My dreams of going back to Japan were falling apart along with my wings. I was ready to give up, when Ricky finally called me and said FMW wanted to bring me in as the Phoenix and give me a Porsche.
I was a little surprised with the offer and wondered how I was going to drive a Porsche from Japan to Canada. Unfortunately he was saying “push,” not “Porsche.” Even though a push was almost as good as a Porsche, it was a moot point because FMW was a day late and a keychain short.
The day prior I’d been offered a tour for the bigger and more prestigious Japanese company WAR. I’d started working in Mexico City at this point and had met Ultimo Dragón, a Japanese wrestler who’d made a huge name for himself in Mexico and with WAR in Japan. I hoped to get booked with the company for months, since Dragón was always looking for new opponents and with my Calgary/Mexico/European hybrid style, I knew we’d have great chemistry. Since we both worked for Paco Alonso, we’d teamed together frequently and Dragón was familiar with what I could do and thought I would fit the bill perfectly. Now I had my chance.
Dragón’s real name was Yoshihiro Asai and like me his dream as a kid was to be a wrestler, but he’d been turned down by New Japan because of his small stature. He refused to take no for an answer and moved to Mexico, where he became a star under the masked gimmick of Ultimo Dragón. The name translated in English was the Last Dragon, the idea being that he was the last student of Bruce Lee. I guess that would’ve made him about eight years old when he trained with Bruce. After making his mark in Mexico, he’d returned to Japan and found a home with WAR.
WAR wasn’t pronounced in the “What Is It Good For” kind of way, but rather “W...A...R,” an acronym for Wrestle and Romance. It was classic Japanglish in that it was just English enough to make no sense. I was confused as to whether I was supposed to bring the Wrestle or the Romance.
Wrestle and Romance was operated by Genichiro Tenryu, one of the top ten biggest names in Japanese wrestling history. Much like Tonga, he’d started as a sumo wrestler and then achieved huge success when he switched to wrestling. He had the best chops to the chest this side of Ric Flair and worked very stiff, which the fans loved and I learned to hate. One of the ways he was building his company was by focusing on his junior heavyweight division, which was second in quality only to New Japan’s crop of high-flyers.
The difference between working in FMW and WAR was similar to the difference between working in Monterrey and Mexico City. You could see the increase in professionalism instantly. The fine people at the newly christened Wrestle Association R (makes even less sense than Wrestle and Romance, don’t it?) provided me with a work visa and sent me a notarized contract for the king’s ransom of $1,400 a week. I was upgraded accommodation-wise from the Tokyo Green Hotel to the Hyatt Regency and upgraded opponent-wise from kickboxers and Pandas to real wrestlers.
Two of them were Jado and Gedo, who I’d met while they were making pennies working in Mexico. They’d followed Dragón’s path and gone to Mexico after being told they were too small for New Japan. They were also tremendous performers and were major contributors to the strengthening WAR junior division.
I got along well with them, because I could speak the legitimate language of Broken English. I learned Broken English by proxy because Jado and Gedo could speak decent English, but only understood certain words. For example, they didn’t know what a store was, but they knew what a shop was.
So if I said, “Would you guys like to spend the afternoon looking through the record store?” they wouldn’t get it. However, if I said “Maybe you me go CD shop?” they would nod in agreement. Once I figured out what words they understood, I could speak to them for hours.
When touring Japan, the whole crew rode together on the team bus and all the hotels and travel was taken care of. This was the opposite of wrestling in the States, where everyone was responsible for their own arrangements.
Everyone from Tenryu to the ring crew traveled together and there was no tolerance for lateness. I learned that rule very quickly when I showed up at ten one morning for a 10 A.M. departure. Dragón took me aside and sternly told me that my tardiness (I don’t feel tardy) had to stop. A 10 A.M. departure meant I was supposed to be there at 9:45. Japanese time was different from Mexican time, where a 10 A.M. departure meant 10:45 or 11. Call me kooky but where I come from a 10 A.M. departure means 10 A.M.
But when in Tokyo...
My first match for WAR was in Korakuen Hall, one of the most famous wrestling venues in the world. Korakuen was a 2,200-seat theater on the grounds of the Big Egg Tokyo Dome (classic Japanglish) but it was the place for wrestling in Tokyo. A match at Korakuen could make or break you because it was the media epicenter of the Japanese wrestling business. All the photographers and writers showed up in full force and their magazine reviews of the matches and performers carried serious weight throughout the country much like they did in Mexico.
I heard so much about Korakuen from Lenny. He’d even left me a message written in black marker on the wall of the backstage area saying, “Congratulations, you finally made it, Clise!” It was like finding an Easter egg, so I got a black marker of my own and left a reply. He replied to that and so on and so on until messages on the backstage wall became a tradition before every Korakuen match. It was old-school texting.
Sadly, another Jericho tradition continued when I had another stinker of a debut match. I worked against Rio Lord of the Jungle, a male stripper turned wrestler who later worked in WCW as the Ultimate Warrior rip-off, the Renegade. He was massive and green, which was a tough combination to overcome. We opened the show and when I beat him clean with the Japanese debut of the Lionsault, it was the only good part of the match.
You never get a second chance to make a first impression...
I did an interview with Gong Magazine afterward where I was asked how it felt to beat the Load of the Jungle. Because of the difference in the Japanese pronounciation of the R sound, Lord became Load. I think if I was a Lord, when in Japan I’d change my name to Boss or Supervisor. I’m sure the Warload and Load Steven Regal would agree.
Despite my load-of-shit match, I liked the WAR style. It was the hard-hitting, no-nonsense, technical type of match that I’d become a fan of from watching Stampede and New Japan. The matches were athletic competitions between two warriors, with a winner, a loser, and no bullshit.
My first tour for WAR was only four shows, but I had a great second match with a junior heavyweight named Masao Orihara, which cemented my spot in the company. The match after that was another stinker with a Korean wrestler named Kim Duk, who had worked in the WWF as Tiger Chung Lee. Tiger walked down the aisle with a confused look on his face while holding a spear for no apparent reason. Was he planning on skewering river trout on his way to the ring?
After meeting him I wanted to skewer myself because he was quite annoying. He’d had bit parts in a few movies, but talking to him you’d think he was Johnny Depp. Our bus had a TV and VCR and he made sure to bring his movies with him so we could watch Red Heat, The Golden Child, and Blind Fury over and over again.
“Why don’t you put on Red Heat? Arnold Schwarzenegger told me he really liked working with me.”
“Let’s watch The Golden Child. Eddie Murphy thought I was very funny.”
“Let’s check out Blind Fury. Rutger Hauer thought I was a talented actor and wants to work with me again.”
Despite having to put up with Inside the Actors Studio Featuring Kim Duk, working for Tenryu was a tremendous experience. He’d worked in the States for a few years, so he understood what we needed as foreigners to be comfortable in a strange land. He spoke good English and had a great sense of humor. While I got in trouble for speaking to Onita, I would’ve gotten in trouble if I didn’t speak to Tenryu. Whether we were singing “Summer Lovin’” on a karaoke machine on the bus or smashing plates over drunken fans’ heads at parties, Tenryu was as cool as a boss could be.
On my first day of work, he introduced himself and th
anked me for coming. Later on in the tour when I sneezed, he asked with concern, “Are you sick?” When I said no, he replied deadpan, “Oh, I thought for sure you were sick. Sick of watching Kim Duk’s movies...”
(Curious Author’s Note: I heard rumors that Tenryu had pearls implanted in his wiener, which was a Yakuza technique used to increase sexual pleasure. I never had the balls to ask him if it was true.)
The last match of the tour was a big show at Ryogoku, an 11,000-seat arena known as the Sumo Hall. Ryogoku was where all of the important sumo matches had been held for hundreds of years.
The Hall was a unique traditional Japanese venue; besides the chairs set up on the floor section there were no actual seats in the arena. There were only sections cordoned off by steel rails that held four people per section. The fans would sit cross-legged on the floor of their area and watch the show.
All of Tenryu’s big shows were held at Ryogoku and the draw to this one was a battle between WAR and New Japan. I was pitted against Super Strong Machine, a New Japan wrestler who’d worked for Stampede Wrestling as Sonny Two Rivers. I was nervous and Super Strong Machine kicked the shit out of me, but you know my mantra by now...I was taking him with me. I kicked him square in the face and set him up for my new patented move of jumping straight up onto the top rope and drop-kicking him off the apron. Just as I took off running, the referee wandered right in front of me and I totally blew the spot.
I’d been Mal Mason-ed!
But the match still got a couple pages of coverage in the magazines, which was always a watermark of whether something was good or not. There was a great shot of Machine dumping me on my head and another of me caving in the side of his face with a spin kick. When all else fails, just beat the shit out of each other I always say.
CHAPTER 34
YASKY
A few tours later, right after I was asked to be a regular for WAR, I broke my arm in SMW. After using my amazing mental powers to heal myself, I was booked to return to Japan. Even though I wasn’t completely healed, I’d already been forced to miss one tour because of my arm and there was no way I was going to miss another one.
While I had to endure the long flight from L.A. to Tokyo in a middle seat of the smoking section, I was happy to get the upgrade for the Calgary–L.A. leg of the trip. I was even happier when I boarded the plane and sat down next to Owen Hart.
Owen was the guy that had made me want to be a wrestler in the first place and I’d drawn pictures of the two of us as tag team champions. Our paths had crossed a few times and while he was always friendly, I’d never had the chance to have a true one-on-one conversation with him. He told me that he was on his way to a WWF pay-per-view that day in L.A. and his brother Bret had given him shit for not leaving the night before.
“An extra night with my family at home is worth the possibility of missing the PPV,” he explained. It turned out that we had a lot in common and we started sharing stories about working in Mexico and Germany.
Three and a half hours later we were suddenly in L.A. I apologized for talking his ear off, but he said, “No man, it was great getting to know you a little bit.” I walked off the plane grinning ear to ear because he was even nicer than I’d expected him to be. Now I just had to figure out a way to become Owen’s tag team partner.
My first match back from my broken arm was in Tokyo against my old buddy Vampiro, who was so saccharine friendly to my face that I felt like I was choking on cotton candy. I was past the point in my career where I worried about wins and losses, but I have to admit that I was ticked off when Tenryu asked me to put him over. It was a matter of principle I guess.
I was wearing a soft cast on my still healing arm since I’d rushed the recovery but the doctor told me I’d be okay to wrestle as long as I avoided taking a blow directly on the break. So I asked Vamp to do me a favor and stay away from my metal plate.
He agreed and did this annoying bow that he’d starting doing, thinking he was ingratiating himself with the Japanese. Instead he just looked like he had a nervous twitch. He should’ve just played X for his ring music, since it had worked so well for me in FMW.
Vamp considered himself something of a martial arts expert at this point and wore Muay Thai shorts in the ring to prove it. He based the majority of his offense around a variety of kicks that he had no idea how to do properly. He made that apparent when his first move of the match was to kick me directly in my bad arm. The pain spread like panic and he said, “Whoops, I was aiming for your ribs.”
The rib was on me for trusting him.
Out of the ring, it wasn’t long before Vamp was resorting to the same bullshit he’d tried to pull on me in Mexico.
A few days into the tour, I got a call to meet up with Tenryu after the matches. When I arrived at the Lobby bar, Tenryu wasted no time in asking me, “I’m very happy with your work and I just want to make sure that you’re happy working for my company.”
I was a little taken aback and assured him that I was indeed very happy. “Of course I am. Why would you even ask?”
“Well, I went out for drinks with Vampiro a couple of nights ago and he told me that you didn’t like coming to Japan. He said you weren’t happy here and were planning on walking out. Is that true?”
Meet the new ass, same as the old ass.
I assured Tenryu that nothing could be further from the truth and I was planning to work on as many WAR tours as he wanted me to. Then I spared no detail in telling him about my experiences with Vampiro and I made sure to let him know exactly what I thought of him. When the dust settled, the final score was Jericho—twenty-four tours with Tenryu’s company, Vampiro—four tours. I guess lil old Lion Heart won that WAR.
Later in our conversation Tenryu brought up an interesting proposition. Since I was going to be working for him on a monthly basis, I’d have to fly back and forth to Japan every few weeks. He wanted to remedy that and asked me if I would consider moving to Japan for six months to live in the WAR dojo.
A dojo is a combination school and training center, where all the young boys (rookies) lived and trained to become wrestlers. Not every Western wrestler would have wanted to live in Japan—most guys either loved it or hated it. It wouldn’t be easy to adapt to the ways of life in a completely different culture but I was intrigued and honored by the proposition.
A major reason I was especially interested in the idea was that Benoit had lived and trained at the New Japan dojo for six months. I had a lot of questions, so I decided to call Chris and ask for his advice.
When he answered after a few rings, I almost hung up the phone like a high school kid calling a girl for a date. But cooler heads prevailed and I introduced myself, “Hi, this is Chris Jericho (My name’s Chris too!) and I’m calling you from Calgary. I met you at the Stampede reunion show a few years ago.”
His response was curt and cold. I’m sure he got calls from wrestling wannabes all the time. So I got right to the point and told him that I’d been offered a chance to live in Japan for six months.
His tone immediately changed. Not too many wrestling wannabes got the chance to live and train in Japan so that gave me instant credibility. Without hesitation, Benoit highly recommended that I do it and the conversation was a turning point in my life. It not only fired me up about wanting to work in Japan full-time, but it also was the beginning of one of the best friendships I’ve ever had in the wrestling business.
I had so much respect for Benoit that I developed almost a George Costanza heterosexual crush on him. Whenever he called the Palkos’ house, I’d run down the stairs to pick up the phone like an excited schoolgirl. Benoit intimidated me, and it took me years to feel like an equal around him. I learned a lot from Chris, and he became one of the few people I truly trusted during my career.
Unfortunately, a few weeks later Tenryu changed his mind and decided it would be easier on me and cheaper for the company to continue flying me in every month. But a mutual commitment to each other had been confirmed with his offer.
I felt that I not only had a commitment to WAR, but to the Japanese fans as well. They’d accepted me and treated me with respect and I wanted to reciprocate that loyalty. So I bought a set of tapes that told me I could LEARN TO SPEAK JAPANESE IN 8 EASY LESSONS, but it was just as impossible to learn from them as it was to learn from the PLAY BASS LIKE BILLY SHEEHAN tape I’d bought ten years earlier.
The problem was that Tokyo Japanese is slightly different from Osaka Japanese, which is slightly different from Sapporo Japanese, which made it hard to learn any of them. Whenever I tried to speak any Japanese, the people would stare at me in stone-faced confusion. Nothing kills your confidence worse than trying to speak another language and not being understood.
I decided it would be easier and almost as valuable to learn how to read Japanese instead. So I went to a library in Vancouver where I was living with Lenny and grabbed a book of Japanese characters. There are three major different types of Japanese writing: Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana. Katakana symbols are used for foreign words and resemble our alphabet in that they are made up of minimal strokes and slashes rather than the small works of art that make up the other types. I photocopied a chart with all forty-six Katakana characters and the sounds that each one represented and took them with me on my next tour.
I carried the pages in my back pocket and sounded out the syllables while reading the wrestling magazines and newspapers. I practiced by translating the descriptions and reviews of my own matches.
Instead of sleeping on the bus or watching Red Heat for the fifteenth time, I read billboards on the side of the road, names stenciled on the sides of trucks, music magazines, whatever I could to improve my reading. After a while, I was able to read menus and street signs and became the tour guide for the rest of the gaijin. Eventually I was able to ditch the photocopied sheets all together and read things unassisted, which impressed the company, the wrestlers, and the fans. Not bad for a twenty-four-year-old Canadian kid, huh?
A Lion's Tale: Around the World in Spandex Page 24