Chapter 2: Birth Of A Machine
If you asked the family of Tristan Patrick McDaniel what it exactly was they remember about his birth, which paradoxically took place on the day that Ireland declared independence from England (which for our non-Hibernian readers takes place on December 6th), there are many answers that you might expect. Perhaps a remark on driving down a highway in a super-fast car, or a father passing out in the delivery room. But instead what everyone remembers is this: Tristan was a quiet baby. He cried immediately, as if he wanted to get the necessary expressions of noise out of the way.
His older sister Fionna was the first to notice it. "It's funny", she said. "Everyone sees the career that he's gone in to, and assumes he has this broad and outsized personality. It's a fair assumption, but it was never Tristan. It's never been him. He cried because you hurt him, or because he was hungry. He never cried just to cry, or to test his lungs."
There was something else different about the birth of Tristan Patrick McDaniel, a kid so Irish that he already came out of the womb with what everyone knew would be long red hair. It was covered in all the local papers, from the Sun Times to the Tribune and everywhere else in between. What was the reason for the coverage befitting the birth of a prince, or a king? The answer to this is very simple.
In essence, his father was royalty (or about as close to royalty as one can get in the United States.) When your father is the Priest, James Brian McDaniel, and he ruled Chicago wrestling with the kind of iron fist that makes dictators jealous while somehow managing to remain benevolent and a widely understood heroic figure, your birth is going to be big news especially when you are considered to be the heir to that throne. There's just one problem with the narrative as everyone understood it: The Priest wanted absolutely nothing to do with it.
"James was a simple man", said one of his closest friends Brian Jackson, the long-time wrestling reporter at the Sun-Times. "All he really wanted for his kids was for them to not feel the same 'calling' that he had. He wanted Tristan, in particular, to have absolutely nothing to do with the sport. He knew what it did to him, the effect it had on his body and soul, and didn't want his son to be plagued by those same feelings. And so very early on, especially with Tristan, he placed all of his trophies and awards, all of the proof that he was this heroic figure, out of the view of his only son."
And as Tristan was brought home, with a full police escort and coverage on local news, his father made the promise to himself that would define every waking moment of his son's life: He would never allow his son to follow in his footsteps. He'd rather disown him than let him enter the sport that he loved as much as he had hated.
But, at least for a little while, this wasn't even an idea. Tristan would be raised as his father's son, explicitly, with all of the privileges that entailed. He would never want for education, or for good clothes. His was as close to a life of royalty as an American child could get. But for all of the benefits of being raised as a McDaniel, something was always missing to hear Tristan tell it.
"It's really not that difficult to understand, you know", said Fionna McDaniel. "All we wanted when we were kids is to be close to our father, to know he loved us and wanted us to be as successful as he was. It's kind of hard to do that when he holds you at arm's length, and out of the most important parts of his life. I always felt like there was some reason he didn't love us, something wrong intimately with how we were as kids that couldn't make him wrap his arms around us like I saw other fathers around us doing with their kids. And I handled it poorly, I'll admit. I developed a drinking problem. But Tristan was different. He was the little brother, the prince of the family, and Dad favored him. Tristan always looked out for me, though, and Mom. Especially when Dad started drinking."
Up until his preschool years, Tristan knew his father as nothing other than an occasionally gruff and menacing man who was short with hugs, and long on critiques to his book-smart older sister Fionna, but who also tried to do the best for his kids that he could. But when Tristan went into school, James was forced to retire due to a nagging knee injury and the troubles began almost immediately. Soon, the gruffness became out-and-out rage, blunted only by those all-too-frequent nights when James slipped into drunken stupors. And as Tristan Patrick McDaniel graduated from high school, on the Dean's List at Tilden High, he had already planned his escape. First would be college at the University of Michigan. Then next, he would follow his dream, the dream he had forced himself to hide from his father. What was this dream, you might be asking? Simple. The dream of becoming a professional wrestler.