X-Celling

The fans roared in amazement as X-Pac was handed the World Wrestling Federation European Championship. For one brief moment, many spectators selectively forgot about the distaste they harbored for D-Generation X - the gang of athletes X-Pac has chosen as a surrogate family - and simply cheered the achievements of a man who's been an underdog ever since he made his World Wrestling Federation debut in 1993.

In the locker room, though, the mood was different. The titans of the World Wrestling Federation stood - arms across their chests or coffee cups in hand - analyzing the action on the television monitors positioned throughout the changing area. When the ring announcer grabbed the microphone and announced X-Pac's title win, a few wrestlers grunted, a couple shook their hands and at least one competitor - who had been seen socializing with the victor a few nights earlier - mumbled that the youngster had "caught an easy break."

It had been that way since he started in the business. Because X-Pac didn't have the chiseled look of a champion, he was dismissed as a "mark" - a skinny fan who'd managed to maneuver his way into the squared circle just to "be around the boys." When he became co-holder of the World Wrestling Federation Tag Team Championship with Bob Holly in 1995, the triumph was written off as a fluke.

As time went on, the wrestler internalized the criticism and took it out on himself. He battled drug abuse, bolted from the World Wrestling Federation and tried starting fresh in World Championship Wrestling. When he experienced the same kind of treatment there, he bounced back to the World Wrestling Federation. As he marched past the legions applauding his European Title win, X-Pac certainly didn't expect a champagne celebration. He knew many of the wrestlers thought he was a head case and a flake, and he didn't care.

All that mattered was that he was the World Wrestling Federation European Champion, an accolade few other athletes could claim. If the other wrestlers didn't care to mob him or slap him on the back, it was their loss. The days of trying to make everybody love him were over. He knew who his friends were - fellow DXers Shawn Michaels, Hunter Hearst-Helmsley, Badd Ass Billy Gunn and the Road Dogg - but he also understood that if he had something any of them wanted - like a championship belt - he'd have to watch his back. It didn't mean they didn't like him. It was just the way of life in the World Wrestling Federation.

As a kid, he had trained, watched videos and dreamt that he was working shows like WrestleMania and SummerSlam. Now that his fantasies had been realized, he couldn't complain. Regardless of how "the boys" received him, he felt lucky...lucky to be one of the chosen few to not only make it in the business but win a championship.

At 26 years of age, he'd had to endure men more than twice his age - guys who'd been reared with every privilege, had their college educations subsidized, immediately attracted friends and who lived in clean, predictable developments where complaints about jet engine noise and barking dogs took precedence over concerns about life and death. After a stint in drug rehabilitation in 1996, X-Pac had come to terms with the fact that he'd chosen a different path. He was living on the edge - even though he had a wife and two kids to support. If he screwed up and fell into the world of substance abuse again, they suffered. If he injured himself by trying a suicidal move in the ring, they'd go hungry. He could have gone about things another way, of course - maybe waited to get married or applied for a safe union job, instead of risking his life against men who were bigger, meaner and stronger. But X-Pac had to do it X-Pac's way. With the World Wrestling Federation European Championship around his waist, he realized he'd been successful.

Let the other wrestlers snicker, the fans jeer and the press say what they would about him. X-Pac had made it, and he knew it. And that knowledge not only made him a more mature wrestler, but a better one.

It was important for X-Pac to challenge D'Lo Brown for the European title alone. The members of DX were told to stay in the dressing room. If D'Lo's allies in the Nation interfered, X-Pac would handle them.

D'Lo seemed to rise to this challenge. Like X-Pac, he also felt overshadowed by his associates and he wanted to prove his individual worth. On September 15 (1998), as the two tangled in Sacramento, California, D'Lo gave it everything he had, hurting the number one contender with a vicious powerslam and a mighty clothesline.

X-Pac shook off the blows, responding to the onslaught with a spinning heel kick in the corner. Brown tried a springboard moonsault from the second rope, but X-Pac moved out of the way. Still, there was no time to gloat. D'Lo was more dangerous on the defensive than he was when he was feeling confident. He punished X-Pac with the Sky-Hi. Then - naively thinking he was sufficiently weakened - D'Lo dove off the ropes, spinning like a missile. It was the moment X-Pac had been waiting for. He rose to his feet, managed to grip the back of Brown's head and drove his skull into the canvas. In an instant, X-Pac was on top of his opponent, tying him up as the referee counted, "One, two, three."

There would be rocky nights ahead. There always were in the Federation. The title reign wouldn't last forever. Guys would try to injure him in the ring. A former ally would badmouth him to the rest of the boys, revealing X-Pac's secrets and vulnerabilities. But to the World Wrestling Federation European Champion, it didn't matter.

He had won the belt all by himself...and he'd grown as a man.

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