But what's it really done? Where have we really come to? Lying in a hospital bed in Munich, Germany, watching my ear being thrown out into a garbage can, not being able to take it on the trip back because I don't know the German word for formaldehyde, and having a nurse walk into my room, looking at that piece of my body that's laying in the bottom of the garbage, and saying 'es ist alles ein Schauspiel', which means it's all a big joke. Excuse me, I didn't know, do you open up the lungs of a smoker and say 'oh my golly, I thought smoking was supposed to be good for you?!' Do you open up Terry Funk's non functioning liver and say, 'Oh! I didn't know that four decades of heavy drinking took this kind of toll?!' So if they show that much respect to the patients, then what made me any different? Because I was a wrestler. And professional wrestling will never be respected, no matter how many teeth I lose, no matter how many ears I lose, no matter how many brain cells have to die!'

Wrestling·Respect·Sacrifice·Trauma·Validation