A Lion's Tale: Around the World in Spandex

by Chris Jericho

  With his newfound success Art was forced to spend weeks, sometimes months, away from his wife and two kids. That my friend, is the worst part of the wrestling business: the constant travel that separates you from your loved ones. As great as the fame and the money are, sometimes I wonder if working at a Taco Bell and being able to tuck your kids in at night isn’t a better gig.

  Fortunately, all of us at the Plaza Madrid had developed into a second family for each other (or in my case a third family if you included the Palkos). We talked about our problems or our feelings and just hung out and had a great time with each other. I was close with guys like Lance, Lenny, and Como, but it was a different situation with those guys because we were in our own country. But in Mexico because we were fish out of water, there was more of a family-type bond between me, Eddy, Tonga, Black Magic, Mike, and Art.

  On the outside, Art was egotistical, sarcastic, and obnoxious, but once you got to know him he was a blast to be around and impossible to dislike. Art and Eddy were still working for AAA and after losing one of the classic matches of all time to Octagon and el Hijo del Santo, Eddy got Art booked on a tour with New Japan. Art’s ridiculous amount of charisma combined with his solid wrestling skills made him an instant success in Japan. He was at the top of his game, making big money worldwide, and was finally able to take some well-deserved time off to spend with his family. Life was good.

  The day before he left to go back to Oregon, we met up to hang out in Zona Rosa for the day. We went to a Carl’s Jr. burger joint for a bite and got into a big debate over whether or not Loverboy was a cool band. We’d seen one of their videos at the Plaza and were discussing how lead singer Mike Reno’s headband and lame leg warmers completely contradicted their kickass songs. Art decided to buy a headband to wear all day as a tribute to Loverboy. Years later on WCW Nitro I accused wrestler Lenny Lane of stealing my Loverboy tape as a tribute to Art.

  After lunch, instead of taking a bus back to the Plaza we saw one of those rickshaw guys and Art suggested we get a ride back. Imagine the ridiculosity of two hetero males, one with long blond hair, one with a Loverboy headband, sitting side by side and being pulled down the street in a rickshaw.

  Back at the hotel before we parted ways, Art reached into his pocket and gave me his room key. Because Art and Eddy were exploding as big-time draws for AAA, they had top-floor suites in the Plaza complete with a VCR, fridge, and stove. I was in a normal room, so this was like giving me the gold key to Disneyland. It was also strange because, to my knowledge, Art had never given his key to anyone and he certainly had never given it to me. He told me I was welcome to watch movies, cook dinner, or just hang out in his huge room. Then he gave me a hug and said, “I love you man.”

  Saying “I love you” is not something that guys feel comfortable about, but it takes a real man to be able to tell another man that you love him as a brother. I reiterated the statement and we parted ways. Forever.

  A couple of nights later after watching a few movies in Art’s room, the phone rang. I answered it and was surprised to hear Magic’s voice. I asked him what was up and a chill enveloped my body when he spoke two simple words: “Art’s dead.”

  Time went into half speed. I looked at the push buttons on the phone and tried to figure out what they were for. I was infatuated with the numbers on the squares embedded into the base of the phone: 1, 2, 3...I hit the floor before I got to 4.

  My knees turned into water balloons and wouldn’t support my body. I collapsed like a house of cards. Some would say I fainted except I didn’t black out. I could still smell the dust on the brown carpet and the polish on the oak night table.

  A zombie spoke into the phone: “What are you talking about?”

  “Art is dead. He died at home.”

  I felt as paralyzed as my mom. My limbs weren’t responding to my commands and I couldn’t pick myself off the floor.

  Magic explained that Art had died during the night while his young son Dexter slept beside him.

  “Magic, what are we going to do? What are we gonna do?” I kept asking over and over. “What are we gonna do?”

  I couldn’t grasp what I’d just been told. I didn’t understand how a guy who had eaten a hamburger and discussed Loverboy only days earlier could now be dead.

  I hung up the phone, grabbed a pen and paper, and just started writing. In some way, writing a letter to Art helped me to comprehend what I’d just heard. I poured my feelings onto the page, covering it with the ink of my emotions, and the next day I faxed it to the inside trade paper The Wrestling Observer. It was printed on the front page of the following week’s issue. I felt weird reading it because I didn’t remember a word of what I’d written until I read it back.

  When You Lose a Brother

  Trying to forget the news

  That you’re gone so soon

  It leaves me crushed and broken

  I don’t know what to do

  A brother is more than blood

  More than just a name

  Even though we have different families

  We were brothers just the same

  We weren’t brothers in flesh and blood

  We were brothers of circumstance and means

  Sharing stories and good times

  Sharing the same visions and dreams

  I remember so many times

  When each other was all we had

  Helping to conquer the difficulties

  Of being two strangers in a strange land

  Yet I’m very thankful

  At the end of that one day

  When we exchanged the words “I love you”

  As only true brothers can say

  Because even though you have gone

  To a place we all shall see

  We shared respect, love, admiration, and fun

  And you will always be with me

  Lionheart Chris Jericho

  Mexico City

  Thanksgiving, 1994

  Art’s death is still a mystery. There are lots of conflicting theories and reports as to what happened but I have a theory of my own. Art took a lot of pills during his everyday life. I believe that as a result of taking so many his body became confused about when to wake up and when to go to sleep and as a result it simply stopped working.

  When I finished writing Art’s requiem, I went back into his room to do a cleanup operation. I didn’t know what I’d find, but I knew that his death would be a huge story and I didn’t want the police to discover anything that would cause his family any further pain. There wasn’t all that much to hide but I cleaned up what I thought should be cleaned up, out of respect for my friend and his family. I took one more look around the room and was about to turn the lights out and leave when I saw a photo hanging on the wall. It was a picture of Art dressed in a nice suit with a classic Love Machine devil-may-care look on his face, taken at a Christmas party the year before. I had no right to take it off the wall and keep it, but I did. It was something of his that I could hold on to and remember my brother by.

  A few short weeks after Art’s death, the Mexican peso crashed hard. Suddenly I was making a third of what I’d been making as the exchange on 1,000 pesos went from $340 to about $125 in one day. The peso crash was the icing on the cake anyway, because after Art died the fun of wrestling in Mexico was gone. The whole vibe had changed and it was too painful to stay at the Plaza with all of the Art memories surrounding me. God was telling me that it was time to move on and it was no coincidence when a few days later I received an offer from the perfect place to continue my quest.

  PART FIVE GERMANY

  CHAPTER 21

  THE TRIANGLE OF DECADENCE

  Even though I was a main-event performer all across Mexico, a heartthrob, a match-of-the-year participant, a champion, and a fairly well off twenty-four-year-old, I still felt like I was at square one when it came to breaking into the big time in North America. I didn’t think that I had enough experience or was good enough to go to New York (wrestli
ng slang for the WWF), but as I said I didn’t want to stay in Mexico.

  Once again I felt complacent as a performer and I was getting tired of living in what was basically a Third World country. I’d gotten everything I could out of lucha libre, so I set my sights on getting booked elsewhere. Since Japan wasn’t knocking on my door, I started thinking about Europe. The style there was based more on technical wrestling (something I wanted to get better at) and less on masks and fancy ball-boasting costumes. Lance had built a name for himself working in Germany and Austria, with the same company Chris Benoit had worked for a few years before. I respected both guys, so I started to investigate.

  I’d met another American wrestler staying at the Plaza named Solomon Grundy who’d spent the previous fall working in Hamburg. I asked him for the address of the promoter so I could try and get myself booked. I figured that the Beatles got their big break in Hamburg, so why not me? Solomon gave me the address, and the next day I wrote promoter Rene Lasartesse a letter...how archaic!

  A few weeks later I received his reply. He explained that the promotion ran a tournament out of the same building six nights a week for six weeks. I’d sent him a beefcake picture of myself wearing only a pair of ripped jeans and he said that his daughter was in love with that picture and she had insisted he invite me.

  I was surprised at how easily I’d been accepted, but I guess I shouldn’t have underestimated my sexocity. I wrote him back to find out how much my guarantee would be, where I would get my work visa from, where I would stay, and how I would get my plane ticket. He responded that I wouldn’t be getting a visa or a plane ticket but I would get 150 deutsche marks a night. He also agreed to pick me up from the airport and make a reservation for me at the hotel where all the boys stayed. It wasn’t the best of deals but I was stoked to go to Europe so I didn’t mind the pay cut. I was intrigued by the idea of working in the same venue in front of the same fans every night. In that scenario, there would be no complacency or shortcuts allowed. I would have to challenge myself to do something different every night. It would be a great way to sharpen my skills and keep me mentally and physically in shape...like Pilates.

  In Germany, wrestling is known as Catch. The name referred to the catch-as-catch-can style of wrestling, which doesn’t make much sense. Then again neither does gesundheit and that’s a German word too.

  So I paid for my own plane ticket to Hamburg, thrilled to add another country to the expanding list of destinations my career was taking me to. When I got off the plane, I looked for the customs area and was surprised not to find one. I could’ve walked off the plane with two hockey equipment bags full of pure Denver crack and nobody would’ve known.

  I did have two hockey bags, but regretfully they were filled with clothes not crack. The tour was six weeks long so I’d packed accordingly. I brought exactly three weeks of clothes...twenty-one pairs of socks, twenty-one pairs of gonch, etc., so I’d only have to do the washing once. Genius, huh? I also brought a slew of cassettes (remember those?) and a four-speaker ghetto blaster. There was no way I was going to let anything stop me from rocking for six whole weeks.

  I lugged my bags into the bright sunshine looking for the friendly face of Lasartesse. I had no idea what he looked like, which wasn’t a problem because nobody was there.

  Nobody.

  I was by myself in Germany, didn’t speak the language, and didn’t have any contact numbers or for that matter any contacts. All I had was the address to the Hotel Domschanke, the place where Rene had booked me.

  I found what appeared to be the only taxi driver in Hamburg lounging in the coffee shop and gave him the address. We drove for twenty minutes until he dropped me off at what looked like a large house, not the fancy joint with picture windows and revolving doors that I was expecting. I lugged my overstuffed bags up a flight of stairs and walked into what I thought was the lobby.

  It was actually a pub and it was just like the bar scene in Animal House: Everyone stopped talking and turned to stare at me. The smile crawled off my face as the beer steins clinked down on the tables and everyone took a good look. I put my bags down with a double thud and asked the big-boned woman behind the bar, “Excuse me, where’s the front desk?”

  She said nothing and a few of the patrons snickered at my question.

  Awkward...

  “Dis EES de front desk,” she said with a scowl in a thick German accent.

  I told her that I had a reservation at the hotel.

  “No you don’t, ve’re full.”

  “I’m sure I do. Renee Lasartesse made it for me.”

  “I’m sure you DON’T, ve’re full,” she insisted.

  So Rene hadn’t picked me up from the airport or made me a reservation, but I wasn’t surprised. This was wrestling, after all.

  I decided to let it go and I asked her if she knew where the Catch tournament was. She pointed out the window, to a thumbnail of a tent in the middle of a huge park.

  “Right over dere,” she said and gave me my Welcome to Germany present of a basket of puppies. Actually, she stared at me as if I’d murdered David Hasselhoff, and motioned toward the door.

  I headed through the park toward the tent as if I was Dorothy walking to the Emerald City. I cursed Lasartesse as each step seemed to add another brick to my hockey bags. Hot, wet, and dripping with sweat, I finally reached the venue, which seemed better suited for Oktoberfest than for wrestling. It was a big circus tent with a wooden floor and various flags hanging from the ceiling. Parked on the outside was a line of motor home trailers. When I knocked on the first trailer hoping to find Lasartesse, I was astonished when Davey Boy Smith opened the door.

  It took me two seconds to realize that the guy wasn’t as big or as handsome as Davey, but he was damn close. He didn’t look happy to be disturbed and growled in a strong English accent, “What the fuck do you want?”

  When I told him I was looking for Rene, he lightened up and invited me inside.

  His name was Boston Blackie and the trailer, or caravan, was his. Most of the wrestlers from the U.K. lived in caravans for the six weeks of the tournament and were able to save a lot of money as a result.

  We shot the breeze for a bit until he asked me, “Are you a villain or a blue-eye?”

  It took me a minute to figure out that blue-eye meant babyface. Blackie was a blue-eye, which was exemplified by the stack of Davey Boy Smith (one of the most popular English wrestlers ever) pictures on his table that were signed “Boston Blackie.”

  Blackie wasn’t the only Englishman that was copying a famous WWF gimmick, as soon afterward a droopy dog of a man named Johnny South came into the caravan. Johnny looked vaguely like Hawk from the Road Warriors but instead of being known as the Legion of Doom, he was the Legend of Doom (they have the Big Mac, we have the Big Mic). He sported the same makeup, mohawk, and spiked shoulder pads as Hawk, but there was one major discrepancy. Johnny was about a foot shorter and fifty pounds lighter. He also had a nasty divot across his bald head.

  My curiosity got the best of me and I asked, “Where did that dent come from?”

  “I got chopped in the head with an ax,” he said matter-of-factly. “It was stuck in me fookin’ scalp.”

  Fair enough.

  Blackie told me that Lasartesse was inside so I walked into the tent and encountered a huge, white-haired man, sitting at a desk counting money.

  “Are you Rene?”

  “Yes. Who are you?” He was from Switzerland and spoke in a hybrid French/English accent that made him sound like Andre the Giant.

  “I’m Chris Jericho.”

  He gave me the once over. “Wow, you looked better in the picture.”

  He continued to bolster my ego when he explained that he simply forgot to pick me up and hadn’t got around to booking me at the Domschanke.

  He offered to make up for his forgetfulness by giving me a ride to the nearby Reeperbahn where I could find a place to stay. We got into his two-seater Trans Am that was so small I had to sit
with one of the clunky hockey bags on my lap. We drove to a street bathed in the neon light of signs, advertising all things porno from strip clubs to S/M shops to XXX theaters to live sex shows. The Reeperbahn is one of the most famous red-light districts in the world. And for the next six weeks I would be living there.

  I price-checked a few hotels but they were all too expensive for my limited budget. I was only making 150 DM a night (about 175 bucks) and these places were 100 to 120 DM a night. Throw in the two grand I’d forked over for the plane ticket and it was paramount for me to be as frugal as possible. The further we traveled up the Reeperbahn the cheaper the hotels got, both in price and quality.

  I finally settled on the illustrious Hotel Rheinland for a cool 75 DM a night. Anything cheaper and I’d be sleeping on the back of a cockroach. At the Rheinland, I just roomed with them.

  The good thing about the Hotel Rheinland was its proximity to what I called the Triangle of Decadence™. To the right was a strip club called the Cat Meow, to the left a McDonald’s, and across the street a heavy metal club called the Docks. I believe that covers all three of the major-party food groups and I knew I was in for an adventurous six weeks.

  CHAPTER 22

  THE JERICHO CURSE

  The tournament took place during the cold and clammy months of September and October. Because of all the moisture in the air, the damp got through your clothes and chilled you to the bone. My room was always cold because the radiator didn’t work very well. Things got worse when I first opened the door to the bathroom and found only a closet.

  I went downstairs to the front pub desk to inquire where my biffy was. The fat guy behind the bar snickered and explained in Europe there was only one bathroom on every floor of the hotel and that was it.