Original subtitles

[cheering]

[Narrator] At just 19, and with barely

any ring experience,

Zach Gowen became one of the most

unlikely stars in WWE history,

sharing the spotlight with the

biggest names in the business.

?

[Zach] I got signed sight unseen.

[Vince] That little kid right there.

[Zach] And, all of a sudden, I'm in the ring with

Hulk Hogan and Roddy Piper.

[Charlie] Here's a kid, he's main eventing

vengeance against Vince McMahon.

[Bill] You can't really get on

a bigger rocket ship than that.

[Rhino] Watching Zach wrestle, only having

one leg, I was amazed and intrigued.

[cheering & indistinct commentary]

[Narrator] In the locker room,

Gowen was seen as an outsider,

with a spot on the roster he hadn't earned.

?

[John] Forget about his fake leg,

his whole career is prosthetic.

[Rhino] We got a locker room full of men and

a lot of testosterone and here comes a kid

with one leg getting a ton of TV time.

[Zach] Look me in the eye you son of a-----!

[Charlie] He had the attitude, he's making money,

he's living the lifestyle.

But we gotta remember,

what comes up, must come down.

[Narrator] As success spiraled into self-destruction,

Gowen's career didn't just fall apart,

it imploded.

[Jimmy] His reputation was legendary for being awful.

[Zach] I was literally handed everything

on a silver platter.

I was a complete asshole,

there's no question about it.

[Rhino] I didn't think someone could be

that fucking dumb.

[Zach] The perks of being a TV star at 19 years old-

free drinks, fast women, and free pills.

[laughing]

[Colleena] I didn't know how deep he was

into drugs at that point.

[Zach] It got so bad that either I'm going to die

or I'm going to get better.

And I'm open to whatever happens first.

?

[Zach] This is probably, I'm 17 and this is,

I'm 19 here.

Somewhere around there.

I tried to put on a little size for WWE but it was

really hard because I was still going through puberty.

[laughing] [Colleena] Yeah.

[Zach] You know, I wanted to fit in.

John Cena and Brock Lesnar

and Vince McMahon and Matt Hardy,

I mean, these guys were my heroes,

they were my idols.

My first couple of weeks in WWE was pretty insane.

I'm sitting in the stands, I'm looking at the ring,

and I'm trying to envision what this night

is going to be for me.

When all of a sudden a producer comes up to me

and says, "Hey Zach, let's go meet Vince."

So, I follow the producer backstage

to a dressing room.

We walk in, I look to my left,

there's Vince McMahon. The Mr. McMahon.

Just a wild moment.

All of a sudden I hear the shower turn off.

And walking out, naked as the day he is born,

is my childhood hero, Hulk Hogan.

Beelining straight to me, sticks his hand out,

"How you doing, brother, nice to meet you,

glad you're here." And I'm like,

"Thank you for ruining my childhood, Hulk,

I appreciate it, man."

[laughing]

I did look, I did look.

Brother's doing alright for himself, man, you know?

Golly.

It's surreal to think about the guy who's poster

that I had on my wall, the guy who main evented

WrestleMania 3 with Andre the Giant at

the Pontiac Silverdome, is pulling me aside.

Saying, "Hey brother, why don't you do this

instead of that, or it might be better

for you if you do this," you know?

And then he would share a Coors Light with me

after the match too,

which I thought was really cool.

I'm not going to say no to Hulk Hogan-

[Colleena] You weren't old enough to drink yet.

[laughing]

[Zach] Maybe not in America.

One of the earliest memories that I have in life is just

sitting with my dad watching WWF Superstars

on a random Saturday morning.

But my dad left when I was four.

Where my mom and I lived wasn't so much a

lovely apartment as it was the hood.

We shared a wall to the right of us with a drug dealer,

we shared a wall to the left of us with a prostitute.

And I was just outside running with all the kids

in the neighborhood.

[Colleena] He was extremely energetic.

He loved sports.

He would just play for hours and hours.

I'm Colleena Graf, Zachary Gowen's mom,

or as his friends would call me, Momma G.

He loved wrestling,

from the time he was a preschooler.

He wanted to watch wrestling.

He wanted to do wrestling.

He wanted to wrestle me.

[Zach] One time I went bowling with the summer camp.

I slipped and I fell.

I looked down.

My left foot is pointed to the left,

but my knee is pointed to the right.

And so my leg literally breaks in the two places

and then I start screaming because then the pain

kicks in and it's one of the most painful moments

of my entire life.

I was in a cast for about six months.

I was going crazy because my leg hurt so much

and it wouldn't get better.

Nobody can figure out why my leg wouldn't heal

until the doctors did a battery of tests

and the results were conclusive.

The reason why I broke my leg in the first place

and the reason why I never healed was because of

a tumor growing on my left femur.

So, at 8 years old,

I was diagnosed with osteosarcoma,

which is a rare form of children's bone cancer.

[Colleena] We went through six weeks of chemotherapy in

an effort to try and reduce the size of the tumor.

It didn't help, by the way,

but that was our protocol.

That's what we did first.

[Zach] I think my mom did all she could to protect me.

She was my biggest cheerleader and she

assured me that everything was going to be okay.

So, the idea of possibly dying from cancer

never really entered my thoughts until

all of my friends that I made at

Children's Hospital of Michigan,

they started passing away.

They sat my mom down and said, "Listen,

if you want to give Zach his best chance at

seeing his 9th birthday,

I recommend an amputation."

[Colleena] He was, he was very scared.

We, we were all very, very frightened.

[Zach] I was definitely very nervous of

what was about to happen.

I knew from this point forward that life was

gonna be different

and there's no going back.

[Colleena] This picture is when Zachary was in

high school and you joined the wrestling team.

You were probably 16, 17 here.

[Zach] I joined the amateur wrestling team

to get a foundation for

my professional wrestling career.

[Colleena] Of course.

[Zach] Because all of my favorite wrestlers had

amateur wrestling backgrounds,

and I saw it as a way-

[Colleena] And you think I didn't know that?

[laughing]

[Zach] I had a very, very big dream at a young age

to be the world's first one-legged

professional wrestling superstar.

So, I told everybody because I felt it

deep within me

that this was going to be a reality.

And that's when I found the local wrestling school.

?

I walked in with my prosthetic leg on and

pants and a cane because I wanted to hide

the fact that I had one leg.

I didn't want to give the owner any single

possible reason not to accept me as

a professional wrestling student.

And I paid him in cash, up front,

because I also knew that once he found out that

I had one leg, he wasn't going to kick me out

because he wasn't going to give me the refund.

A week later, I walked in and I sit down,

I take my pants off and I pull the pin and I pop

my leg off and my head's down the entire time.

And so when I look up,

it was like the record got scratched off

of a record player in a movie and the whole room

just stopped and stared at me.

The wrestling trainer at the time

saw what was happening and said,

"All right, come on into the ring."

The truth is, I was a natural.

I was very good right away.

The trainer at the time asked me if I can do

a back bump and so I go,

"Alright, I got it."

And then I executed the best back bump

anybody's ever seen right away.

And I'm thinking to myself, man,

I can do a dropkick so much better than everybody here.

[indistinct chatter]

[Colleena] I remember his first show.

It was a local show that he did.

[Zach] I wrestled Truth Martini.

I was his first wrestling school student.

There are only about 50 people in the audience

and 40 of them were my friends and family.

[Crowd] Oh!

[Colleena] He was just so happy to be doing it.

[Zach] Just to be able to be out there legitimately

for the first time was incredible.

[Announcer] This is TNA.

[Zach] Now, I wanted to wrestle for TNA because

they had all of my favorite wrestlers.

AJ Styles, Low Key, Jerry Lynn,

all the X-Division guys.

I wanted to mix it up with them.

So, in late 2002,

I sent an audition tape to TNA Wrestling.

I sent it to Bill Behrens, who at the time is booking

the dark matches or the tryout matches for TNA.

[Bill] I see a guy with one leg doing things

that most people can only do with two,

and he was doing them well.

Anytime you can put something out there that

people haven't seen in the three-ring circus

that wrestling is, that's a good thing.

I'm Bill Behrens, and it can be said I discovered

Zach Gowen and gave him his first pay-per-view and

television opportunities in wrestling.

[Zach] All of a sudden, my phone rings.

I pick it up. It's Bill Behrens.

He's yelling at me on the phone.

"Zach, I'm in the office right now with

Jerry Jarrett and Jeff Jarrett.

We're watching your tape.

What the fuck are we watching?

Can you come down this Wednesday for a dark match

and bring somebody to work with?"

And I said, "Absolutely."

He goes, "Great. See you then."

Hang up. Boom. I called up Truth.

That was my guy, man. I said, "Truth."

I go, "We have to get down to Nashville

on Wednesday." And he said, "I'm down."

This is the big time, man.

We're talking big lights, big arena,

professional cameras.

Boom. My music hits. I go out.

I get to the edge of the ring.

I pull the strap on my leg.

I pull the pin, and I pull my leg off.

The air gets sucked out of the room.

I'm thinking to myself, okay, I'm like, let me try

a little harder to get the crowd going.

So I hop into the ring, and I get on

the second rope, and I fire up. Yeah!

Then Truth attacks me from behind.

Boom. Lays me out.

I jump up. I hit him with a drop kick.

And as I land, and as I pop up,

and as I look around,

the roof came off.

[cheering]

[Jimmy] No one had ever seen anything like this, man.

The place was coming unglued.

I'm professional wrestling writer, talent,

and producer, Jimmy Jacobs.

And I've been friends with Zach Gowen since

the day he broke into the business.

TNA didn't quite know what they had.

I mean, let's be fair.

Like, no one knew what they had with Zach.

Like, this is the first time this is happening.

[Zach] Word spread around the industry that there was a

one-legged guy, and that he was halfway talented.

Somehow, that got into the WWE office.

[Announcer] Look out! You're kidding me!

We took a look at Zach Gowen,

thought, holy cow, man.

This is pretty cool.

We called Talent Relations,

which was John Laurinaitis at the time,

and said, "Hey, we want this guy."

So, Johnny called and says, " Hey, guys, yeah,

I got him. Matter of fact, you really can't even

tell that he's missing a leg.

Yeah, he's not 19 either.

He's like 30-something."

[Bill] Steve Kern was training a

one-legged guy in Florida at the time,

and so they assumed, well,

how many one-legged guys can there be?

I believe they floated a contract,

but once they finally got to the point of potentially

signing him, they realized they had messed up.

So, long story short, we had to let the wrong

one-legged wrestler go back to Tampa.

[phone ringing]

[Narrator] Following the embarrassing mix-up,

WWE officials reach out to Zach.

[Zach] Johnny Ace gives me a call.

He's like, "Hey, Zach,

we think you're a great wrestler.

We think you'd be a great fit for the company.

Do you want to become a WWE superstar?"

And I'm just like,

"What?" [laughing]

Like I couldn't- My mind is blown.

[Colleena] He called to tell me that

he'd gotten this contract.

He was just so excited, I had to peel him off the,

off the ceiling.

[Bill] I had a firm knowledge of what we could offer

versus what WWE could offer,

and it would be tremendously selfish

to be upset that

somebody goes to the better offer.

[Zach] The following day, there's a voicemail

from Bruce Prichard and WWE.

"Uh, you're going to debut next Tuesday on SmackDown

in an angle with Hulk Hogan.

Call me back. Bye."

?

[Zach] What?

[cheering]

[Zach] So, I show up to SmackDown in the

Baltimore arena, and it's just like,

my eyes are this big, you know?

This is the real deal WWE, man.

I don't know anybody there except Rhino.

[Rhino] The best way I can describe Zach's attitude

when he first got to WWE,

he was like a puppy golden retriever.

So happy-go-lucky, and you got a locker room

full of pit bulls that have been bred to fight.

And he's going in there thinking

everybody's his friend. [laughing]

Hey, I'm Rhino.

I used to be a co-worker with Zach Gowen,

and I'm a professional wrestler.

[Announcer] Oh, it's Rhino!

Oh, my God!

[Zach] Rhino is such a good guy

who's always looked out for me.

I think it's because it's a Detroit thing.

You know, we wrestled for a lot of the same people,

but he was in the 90's, I was in the early 2000's,

and there's a connection there.

?

[Narrator] In an unconventional move,

WWE debuts Zach Gowen,

not as a superstar,

but as a plant in the crowd.

[Roddy] You, the biggest idiot, with a flag,

sit down, shut up,

or I'll put that flag where the sun don't shine.

[Jimmy] Yeah, Zach debuted with, what,

Rowdy Roddy Piper?

Yeah, yeah, that's a big deal, man.

[Hulk] That fan has the right to wave that flag.

[Zach] I hop the guardrail, I slide into the ring,

I whack Piper as hard as I possibly can,

because he told me in the back, "Kid,

I want you to hit me as hard as you fucking can."

So, I'm not going to tell Roddy Piper no.

I bend this flagpole over his back,

and then Sean O'Hara just spears the shit out of me.

[Announcer] Security trying to,

trying to drag the fan out of the ring.

[Zach] Now comes time for the big reveal for Piper

to rip my prosthetic leg off.

The problem is, Piper is pulling my real leg,

trying to rip my real leg off.

I said, "Piper, you're grabbing the wrong leg."

[indistinct commentary]

- Ah! - [crowd shouting]

[Zach] He rips that son-a-bitch off.

Piper is in the middle of the ring

holding my prosthetic leg.

[Crowd] [indistinct shouting]

And so, on that day, I became the world's

first one-legged WWE superstar.

[Announcer] Mr. America helping this fan

back to the locker room.

[Charlie] Looks like he was a fan in the crowd

that jumped the ring.

We're waiting to see the cops come and

arrest him and handcuff him back, you know?

But then I'm like, he has one leg.

Hey, I'm Charlie Haas, former WWE superstar,

and I used to beat the shit out of Zach Gowen.

When you didn't see the cops show up to arrest him,

and then, you know, the agents had to

calm everybody down and say, "Hey, look,

it's part of the show, OK?

This is the storyline."

[Narrator] Stepping into the ring as

a full-time performer,

Gowen's storyline centers on

earning a WWE contract.

[Zach] So, the angle was, Zach, sympathetic character,

wants to be a WWE superstar.

Vince, the evil owner of the company,

Zach will get a contract over his dead body, basically.

[Vince] It's you and Stephanie in a

tag team effort

against The Big Show.

[Zach] My first official match in WWE,

if I were to pin The Big Show,

then I win a WWE contract.

[indistinct commentary]

[Zach] I didn't want to be looked at as

the handicapped wrestler,

and I didn't want people to feel sorry for me.

I wanted them to be impressed by what I could do.

[Announcer] Look at this kid!

[Jimmy] To see a guy jump off the top rope,

do a moonsault, do the rolls,

do the drop kicks, just the athleticism of this guy,

but he only had one leg,

who could take their eyes off that?

Once I saw that, you're like, oh, this is,

this is something. This is, this is magic.

This is magic.

?

[Narrator] Gowen's next angle picks up

where his debut left off...

putting him in the ring with three of the

biggest stars in company history.

[Zach] And this was supposed to happen

over the course of maybe three months.

But what happened was Hulk Hogan quit

two weeks into my run.

A week later, I'm in a limo in New York City

with Stephanie, Triple H, and Vince McMahon

when Vince gets the call that Roddy Piper

just went insanely rogue on some sort

of television show talking about all sorts of

bad things that Vince did not want public.

[Roddy] Everybody's dead.

They're all dying early,

and nobody cares about it.

[Zach] So, Vince blows a gasket, right?

It culminates with Vince saying, "Fuck him, fire him,

I never want to see him again." And I'm like,

"Oh shit, the two main ingredients of the angle

to lead us to finally to me and Vince are gone."

And so, we fast tracked me and Vince,

and the next thing I know,

I'm in a pay-per-view main event with Vince McMahon

in a one-on-one match.

[Announcer] Zach Gowen...

[Zach] You have to understand,

I'm 20 years old,

I've had less than 20 matches,

I'm in a pay-per-view main event with Vince McMahon,

and I have one leg. [laughing]

[Vince] Agh!

[Zach] Which is just a weird,

surreal moment for me.

[Announcer] Put the chair down.

[Jimmy] During Zach's match with Vince,

Zach hit a leg drop on Vince with

a chair over Vince's head.

And Vince just started, like, bleeding everywhere.

[Announcer] Vince McMahon took the knee and

he's busted open.

[Zach] Blood starts spurting like a geyser...

[Announcer] Oh, my god!

...and I'm thinking I'm dead, I'm thinking I'm fired

immediately as soon as we get to the back.

[Announcer] The moonsault...

and Mr. McMahon rolled out of the way.

[Zach] So, we got to end the match super quickly after

that because it was a dangerous situation

due to the loss of blood.

[Announcer] And it's over!

Here's your winner? Mr. McMahon!

This kid, Zach Gowen,

he is one tough son of a bitch, Cole.

He is loaded with heart.

[cheering & booing]

[Zach] The crowd reaction after that match

was very moving.

[cheering]

[Zach] It meant a whole lot to me.

Because even though I lost the match,

the crowd still came up and cheered for me.

And that told me that they believed in me.

[Announcer] Zach Gowen deserves to be applauded.

I'm sure his mom's real proud of him.

Watchin' back home in Detroit.

[Colleena] They were cheering for him.

That much I remember.

He's the underdog, of course, you know,

and so people get right behind ya.

[Zach] So, I get to the back and I'm thinking I'm fired.

I see Vince, he's getting taped up,

he's getting glued up, right?

He just gives me a big hug and he's like,

"Oh that was great, kid.

That was amazing. So good."

And I had a huge sigh of relief.

It was just an insane moment for me to go from

where I was to all of a sudden in a pay-per-view

main event with the owner of WWE.

[Announcer] Zach Gowen is living his dream.

I can't believe this!

[Zach] The whole world of professional wrestling at

this level, doing promotions,

doing appearances,

wrestling with my heroes,

wrestling in front of 20,000 people,

was such a mindfuck that

my head was constantly spinning.

All of a sudden, being on TV makes you, like,

10 times more attractive to women.

It was a benefit, dude.

Like, it was like, this is what I was looking for,

for the longest time and I finally, like,

got everything I had ever prayed for or wanted

all at once, all at the same time.

I was, man, I was a kid in a candy store.

But I was in no way prepared for that at 19,

less than a year into the business.

And I got distracted very, very easily.

[Jimmy] When Zach got money and attention for girls,

like, he was in another world.

What are you going to do at 19 when you had nothing and

you grew up in this broken home and

got your leg cut off from cancer

and then all these shiny things are around?

[Rhino] We're up in Canada and

he wanted to have a beer.

He wasn't quite 19 and we just said, ah,

he didn't have his ID and all that stuff.

He's like, "Yeah, I'm Zach Gowen.

I'm on TV. I'm a WWE superstar."

And I'm like, "Man,

that is just something you don't say."

[Zach] I thought WWE superstars walked around

like this and they did this and they told fans to

fuck off and they drank and they hung out with women

and they were the cock of the walk.

So, that's what I pretended to be.

A lot of my confidence came off as arrogance.

I was definitely an asshole.

[Charlie] You can't go from zero to hero.

I don't think Zach knew that.

?

?

[Narrator] Zach Gowen's rapid rise comes with

an attitude that doesn't go unnoticed

in the locker room.

?

I know when it came down to match etiquette,

how to put a match together, we tried to help him out,

but you know, he just wouldn't listen.

[Announcer] Weighing 159 pounds,

Zach Gowen...

[Charlie] In the match that showcased Zach Gowen

tagging with Brock Lesnar, Kurt Angle

against Charlie Haas, Shelton Benjamin,

and Big Show...

[Announcer] [indistinct commentary]

Leg drop!

[Charlie] He was difficult.

He already had what he had planned out

and what he was gonna do.

Not putting in the psychology and

not realizing who he's in the ring with.

No, he didn't come to us and say,

"Hey, this is what I like to do.

How could I get you to there, to do this?"

He said, "Hey, this is what I'm gonna do.

I need you here, there.

I'm going to do this, this, and that.

Then I'm going to do this."

[Charlie] And then all of a sudden I hear, Big Show goes,

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, you're going to do what?"

"I'm going to go off the top rope,

cross-body Charlie and Shelton.

I'm going to come over, I'm going to knock you

off the apron, Big Show."

[Announcer] Back to the right hand.

[Charlie] He goes, "The fuck you are!

I'm a goddamn giant." He goes,

"You got one leg and you're 145 pounds?

The hell if you're going to knock me off."

[Announcer] The courageous one-legged athlete

tossed into both Haas and Benjamin.

[Charlie] Zach's like, "I'm not getting shit in.

Well, I don't look strong."

You're a 145-pound kid with one leg.

You're a baby face, white meat baby face,

supposed to fight from under.

You're never going to look strong.

Thus, the beating took place.

[Announcer] Zach Gowen... Oh, wow! Oh, my god.

Oh, my. Shelton Benjamin...

[Narrator] Gowen risks blowing an opportunity

most wrestlers spend years chasing...

?

Until a hometown match with the company's

biggest star gives him a chance

to prove himself.

?

[Announcer] Brock Lesnar has vowed to break

Zach Gowen's leg here tonight.

[Zach] Early in the morning,

Bruce Prichard called me and he said,

"You're going to wrestle Brock tonight."

He goes, "Can you get your mom there?

I think she would add something to the angle."

[Announcer] Zach's Mom and the rest of

his family down there.

They wanted me to interact with Brock Lesnar.

So, that's exactly what I did.

I'm standing there and the man is, you know,

doing one of these things with his chest

and I'm not impressed.

You know, you don't impress me at all.

[Announcer] Don't do it, Brock.

Don't do it. Oh my God!

So, Brock's going to get heat on Zach, obviously,

in his hometown.

But to really get that sympathy, it's like,

all right, now he's going to get color.

He's going to bleed. Great.

Arn Anderson, that day,

taught Zach how to blade.

I don't know if Zach was listening.

[Zach] He was like, "Hey kid, I'm going to

make your blade. Here's how you do it.

You pull it out of your wrist and then you stick it

in your forehead, and you twist.

And when that happens,

you just pull it out and you'll have color."

And so just like Arn Anderson said,

I pull it out of my wrist,

I stick it in my forehead, I twist, I pull it out,

nothing happens.

So, I do it again and I dig in a little deeper and

I twist a little harder and I pull it out.

Then nothing comes out.

And I'm thinking, "Oh shit." The whole angle depends on

the amount of color that I get from here.

So at this point, I say, "Fuck it."

And I just dig it into my forehead and I yank it.

That's when all that blood came out.

[Announcer] Zach Gowen's been busted open and now

Brock Lesnar with the head butts to

the bloody head of Zach Gowen.

[Colleena] No, it's over!

[Zach] The reaction from my mom was a real reaction.

[Announcer] Somebody's gonna stop this!

[Colleena] No! What are you doing?

[Announcer] This is, this is premeditated assault.

Don't do it! [indistinct commentary]

[Zach] She hopped the guardrail.

She's checking on me. She said, "Zachary,

you didn't tell me about all this blood."

And I'm like, "Mom, it wasn't supposed to be

this much blood. I'm so sorry."

[Announcer] Stay out of the way of Brock Lesnar.

[Colleena] It was quite a, quite a bloody mess.

[Jimmy] It was a home run segment.

I mean, people still talk about how violent that was.

[Announcer] Oh my god.

No, no, no. What the hell is this?

Brock! No! Come on!

?

[Narrator] As a top star in the company,

Gowen is in demand-

both in the ring and out.

[Zach] WWE booked me for an autograph signing.

And I'm sitting there and there's a long line of people.

I can't believe how many people showed up.

So, I'm just sitting there with my head down,

signing autographs, saying thank you,

taking pictures for two straight hours.

Finally, we get to the end of the line and

somebody walks up and says,

"Hey, can you sign a picture for your pops?"

I look up and it's my dad.

My dad, who I haven't seen since I was four years old.

So, I signed this picture and I gave it back to my dad.

And I said, "Here you go."

And he said, "Thank you."

He handed me a letter and he walked away.

I don't remember what the letter said.

I, I think it was a letter of reconciliation and

trying to establish a relationship.

My initial reaction was anger, though.

I'm a WWE superstar.

So, now, of course, you want to be in my life,

rather than when I needed you the most

and you weren't there.

One of my first memories in life is

being three years old and watching my dad

beat up my mom while I hid underneath

the kitchen sink and I peered through

the cabinet door.

Seeing that

and just having your whole world shattered

and everything that you think you know is just

out the window at that point.

[Colleena] It just breaks my heart to even think that

he could see someone hurting his mother.

We were, I was done.

Zachary and I, we moved out from our family home.

We moved into a small apartment and his father

left the state and just disappeared.

He never conquered the evils that were looming over him

and he passed away.

?

[Zach] It threw me off so much that I had to

collect myself and they shut down the entire signing.

And that was the last time that I saw my father.

And I always said that no matter what happens,

that I will never, ever, ever be like him.

I'll never be like my dad.

At the height of my career, I'm on top of the world,

but emotionally, I feel like

I'm at the bottom of the ocean.

?

here comes Zach Gowen!

[Narrator] At the height of his success...

[Brock] How's your leg doing, buddy?

[Narrator] Zach Gowen starts making decisions

that threaten his career.

[Zach] I got injured in an angle with Brock Lesnar on TV.

He breaks my leg in two places.

It's a wrestling storyline.

And after that, I hit the road to Philadelphia

with my friends.

I wanted to hang out with my real friends because

I understand that people in WWE aren't

so much besties, you know, with me.

Word gets back to the office that I'm out in public and

I'm taking pictures with fans and all of this

right after my leg is supposed to be broken

and I'm supposed to be in the hospital.

So Johnny Yates calls me up and he's pissed, man.

He's like, "What the hell?

You're supposed to be in the hospital,

now you're out in public." I go, I go, "Johnny,"

I go, "It's fucking fake.

Like everyone knows it's not real."

It was just a really dumb thing to say.

And I know I caught a lot of flack from the office because

up until this point, it was just with the other wrestlers.

But now all of a sudden,

my heat is going into the office,

which now is really starting to affect

my position within the company.

My last match in WWE, I wrestled Tajiri.

Tajiri has his bodyguards.

He hit me with a double STO.

[Announcer] Wait a minute, what the hell is this?

Whoa! Hey!

[Zach] Knocks me out completely.

?

I wake up a few minutes later backstage,

I have no idea where I'm at.

It's really scary.

And so, when I got home, I called the office,

I called Johnny Yates and I said,

"Hey, Johnny, I have a concussion.

The doctor recommends I take a few weeks off".

And he goes, "All right, call me when you're healthy."

You know.

A few weeks goes by, I'm feeling healthy.

I call Johnny Yates, I say, "Hey, I'm healthy, I'm ready.

You let me know." And he's like,

"Zach, at this point,

you got a lot of heat with the office.

You got a lot of heat with the boys.

I'm just not comfortable bringing you back to

television to do anything until this can be resolved."

I said, "Okay." I took a few months off.

Then I get a phone call from Johnny Yates and he asked me

to fly to New York the following week

to meet with Jim Ross.

He said, "Zach, you're a unique talent and

you're always welcome back, but I need you to mature

and I need you to get more experience.

Then we can have a phone conversation or another

conversation about what your future is going to be like

with the WWE." But what I heard was,

"Zach, you're not good enough.

You're dog shit.

You didn't fit in. You'll never fit in.

This business isn't for you.

Go away forever."

[Colleena] Zachary just came home and said,

"I'm done. They fired me."

He had told me that he got knocked out.

He wasn't big enough.

He couldn't hold his own with all the pro wrestlers.

No mention of anything else.

When it got around that Zach got fired or let go,

I wouldn't say people are happy.

I think people are like, they expected it.

I think they saw it coming.

[Jimmy] Zach should have been in the

WWE family for, forever.

That's how it should have gone down.

If Zach knew how to act.

[Rhino] He could have been general manager.

He could have done, you know,

the spot matches here and there.

He could have done a lot of stuff behind the scenes.

[Jimmy] But that experiment just, like,

never unfolded that way.

[Zach] My drug use really accelerated after I was

released by WWE because the money dried up,

the girls left, nobody recognized me anymore.

The only thing left is the partying.

[Colleena] I mean, I wasn't naive to know, you know,

he did party a little bit.

And certainly, given his father's

history of drug abuse,

that I was concerned, but I just,

I figured he needed to go through this by himself

and he needed to figure this out.

[Announcer] Here we see...

Zach Gowen coming out!

[Zach] I had an opportunity to go back to TNA in 2005.

It was supposed to be a one-off type of situation,

you know...

[match bell ringing]

The work in the ring was really, really, really good.

And the reaction from the crowd- so strong.

After that match, they were talking about

offering me a contract and

using me more or using me on a full-time basis.

But what do I do? I go straight to the bar,

I start drinking, I start popping Somas.

I end up back at the hotel.

I go up to Jeff Jarrett's suite.

Jeff Jarrett is the owner of TNA.

They're hanging out, they're having a party.

I'm thinking, this is the place to be.

I pull Jeff Jarrett aside, I go, "Hey, Jeff."

I go, "Hey, do you know where I can get some coke?"

And he looks at me, he's like,

"What did you say?"

I'm like, "Come on, man, let's party."

He's like, "No, I don't, you gotta go."

So he kicks me out.

Needless to say, I don't get the TNA contract that

they were talking about just a few hours before.

I'm always one step forward and two steps back

at this point, and it feels like I'm out of control.

The hope and the dream of getting back to WWE

at this point is pretty much out the window.

[crowd cheering & chatter]

[Zach] I was addicted to opiates,

benzos, and alcohol.

And the more, the merrier.

This is the biggest night of my career.

So, my career is doing this,

my drug addiction is doing this.

[Jimmy] He and I started living together

from 2007 to 2008,

yeah, and we were drug bodies, man.

I had four pills and Zach had four pills.

I would take two today and wait, you know,

two for tomorrow because I don't want to

go through withdrawals.

Zach would take all four at once, right?

And obviously those numbers start to get higher and

higher and higher as time goes on.

Zach had no,

no self-control with any of it.

[Kelly] I was 18

and he was 24.

He was funny.

He always, like, has the right thing to say.

My name's Kelly. I'm Zach's wife

and we've been together for about 18 years.

I was so naive. I had no idea.

I liked to drink a little bit, party a little bit.

So, it was exciting for me that, you know,

I got to do that and that he enjoyed that.

And so I never really thought

there was an issue. I thought it was fine.

He would spend every couple of weeks

trying to get sober,

trying to stop drinking, trying to stop taking pills.

He would struggle.

He would go through this detox by himself...

go through all this pain, I don't know,

for two days, three days at a time.

But then he would always go back to

talking himself into getting drugs

or going out and partying.

It was just like a cycle for

probably honestly like

the first two years we were together.

[Zach] Any way that I could get my hands on some money,

to support the habit,

all options were on the table for me.

One day I'm delivering a pizza in one of the...

scariest neighborhoods in Detroit.

I walk up to this house. I ring the doorbell.

There's no answer.

I'm thinking I'm at the wrong house.

So, as I'm walking back to my car,

a man comes around the corner wearing a hood.

And as he approaches me, he pulls out a gun.

?

My whole world stops in this moment,

stops completely.

He says, "Run your pockets."

That's all he says.

I pull out my phone, my wallet, car keys,

pull out my $40 in cash.

I go, "That's all I have. I swear to God."

He goes, "Okay, turn around."

I'm thinking, this is it.

He's going to shoot me in the back of the head.

He said, "Run."

I ran down two blocks

and I stopped and I collected myself.

I reached down into my sock and I pulled out

two Oxycontin pills and I knew that

I could still get high that night.

I was not about to part ways with those

two Oxycontin pills.

I was willing to die over those pills.

That was only five years removed

from me pinning The Big Show,

the main event of SmackDown and getting

13,000 people on their feet.

That's how fast addiction took me down

and that's where it took me.

My biggest fear was that my mom was

going to find me dead for sure.

And it really felt like I was coming to an end.

[Jimmy] He was living with his mom

and he's going through detox,

just going through withdrawals.

And his mom finally confronts him about what's going on.

"Zach, are you all right? Zach, what's going on?

Are you okay? You on drugs?"

[Colleena] He said, "Mom, I've got a problem."

I'm like, "Let's figure this out."

And he's like, "No, Mom, it's a real problem.

It's, you know, I can't stop taking drugs."

[Zach] I'd overcome so many things in my life

up until this point, but I had met my match.

You know, my biggest opponent wasn't cancer,

and it wasn't Brock Lesnar

and it wasn't The Big Show.

My biggest opponent was the man in the mirror

and I couldn't beat him.

?

[Narrator] After years of drug and alcohol abuse

and repeated failed attempts at sobriety,

Zach turns to his mother for help.

[Colleena] He said, "I just can't do it on my own."

And I said, "Stop talking.

I got something for you."

[Zach] She reached into her drawer and she pulled out

a letter from the WWE-

newly implemented wellness policy-

that stated if any talent either

currently under contract

or previously under contract is struggling with

drugs or alcohol,

that they would pay for the treatment.

And within two or three minutes after that

initial phone call, I was booked on a plane to

a rehabilitation center in Minneapolis, Minnesota

that saved my life.

[Jimmy] I didn't think Zach's chances

of succeeding were high.

Like, of course, like I'm rooting for him,

but he was such a degenerate, man,

and he was worse off than I was.

But Zach did it just like, it's cliche, but it's true.

It was like one day at a time,

one step at a time, you know,

just doing the next right thing.

[Zach] I was definitely worried about getting back

into wrestling after I got sober.

I didn't know mentally if I could do it and

I didn't know physically if I could do it either.

[Announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,

I present to you, Zach Gowen!

[Crowd] [cheering]

[Announcer] No mistakes have been made.

Gowen flies in off the tag

[Rhino] I actually ran into Zach after he had

cleaned up and everything.

We're going on the road together

and he just looked good.

There was something about him.

You knew something had changed.

[Charlie] He looked healthy, he muscled up,

he looked great, he beat cancer,

and he is beating addiction.

He's got two great stories.

[Zach] Rejoining the wrestling business was a

blessing and a gift and I'm so glad that I did it because

it's led to an insane number of opportunities.

I'm not defined by what happens to me

or by what somebody says about me.

I'm defined in my choice and how I respond to that.

[Colleena] Zachary has always loved being

in front of a crowd.

[Kelly] He's sharing his entire life story.

He is completely transparent.

I feel like in a way it's him trying to help

who he was or be the person he needed.

[Zach] I've been able to work with over 200,000 parents,

teachers, and students from all over this country

sharing a message of hope, sharing tools of resilience,

sharing my story.

Whatever I can do to help you along your path,

that's the mission and

I've been doing it for 10 years and I love it.

I love it just as much as I love professional wrestling.

[Announcer] For those fans that are unfamiliar with

Zach Gowen, we'll have more on his story.

?

[Narrator] Years removed from addiction,

Zach gets one more chance

to prove himself.

[Announcer] From Detroit, Michigan,

weighing 170 pounds,

Zach Gowen!

- [cheering] - Zach Gowen...

[Zach] To be in that locker room

and to wrestle in front of that big crowd

and to do it on national television but also

have the awareness to appreciate it and enjoy it,

which is something that I couldn't do all those

years ago in WWE, was magical for me.

[Announcer] And that's what Zach Gowen's

fighting for right now.

[Colleena] I was there cheering him on,

as I always have, and his four children were there.

They have not been to many wrestling shows,

so this was all new, but they, they got it.

They understood what was going on.

[Announcer] Zach... oh, the attack!

[indistinct commentary] Unbelievable.

[Jimmy] I was so glad that other people,

at least for one day, got to see Zach, like,

do what he does.

Because Zach's good at what he does.

He's very good at what he does.

[Announcer] Oh yeah! You know!

I'm looking forward to seeing it!

When Zach Gowen goes to the corner!

One foot and oh no!

[Kelly] I was so happy for him,

and it was such a beautiful thing for him

to get to do and experience.

And his kids got to see that and experience that,

and so it was amazing.

[Announcer] And it's Zach Gowen,

whose career continues!

[Zach] I love being a dad.

Being a dad is the greatest thing that's

ever happened to me.

My kids have never seen me drunk,

they've never seen me high, they've never seen me

be violent, they've never seen me not there.

Which is all I knew when I was their age.

[Colleena] I'm so proud of the father that he is,

his ability to stay sober.

He's so special.

We're just very, very, very proud of him.

[cheering & crowd chatter]

[Announcer] Come on, kid!

[Jimmy] There's very few people in my life

I look up to and go, I want what he has.

Not what he has in possessions,

but what he has.

This dude's like a light for the world.

He's allowing his light to shine for everyone else

to see, and in doing so,

inspiring them to have their light shine.

Like, that's the Zach Gowen story, man.

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