A Lion's Tale: Around the World in Spandex

by Chris Jericho

  After I hit the ropes and felt like I had been kicked in the ribs by Bruce Lee, I ran into Keith, who was bent over ready to launch me up into the air for the back drop. Technically, I was supposed to flip my body in midair and take a back bump on the mat from about six feet off the ground. But when he threw me in the air, I over-rotated and landed on my feet just as Wallass and I had done during countless BTWF matches in the high school gym. I’m proud to say I nailed that bitch with a perfect 10 landing. Carly Patterson couldn’t have dismounted that beautifully.

  The class was even more amazed than I was with my acrobatic feat and started clapping and cheering. After channeling the abilities of Owen Hart, I figured that my position as the superstar pupil of the class of 1990 had been cemented. I soaked in the adoration of my public, until Keith circled around behind me, wrapped his arm around my neck, and drove his knee into my hamstring, forcing me down to the mat.

  He trapped my arms behind my back (in what’s known as a grapevine) and applied pressure down on the top of my head and up on the bottom of my my chin at the same time. I flashed back to Jesse the Body warning me about the infamous Hart technique of inflicting major amounts of pain and humiliation on the rookies in training.

  I kept silent as Keith crushed my jaw together, until it felt like my front teeth were going to snap right in half. He applied so much pressure that I actually felt them bending. I was scared, but I didn’t say anything, which I think was my saving grace. I found out later that the classic Hart method was to wait for their victims to scream and then they would administer more torture. A lack of screaming was your ticket out and when I didn’t, Keith eventually got bored and released me. I’d like to say that I didn’t scream due to my superhuman tolerance for pain, but in reality I didn’t scream because I couldn’t open my mouth. If I could’ve, I would’ve been screaming like a twelve-year-old girl at an Ashlee Simpson gig. (Please don’t tell anyone, okay?)

  After showing off his dick size by attacking me from behind and beating my ass, Keith collected the rest of the money from everyone and walked out of the building. He never came to the camp again, and Keith’s thirty-minute cameo was the only appearance by any of the eight HART BROTHERS for the entire duration of the HART BROTHERS Pro Wrestling Camp.

  When the only link to the Hart dynasty left the building, I figured out that the wrestling business wasn’t quite what it seemed to be. Fortunately for us, Ed had a training manual that Stu Hart had written in the 1960s, and was following it word for word. Even though Stu wasn’t training us himself, in a way he really was. Ed Langley may have been a bullshitter, but he followed Stu’s words of training wisdom to a tee and along with an excellent in-ring assistant named Brad Young, Ed was a pretty damn good teacher.

  Meanwhile, the Willy wasn’t what it was supposed to be either. It was tacky yet unrefined, boasted more ants than a family reunion, and employed a smelly maid who stunk up every room that she cleaned. On the first night of my stay I was sound asleep in my room, when all of a sudden the fire alarm started ringing. I awoke with a start, convinced that I was going to burn to death in Okotoks, the worst-named town ever. I hastily packed up all my stuff (bass guitar and bicycle included) and hauled everything down the stairs in record time. The rest of the Apple Dumpling Gang gathered in the parking lot and waited until Zig wandered outside and said with a smirk, “Don’t worry about the fire alarm. It goes off all the time for no reason.”

  Five nights later it went off again and I figured if the shithole was on fire, I was gonna burn with it. I opened my door in time to see Lumberjack Dave rip the alarm out of the wall. I thought about asking him what would happen if an actual fire started, but I saw the look in his eye and the bullet hole scar on his stomach (matching the one in my window) and decided to catch some sleep instead. After all, I had a big day of getting the shit kicked out of me ahead.

  The class trained from 6 to 10 P.M., five days a week for eight weeks. For the first two weeks all we did was stretching (not the Hart kind), running, and calisthenics. We did windsprints and then ran a mile both forward and backward. Ever run a mile backward? Give it a try, junior, it ain’t easy. Then we did standing hack squats, starting with twenty-five and increasing every day until we hit 500. Ever done 500 hack squats? I’ll personally come to your house, wash your windows, pleasure your dog, and make you a sandwich if you can. Okay, maybe I won’t wash your windows.

  We’d follow up by doing bridges with only our heads and legs for support, starting with thirty-second increments and increasing them to five minutes. It was brutal and there were countless times I bridged until tears came out of my eyes and my muscles were begging to be released.

  We went through a smorgasborg of stretching, including a pleasant exercise where Brad would put his hands on the inner side of one ankle and his feet on the inner side of my other ankle. He would slowly push them apart until my legs were totally straddled out beside me. From behind, Ed would then push my back toward the ground until I kissed the mat. It felt like I was being drawn and quartered and the tears flowed once again.

  Every time the stretching mercifully ended I thought, “What does this have to do with wrestling?” The stretches had a lot to do with wrestling because they were designed to test our discipline and tenacity to see if we would be physically and mentally tough enough to make it. It was no surprise that most of my classmates didn’t.

  After the second day, two of the fourteen students in our class dropped out. As the weeks progressed students continued disappearing like campers in a Jason movie; although being beheaded by a mutant in a goalie mask would’ve been less painful than the training we were enduring.

  Dave the Lumberjack quit after two weeks, proving that even lumberjacks aren’t tough enough to be wrestlers. Archers on the other hand apparently were, because as goofy as he was, Victor DeWilde was doing fairly well in camp. Did the rigors of the quill properly prepare him for the rigors of the ring? Only Robin Hood knows for sure.

  I wasn’t impressed with most of my classmates, but I was starting to respect Wilf. Even though he couldn’t see straight, he was working his ass off and never complained once about the shit kicking we were taking. Once when we were practicing sunset flips, he jumped over his opponent and landed straight on his bean, which made a sick, squishy sound when it drove into the mat. Everyone went silent as Wilf stumbled to the change room, complaining of heartburn. He came back a few minutes later and continued doing his drills as if nothing had happened. He was as tough as a three-dollar steak and he was driven by his goal of being a job guy (a guy who always loses) for the WWF. Later on, I heard that he accomplished his dream when he worked a TV taping for the Federation.

  I raise my glass to him for that.

  CHAPTER 7

  ROB BENOIT

  The cornerstone to becoming a wrestler is learning how to take bumps, which in laymen’s terms is learning how to fall. There were back bumps, side bumps, and front bumps (flopping on your face like Ric Flair). One of the students took a front bump, rolled out of the ring, walked out the door, and was never seen again. We had to take these bumps over and over, dozens of times a night, which led to some very painful mornings. Trying to get out of bed was a science and carefully swinging one leg at a time over the side of the bed just to get out of it made me feel like I was sixty years old instead of nineteen. I invented the fashion trend of stuffing a bag of cotton balls down the back of my shorts to pad and protect my protesting tailbone.

  I suffered the common training injury of heeling yourself, which occurred after taking a bump without landing your feet flat on the mat. The heel would hit first, which in turn caused a bolt of pain to shoot up your leg, making it difficult to walk for a few days. But quitting wasn’t an option, so I sucked it up like a Third Avenue hooker and continued training the next day.

  After a few weeks we finally learned how to properly hit the ropes. The secret was to take four steps in crossing the ring, pivot with your left foot while grabbing the top rope with you
r right hand, and spring off with your right foot forward. We practiced the timing by hitting the ropes over and over again, until every one of us developed huge bruises and welts from our armpits to our waists. We did forward rolls from one post to another to get the feel of being in the ring. This helped us to develop our timing and to build the basic foundation of how to have a match. But it was amazing how many wrestlers I would meet whose foundations were almost nonexistent.

  The Action Center became a refuge for out-of-work wrestlers who thought they were the shit because they’d had a few matches. I wasn’t very impressed or excited about most of these guys, because I hadn’t heard of them and they were as flabby and out-of-shape as most of the students in my class.

  One night a guy showed up in the middle of class who I assumed was the building janitor. He was sporting a sweet mullet, thick Coke-bottle glasses, a porno mustache, and a pretty impressive beer belly. I was mildly surprised when Ed called Lance and me over and said, “This is Bob Puppets. He wrestles and promotes shows and we’re gonna be working together.”

  A promoter? This guy who looked like Mark Borchardt raking leaves at a church picnic was an actual promoter! My mind went haywire thinking of all the places he could potentially book me. I asked him where he promoted his shows and I anxiously awaited his answer of Edmonton or Vancouver or Moscow or...

  “Innisfail.”

  Innisfail? Innisfail was a dumpy little farm town two hours outside Calgary. I smelled the beer on his breath as he continued. “I run a lot of shows and I’d like to use you guys.” Then he turned his Coke bottles toward me and said, “You look like Chris Benoit. I want to book you as his brother, Rob Benoit.”

  How exciting was it that a promoter from the bustling metropolis of Innisfail was taking an interest in me? I liked the idea that I reminded him of Chris Benoit because I was a fan of Chris’s work in Stampede. So if I could parlay a passing facial resemblance to him into a steady gig, I was prepared to milk Rob Benoit for all it was worth.

  The cavalcade of locals continued as other wrestlers who worked for Puppets showed up. There was Lee Barachie (say it fast), who worked a gay pianist gimmick and certainly had the body for it. There was a guy named Bret Como, who I’d seen wrestling for the WFWA in Winnipeg. I figured that anyone who wrestled on TV was a rich superstar, so I instantly respected him. But the one thing I noticed about all of them from Puppets to Como to Brad Young was how small they were. It was inspiring to see that many of these working wrestlers were my size. All of the self-doubt I’d amassed over the years from people telling me I was too small to be a wrestler was being erased.

  Despite getting tips from the pros, the guy I learned the most from was Lance. He was a tremendous athlete and as much of a wrestling fan as I was, and we pushed each other to the limit on a daily basis. He was also my personality polar opposite, as I was loud and friendly, while he was stoic and slightly stand-offish. But we got along well because we knew that almost everyone else in the camp sucked and we only had each other to work and grow with. To this day we both admit if one of us wasn’t in the camp, the other one wouldn’t have made it.

  Ed knew that we were his star students and began treating us as such. He showed up at the hotel to talk wrestling, took us to dinner to tell us about the upcoming shows in the area, and began letting us train in the ring by ourselves on our off-days. That’s when we really started making giant strides as workers because we could polish our skills at a faster pace without the other students slowing us down.

  I held an advantage over everyone at the start because I already knew how to do body slams and suplexes from my years of doing them in the BTWF. But Lance was a quick study and surpassed me quickly. While everybody else was still learning how to give simple arm drags, Lance and I were giving each other intricate moves like head scissors and Frankensteiners.

  Lance wasn’t only pushing me physically, but mentally as well. He was such a great athlete and it pissed me off when he outperformed me. If he could stand in the ring and jump straight up to the top rope, that meant I had to do it too. I was furious at myself when I tried and failed miserably. He could do a picture-perfect leg drop after the first day of camp and I still can’t do one to this day. Every time I tried, Lance would give me this smug little grin that made me want to knock his fucking block off. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind who the best student in the camp was and it drove me nuts.

  About a month into the camp my dad came to visit. He understood what it was like to leave everything behind to follow your dream because he had done the same thing at nineteen to play pro hockey. No matter how much flak I received for wanting to wrestle, I always knew that my dad stood behind me 100 percent. I don’t know what he thought when Ed and Brad stretched the shit out of my groin and hamstrings until I screamed, but he respected my decision all the same.

  After observing the session he said, “You sure are lucky that Lance is here.” He thought that we were the best two in the class by far, but then again he also loved Vic when he showed up wearing a stethoscope and a smock in his new gimmick of Dr. Love.

  I guess there’s no accounting for taste in my family.

  When we started working short matches with the other students, Lance and I shamelessly showed off. Lance decided that he would be an evil Russian (I guess he was looking to exploit the Cold War of 1990) and wore a black singlet with CCCP written on the straps. I sported a pair of gray gym shorts as we ran through our roster of Moves for the Advanced Student stolen from Shawn Michaels and Owen Hart. Meanwhile the rest of the guys still couldn’t take a hip toss.

  Ed worked a lot of matches with us too, and if you’ve ever heard the theory that some people are better teachers than performers, well, that was Ed. He would get in the ring as the Goto Hills Savage, dressed in a costume that included furry checkerboard boots and a matching furry vest that looked like they were made out of toilet seat covers. Whenever he did a move he would yell, “Hyaa!” Once when he hip-tossed Dr. Love, he said “Hyaa!” and his false teeth flew out. Nuff said.

  Hyaa!

  When we weren’t in class, Lance and I spent a lot of time watching videos in his room at the Willy since he’d brought a VCR and his extensive wrestling tape collection with him from Ontario. He was a big NWA fan and I really wasn’t, but I soon became quite familiar with the work of Ric Flair, Sting, and Lex Luger. Right away I noticed the major difference between the two companies. The NWA favored wrestling while the WWF favored showmanship. That’s also a good analogy of Lance and my respective career paths.

  As the camp neared completion, Ed and Brad gave a speech to the remaining survivors similar to the one Catfish Charlie gave me. They’d waited until they’d weeded out the pretenders to fill in the remaining blanks of how wrestling worked. I learned a new rule when Brad explained that in the ring it was up to the more experienced worker to control the flow of the match and to decide what was or wasn’t done. Some of the depleted Apple Dumpling Gang reacted to the speech with the same denial that I did when I learned that wrestling wasn’t a real contest.

  After the speech, Lance and I worked each other to a ten-minute Broadway (draw) and I overheard Deb say with a confused look on her face, “I thought Lance could beat Chris, he’s so much better.” Even after eight weeks of training she still had the IQ of a kumquat. But kumquat or not, her statement hurt my feelings and increased my jealousy of Lance.

  Our graduation from the Hart Camp was nothing special. Those of us left at the end graduated with no ceremony, no diploma, no square hat; just a half-assed congratulations and a guarantee of nothing. While I was proud of myself for making it through the camp, I now had to contend with the more difficult task of finding a job.

  PART THREE WICHITA AND ELSEWHERE

  CHAPTER 8

  IRON WILL

  I was feeling uneasy about my future and my only plan was to stay in Calgary to try and get work. Thankfully, Ed erased some of the uncertainty when he allowed Lance, Victor, and me to continue training a
t the Action Center free of charge.

  I was thrilled to have a place to continue training, but that didn’t solve my more pressing problem of running out of cash. Luckily, I had some extended family that lived in Okotoks who knew a lady named Bev Palko and her husband, Jerry. She and her family lived outside town and were looking for someone to paint the fence in their backyard. It didn’t sound like the most exciting of jobs but I was thankful for the chance to make some money and I accepted the offer.

  The next day I drove outside Okotoks until I saw a distant farmhouse surrounded by what seemed to be a five-mile long fence. Not only was this the Palko house, but the Palko FENCE as well. Instead of painting a little old lady’s picket fence, I was going to have to whitewash the Great Wall of Alberta.

  Bev met me at the door and she was one of the friendliest people I’d ever met. She was in her mid-forties with salt-and-pepper hair and an infectious laugh and I liked her right from the start. She took me out to a garage filled with gallons of whitewash and paint rollers and told me to get cracking.

  After I loaded the trunk of the Volare it took me five minutes to drive across the field as my car bumped and lurched like a cheap drunk over the groundhog holes and rocks. Cows were grazing on haystacks while horses neighed in disgust and Lil Chris realized he wasn’t in Winnipeg anymore.