The Lock up
Since Undertaker's suggestion of talking to Sarah worked so well, Davy took Taker's command to go have fun seriously to heart. After that night Davy went out of his way to be more gregarious. The next night after a non-televised show, Davy went out with a group of other wrestlers to go drinking. Because he wasn't used to purely social situations Davy just did what was suggested without really thinking it through, and he drank roughly 3/4ths a gallon of beer and liquor. He could barely remember the rest of the night, but when he woke up he discovered that his eyebrows were missing. The ribbing had begun. Wrestler drinking groups were like fraternities, you can be friends with them, but you can't party with them until you deal with initiation rituals. Still Davy decided that being without Eyebrows was better than being alone backstage lamenting his empty life.
He also started going to more things every chance he could. The WWE travel schedule was four shows a week, five if you're on the card for a PPV that month. Davy tried to spend the other few days of the week with as much fun as he could. Any time anyone backstage mentioned a party, he was sure to attend, any time anyone mentioned they were going to something, he would go to and then attend the afterparty. And before each show he would spend hours sightseeing, often not arriving to the show until minutes before the show started. He still managed to get to all his matches, and they were still usually good matches, but Vince had been on his case about being late and was keeping an eye on him and Sarah.
For the first couple of weeks this life was perfect for Davy, he had a new girl, stuff to do beside lament his previous lack of a real personal life, and more friends then ever. But eventually the trouble of this life started catching up to Davy. His money started to disappear. He would frequently find that his checking account was empty, and when he looked at his checkbook he saw that he spent so much of his hard earned money on drinks, souvenirs, and restaurant fees.
Another concern besides his money was he was having trouble staying in shape. Since he spent more of his time seeing tourist attractions and spent most of his off days doing one thing or another, he didn't have time to work out. Also the heavy drinking at nights, and eating of restaurant food as opposed to his meals at home put even more strain on his body. The physique that he worked so hard for since he was a teenager, the build that allowed him to make it into WWE instead of just working the indys, was fading. While it was dangerous for his image to get out of shape it was even worse for his actual ability to perform. Davy's in ring style was extremely fast, and utilized a lot of running the ropes, and jumping off of them and the turnbuckles, and also a lot of picking his opponents up and tossing them around. He'd become slower and weaker. He could still put on a good match but he had lost the snap to a lot of his moves, he noticed that the push that McMahon was giving him just faded out. And while he wasn't getting booked as a complete loser, he wasn't winning as many matches, getting as many opportunities to cut promos and wasn't getting on PPV. Davy did notice but refused to acknowledge it. He still got to have fun in the ring, still had Sarah, and was still making enough money to pay for his lifestyle.
This kept going for about two months, when an event happened that forced Davy to realize that his hedonistic lifestyle was hurting him. Davy was in a match against a local boy, it was a dark (untelevised but at a TV taping) match to determine if this kid deserved a contract. And Davy could hardly do any of his spots. He couldn't jump high enough to do his leapfrog. He could barely run the ropes like he used to, and he swore he pulled something going for a suplex. Davy won the match, but if it was a real fight instead of a worked Professional Wrestling match, he realized he would have lost. That was when Davy lost his pride in his work and in himself. Not sure if he could go back to the loneliness of his life before Taker's pep talk, he tried to find solace in copious amounts of alcohol. With enough drinks he could forget all his problems at least for that night. Over the next several months Davy's drinking problem kept getting worse and worse. It was probably for the best that he forgot things after her drank, because when he didn't drink he turned into an absolute jerk. The hangovers drove him nuts, his fuse got shorter and shorter. Eventually he was snapping at everyone all the time, his friends abandoned him, Sarah got scared and stopped seeing him and Vince quietly demoted him to the bottom of the card, keeping him on the roster hoping that somebody could get through to the young man. Davy was worse off than before, totally alone, unmotivated, wrestling horribly and still feeling empty. It all came to a head roughly five months after his talk with Taker. It was the next Random drug screening of the year, every wrestler in WWE had to take a urine test to make sure they weren't on any illicit substances, and at a certain point McMahon had decided to a certain level of alcohol just as bad as anything else in a wrestler's system.
The day after the test Vince McMahon got everyone's results. When he saw just how much alcohol was in Davy's piss he realized what was wrong with him and finally decided to get matters taken care of. At the house show that evening McMahon stomped around backstage looking for Davy, he found him sitting against a wall in the parking deck. "Davy!" McMahon barked. "We just got your urine samples back, do you realize how bad your test was!"
Davy himself had anticipated that tonight this would probably happen. And decided it was time to sober up. Sadly the first day was the hardest and Davy a huge headache and an even worse attitude. Without even making eye contact with his boss Davy just mumbled. "Don't talk to me sir."
"Listen to me boy, I'm worried about you." McMahon snarled. He was trying extremely hard to be reasonable, but he really didn't like to be told off by Wrestlers who were being more trouble than they were worth.
McMahon's words hit like concert speakers to Davy. "Listen Sir, don't talk to me!"
McMahon pretended he didn't hear Davy tell him what to do "your Alcohol level was the worst I've seen since Eddie Guererro before I released him. You've got a problem and it's been affecting your work for far too long. I'm suspending you for 30 days without pay and ordering you to get into rehab."
Davy jumped up at McMahon and grabbed him by the shirt. In his current state being told he wouldn't have any income for a month and couldn't do what he loved most was more than enough to send him over the edge. "You Can't suspend me!" Davy snarled. "I've worked too freaking hard, This is my life! You piece of crap you can't just kick me to the curb!"
McMahon pushed
Davy down and threw him against the wall. "Listen you ungrateful
punk. This is the life of almost 100 men and women. Not counting all
the road crew, musicians, lawyers and god knows who else I have to
try to keep happy! And don't give me that I've worked too hard
bull. You haven't put on a decent match in months. Hell for the
past couple of months you've been nothing but trouble. "
McMahon's tone was almost exactly like Davy's. "I've let go
of guys who were far harder working and far more beloved by the crowd
than you. I've fired Stone Cold Steve Austin, I've fired Hulk
Hogan, by the time I had established both of them as the biggest
stars in the world! I could fire you now and not lose any of my usual
3 hours of sleep about it!"
Then McMahon let Davy go, Vince
took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "You're unpaid while your
suspended, but we pay for rehab and counseling. My advice would be to
take it." Vince calmly ordered. "Now get back to the hotel."
