A Lion's Tale: Around the World in Spandex

by Chris Jericho

  The build for the angle had started at the previous taping in Warrensville, North Carolina, (I don’t know where the heck it is either), when the fine fans in the Ville presented us with a cake to welcome us into the company. In the middle of our ceremony Cornette came out to spoil the party and to put us in our place.

  “Well, well, Thrillseekers. You’re doing all your fancy moves and you’ve got your fancy videos and all those fancy costumes. But all that doesn’t mean a thing because when it all boils down, in the ring you just ain’t that fancy.”

  The crowd booed but we took the insult in stride, as if he’d meant it as constructive criticism. “You know what, Jim? You’re right and as a result, we’re just going to step back and give you this cake. We want you to have it.”

  He went to take a bite and I shoved his face into it.

  (Wrestling Rule #24: Whenever a cake appears in the ring, someone will end up wearing it.)

  Cornette got his revenge when he orchestrated an attack by two masked man who beat the hell out of us in a parking lot later in the week. The ambush was of course accidentally recorded by an ardent fan and the tape exposed the masked men as the Heavenly Bodies. The shit was on.

  CHAPTER 29

  MY WHITE WHALE

  The angle was a huge success and our match with the Bodies for the big show called Night of the Legends was one of the most anticipated matches on the card. It was going to be a huge night for us and I wanted to debut a new move that would be as monumental as the occasion...the Shooting Star Press.

  The Shooting Star Press was the move that had been originated in Japan by pioneering high-flyer Jushin Liger and had later been the trademark of my old friend Bret Como (and the Zebra Kid). I’d never done it before but I’d been conned into thinking I could do it by Ultimo Dragón, one of my future greatest rivals. He’d seen me do the Lionsault in Mexico and thought that the Shooting Star wasn’t too far off. He was wrong.

  When I practiced off the diving board of a swimming pool near SMF, I nailed it every time. Even when I didn’t nail it, the worst thing that happened was I took a refreshing plunge into the pool. I wasn’t stupid enough to think it would be as easy from the top rope, but I was stupid enough to try it without a practice mat in the ring a few weeks before the Night of the Legends.

  I stood on the top rope, repeating “I think I can” like I was the Little Wrestler That Could. Summoning all my courage, I jumped out into the wild blue yonder. But once I did, I had no idea where I was in the air and ended up coming straight down on my head. Even though I was amazingly unharmed, it completely freaked me out. Since I’d started my career, I had a horrible phobia of breaking my neck and ending up paralyzed like my mom. Even though she never came out and said it, I could see in her eyes whenever we talked about wrestling that she harbored the same fear. God was with me that day and I should’ve learned my lesson. But I didn’t.

  I couldn’t let it go and convinced myself that I’d be less of a wrestler if I didn’t do the Shooting Star. It had become my white whale and I was obsessed with mastering it.

  On the day of the big show, I arrived at the Coliseum early to practice the Shooting Star as many times as it took to get it ready. I ran into Cornette backstage and when he asked why I was there early, I told him I wanted to practice a few things.

  “Well for God’s sake, just don’t hurt yourself.”

  I walked into the ring in the middle of the empty Coliseum and climbed to the top rope. Once again I brainwashed myself into believing that I had to perfect the move or else my career would mean nothing. All rational thought had gone out the window and with no spotter or practice mat, I leaped out into the air again.

  To my surprise, this time I landed it almost perfectly. Almost. But I rotated too far to one side and landed with all my weight on the right side. I looked at my arm and something wasn’t quite right. There was a divot in the middle of my forearm, like a dip in a roller coaster, but strangely it didn’t hurt. I rolled out of the ring and walked to the back of the arena where Lance had turned up.

  “I saw you land,” Lance said with concern. “Are you okay?”

  “Look at my arm. Does this look right to you?”

  When I moved my arm up and down it was bending like a rubber pencil. It still didn’t hurt but I thought it would be best to get it checked out before the match. Before I left the arena for the hospital, I asked Lance, “Did I at least nail the move?”

  With a classic Lance response he said, “Not even close.”

  At the hospital, the doctor messed with my arm a bit. When he was done, he assured me that if it was broken I’d be screaming in pain. However he still wanted to X-ray it. We were both astonished when he got the results and discovered that I had indeed fractured my radius bone.

  “We have to get you into surgery tonight.”

  “Can we do it tomorrow morning instead? I have to sit at ringside at a very important wrestling match tonight.”

  I knew there was no way in hell he would let me out of his care if I told him I had to actually wrestle a match. He pondered a little and said as long as I was only going to watch, it was okay with him. Sucker...

  He scheduled my surgery for the next morning, put my arm in a soft cast, and told me that under NO circumstances could I do anything physical. I had zero intention of listening to him and when I saw Cornette back at the arena, he went ballistic when I told him I’d broken my arm.

  “I told you to be careful! You stupid idiot! You dumb—”

  I cut him off and told him I still planned on wrestling that night. Broken arm or not, I wasn’t missing the match.

  The redness fell out of his face like a thermometer as he asked me, “Are you sure? Well just be careful.”

  That was it. It was the stupidest decision I ever made in my career. I had no business being in the ring that night and one false move could’ve ended my career forever. Jimmy knew how dangerous it was for me to be wrestling but he didn’t care at that point. Going through with the planned match was the most important thing to him and if my career ended as a result, it was my own damn fault.

  Besides Corny, everyone else backstage thought that I was insane to wrestle with a broken arm. Road Warrior Hawk (the real one, not the Johnny South facsimile) told me that I was the bravest and the stupidest guy he’d ever met. Terry Funk told me that I was a bigger dumbass than he was. Strangely, I still felt no pain and I decided that I wasn’t going to take one painkiller during the whole healing process. I don’t know if it was toughness or stupidity, but I never did.

  I even gave my prescription for them to a wrestler named Brian Lee, who was quite concerned. “Hey man, doesn’t your arm hurt?”

  “Strangely it doesn’t,” I said. “I don’t think I’m gonna need these painkillers.”

  “Thank God, I was so worried,” Brian cooed. Then his concern melted away and he said, “Can I have your prescription then?”

  I spoke to Tom and Jimmy, my Heavenly Body opponents, before the match and told them even with a fractured radius I refused to change a damn thing about the match. We would do it just the way we’d planned it a few days earlier. The iron will that I’d inherited from my mom was in full force that day.

  During the match I was a machine, throwing left-handed punches, drop kicks, executing flips, and taking hard bumps. I even slammed Jimmy Del Ray with one arm—not that I had that much to do with it mind you. The Bodies were consummate pros and took such good care of me, you never would have known that I only had one functional arm.

  Cornette had worked a deal to have Jim Ross, the greatest wrestling announcer of all time, announce the matches for the TV show. His work in calling the bout gave it a major league feel as he sold both the match and the story line behind it to the fans at home as something special. He also covered for me and said that I’d broken my arm in a motorcycle accident earlier in the day, rather than saying that one of the top babyfaces had broken his arm by screwing up a move that he had no business trying in the first place
.

  Cornette’s plan for the finish was for me to get the living shit kicked out of me, until I ended up covered in blood from the same crazy bump that Cornette had raved about seeing me do on Lance’s original audition tape. Referee Brian would make the decision to stop the match but before he could award it the Heavenly Bodies, I would beg him to let it continue. The Thrillseekers would then beat the odds with our courage and win the match putting us at a different level in the fan’s eyes. It would’ve worked too, if it wasn’t for those meddling kids and that darned broken arm.

  Everything about the match was picture-perfect. Lance called it one of the most incredible experiences of his entire career. The fans were behind us, every move was crisp, and I ended up covered in more blood than Sissy Spacek in Carrie. It was as if I had a bucket of it poured over my head. Even Lance was worried and on the tape of the match you can even see him ask me, “Are you okay?”

  After Lance super-kicked Jimmy Del Ray, allowing me to roll him up for the 3-count, I rolled onto the floor, my hair soaking wet with gore. Brian came to check on me and both of us were covered in plasma, when a stereotypical redneck fan with overalls and a cowboy hat said, “That ain’t real blood!”

  How could it not be? Did I have an invisible tube running up my back to the top of my head? Did I dump a bag of Karo syrup on myself when no one was looking? Give me a break, assclown! Then he dipped his finger in the pool of my DNA and put it in his mouth.

  “Yeah, that’s not real,” he said knowingly to his friend. Bad call, Foghorn. How did I taste?

  My tights were soaked with blood and after I took a shower in the dressing room, the stall looked like an abattoir. I had a three-inch cut on my forehead to match the broken bone in my arm. At least I already had hospital time booked the next day. Maybe I could get a two-for-one.

  The night got even worse when I had to hawk Thrillseekers gimmicks during intermission and a plethora of girls wanted me to paint the town red (poor choice of words) with them after the show. I’d love to go, ladies, but I have to get a three-inch plate and seven screws inserted into my arm tomorrow. How ’bout a rain check?

  Twelve hours later I was in an operating room with a gas mask over my face. The surgeon told me if I started counting down from 100, I’d be asleep by 85. That son of a bitch double-crossed me because I was out before I got to 97. I woke up after the surgery screaming, “I’m alive! Thank Jesus I’m alive!” I was serious too, because I was terrified before the operation. Fracturing my arm had shown me that I wasn’t as invincible as I thought. I was an actual human being that could break.

  The doctor told me that I wouldn’t be able to wrestle for sixteen weeks. I was an independent wrestler with no insurance and since I’d broken my arm during practice Corny refused to pay for my surgery (that still doesn’t explain why he didn’t pay for the eight stitches I’d incurred during the match). But I had bills to cover and with a tour of Japan coming up, I used the power of positive thinking, hit the gym, and ate an entire bottle of calcium pills a day. I was miraculously cleared to wrestle after seven weeks. The mental powers of the Man They Call Raveen ain’t got shit on the mental powers of the Man They Call Jericho.

  About a year later, SMW closed its doors and Cornette returned to the WWF full-time. When he called me in Calgary one day to ask me if I’d like to come work for Vince, my heart soared. I figured that he’d finally put in a good word for me and the WWF brass was going to bring the Lion Heart in with a big push. My heart crashed to the ground like Icarus when he said, “We’re going to introduce a group of wrestlers on the show who aren’t necessarily job guys (term for losers), but not pushed guys either. They’re going to be enhancement guys (fancy term for losers), and they’re going to have gimmicks.”

  I’d been waiting for a chance to work in the WWF for six years, but not under those circumstances. It was an idea that was bound to fail and I had a hunch that it would end up hurting the careers of the guys who agreed to do it. I was right. Don’t believe me? Here’s a list of the future Hall of Famers who were involved with this plan. Do you remember the Pug or the Goon? How about Freddy Joe Floyd, TL Hopper, Rad Radford, or Salvatore Sincerely...(what the fruit does that one even mean anyway)?

  I coulda been a contendah...

  So I politely said, “Jimmy, you know, I’m not really interested. When the time comes for me to go to the WWF, I want it to be the right way. I’m only twenty-four and I don’t want to rush to get there, especially if it means that I’d be brought in and not given a proper chance.”

  “I’ll put you down as not interested with an asterisk,” Jimmy said optimistically.

  Things didn’t work out with Jim Cornette the way I wanted them to in the short term, but in the big picture, SMW was the catalyst in helping me learn how to cut a good promo...which ended up becoming one of my trademarks. I also learned that acrobatic moves weren’t as important as personality or storytelling, and I’m thankful for the time I spent working for Jim Cornette.

  Plus I got to meet Strange Kentucky People.

  PART SEVEN JAPAN

  CHAPTER 30

  DONALDO MAKUDONALDO

  With SMW behind me, I was ready to devote all of my energies into making my mark in Japan. Even though WAR seemed to be impressed with my work, I was nervous because I’d already experienced a few false starts.

  Years earlier in Calgary after putting up with all of Fred Jung’s bullshit, he’d finally come through and booked Lance Storm and me for a three-week tour of Japan with FMW. The tour was scheduled for October of 1991, only one year after I’d made my debut at the Ponoka Moose Hall. During that year I’d wrestled a grand total of thirty-nine matches, which meant that I was as green as the Grinch and was nowhere near ready for such an international platform. But FMW was a small company and I worked cheap, so the deal was made.

  Fred considered himself to be a mastermind and came up with the idea for us to go to Japan as Sudden Impact. He insisted that the team name was as important as the team itself and was convinced that his name was money in the bank. Lance and I disagreed and thought as a Canadian team the name Northern Lights was a better fit. Fred wouldn’t hear of it, as he was convinced that Sudden Impact was the handle that was gonna make us all rich!

  I guess it was better than the Dirty Harrys...

  Fred’s other genius idea was to have Sudden Impact wear tights made of fabric that would change colors as we wrestled. I’d never heard of such a magical textile; perhaps Fred was planning on purchasing this mystical fabric from Willy Wonka. But even if an Oompa Loompa was growing the fabric from a Shazbot tree wouldn’t the concept of color-changing tights fit the Northern Lights gimmick much better?

  The amazing material never materialized, but our Japanese tour did. Fred had us sign contracts supposedly sent from Japan which were pockmarked with white-out and printing errors. In hindsight, it’s obvious he’d doctored an old contract and passed it off to us as a new one, the same way he fabricated the WCW contract for Big Titan.

  He also promised us work visas and then changed his mind and said we didn’t need them. Instead he gave us his friend Ricky Fuji’s address in Tokyo and told us if we were hassled at immigration to say we were on vacation and staying at Ricky’s place. (Sounds like the name of a sitcom.)

  The actual flight concerned me too. I didn’t understand how an airplane could stay up in the sky for that long and I was afraid I was going to freak out en route. Unfortunately, since I couldn’t take a steamship to the Orient I had no other choice.

  When I picked Lance up on my way to the airport, he was wearing a collared shirt and tie for no apparent reason. When I asked him why, he replied, “Well, we’re going to Japan, so I thought I should wear a tie.” Naturally.

  He was already annoyed at me because I was late in picking him up. But that pretty much defined our relationship...I was late and he wore a tie.

  FMW was still a fledgling company and didn’t have a lot of money so they bought us the cheapest plane tickets p
ossible. Therefore we had to fly three hours south to Los Angeles in order to connect and fly the three hours back north on our way to Narita, Tokyo’s airport.

  When we boarded the plane to L.A., I saw that the Edmonton Oilers were also on our flight—sitting in coach with the rest of us peasants. Mark Messier, Jari Kurri, Bill Ranford, most of the guys who’d eliminated my beloved Winnipeg Jets from the Stanley Cup Playoffs only a year earlier were all there.

  I knew that the guy who sat beside me used to play for the Oilers but I couldn’t remember his name. It was driving me nuts, so when he got up to go to the bathroom I bent over to examine his carry-on bag stuffed under the seat. I fumbled around until I found the name tag and a cold chill ran up my spine when I saw whose bag it was. Then a warm squirt ran down my undies when a pissed-off deep voice from over my shoulder said, “Get your fucking hands off my bag.”

  I slowly looked up and faced Dave Semenko, one of the toughest goons in NHL history. Cementhead’s sole reason for employment with the Oilers was to annihilate anybody who came even the slightest bit close to Wayne Gretzky.

  And now he wanted to annihilate me.

  I sat in silence, speechless and quivering in the face of death.

  Semenko leaned into my face with the power of 1,000 knockouts behind him...and his coffee breath almost made me knockout 1,001.

  “Don’t touch my stuff, asshole.”

  When I began to retort he cut me off and said, “Don’t even think of talking to me for the rest of the flight either.”

  I stared at my suddenly quite interesting shoelaces for the rest of the trip and survived the flight to L.A. unscathed. I passed the time by reading my Japanese-English dictionary and making note of all the phrases and words I was going to use when we landed.