in three nights with a tornado DDT.
Scotty Too Hotty turned the ignition of his rental car, and finally admitted that he was tired. Even though he was going home the next day, there would be no slowing down. The next week was going to be even more grueling, starting on Saturday, and going all the way to Wednesday. But when Taylor felt like griping, he remembered the letter he wrote at age 14 to the World Wrestling Federation, and put everything in perspective. "There are a million guys out there who want to be here," he said. "And there are only about 100 of us who remember what it was like to be part of that million and we don"t want to be there again."
Several passages of this article have been omitted.