“Tonight in Philly.”
Philadelphia was a six-hour flight from Calgary. Even though it was already noon, I frantically called the airlines anyway but none of them had any flights that would arrive remotely on time. One of the ladies on the phone said, “I can’t get you into Philly until tomorrow night. But I can get you into New York City tonight by eleven...is that okay?” Who was I...David Spade in Tommy Boy? If I could just convince Paul to move the show to the Big Apple, I’d be all set.
I was crestfallen when I had to tell Chris that I couldn’t make it. I’d been waiting so long to work for ECW and was convinced that I’d missed my chance. However, if Paul had called me with such urgency once, he’d surely call me a second time, right?
Wrong.
I didn’t hear another word from Paul or ECW until Mick Foley saw my match against Dragón in Japan. When he hand-delivered the tape and gave it the Cactus stamp of approval, Paul finally decided to give me a chance.
I returned to my apartment in Calgary one night at 2 A.M. in December of 1995 and found a message from Dave’s roommate on my machine.
“Chris Jericho, Paul E. Dangerously. Please call me back as soon you can, night or day...I rarely sleep.”
Since I’d been waiting for over a year to talk to the guy, I figured there was no better time than the present. I picked up the phone at 2:30 in the morning and dialed his number. He answered within seconds.
“Paul? This is Chris Jericho.”
“Chris, I’m so glad you called. I have been trying to get ahold of you for a year.”
With only one sentence, I knew he was full of shit. He knew damn well that I’d been practically stalking him for over a year. But he told his lie with such conviction and gusto that I immediately liked the guy. He was like a used car salesman trying to sell me a rusted ’76 Volare when he went into his pitch.
“I saw your match with Ultimo Dragón and it was just unbelievable. Mick Foley, Perry Saturn, and Chris Benoit told me how good a person you are and I’d like to bring you in to make you a part of the ECW family. From what I’ve seen, there’s no reason why you couldn’t be the ECW heavyweight champion very soon.”
It was the perfect time for me to start in ECW, as Paul had just suffered his first wave of defections: Benoit, Eddy, Malenko, Steve Austin, and the Public Enemy all had left for the big-money pastures of WCW and WWF. In showcasing the new breed of smaller, more exciting performers, ECW had unwittingly become a feeder system to the big leagues. But the exodus left a huge open spot for me to fill.
Paul prided himself in scouring the world for the best undiscovered talent and he had decided to bring in Rob Van Dam, Rey Mysterio Jr. and this sexy beast to shore up his roster. He made it clear that he wanted me to work whenever I was available. He was planning on making my first appearance into a big deal and vignettes began appearing on the ECW TV show trumpeting the arrival of the Last Survivor of Stu Hart’s Dungeon, Lion Heart Chris Jericho.
Like the fans in Japan, Paul’s audience was savvy to the wrestling business. They were hardcore tape traders or insider newsletter readers and familiar with all the wrestlers on the worldwide scene. A strong segment of the fans knew who I was because of the popularity of the second Super J Cup and my matches with Dragón. For the fans who hadn’t heard of me, Paul’s decision to promote me as the Last Survivor of the Dungeon gave me credibility and brought respect to my name.
Trumpeting my legacy provided me with the tougher edge I needed to get over with ECW fans. My long blond hair and pretty boy good looks were going to be automatic strikes against me. Paul’s suggestion to me before my first match was to wet my hair, which would eliminate the glam rock element from my gimmick. In ECW, pretty boys were crucified, not welcomed.
My debut ECW show was going to be in Reading, Pennsylvania, but that was the only detail Paul had given me—we hadn’t discussed money or any other arrangements. He was going to send me a plane ticket to Philly but mentioned nothing about hotel expenses. Some promoters paid for accommodations, some didn’t. But I was a cheap bastard and I thought I’d see if I could arrange it.
So I called Paul’s machine and said, “I was just wondering about my hotel expenses. We never discussed it but I assume you’ll be taking care of that. If you don’t call me back, I guess you’re covering it.” Since he was horrible at returning calls, my plan had just finagled (fun word) free rooms for my trip.
When I arrived in Philly I found that Paul had gotten the last laugh by booking me in a room with someone else. I knocked on the door a few times, but nobody answered. I kept knocking until I heard a flush and the door opened. The smell of weed and kaka wafted out, followed by my roomie, Rob Van Dam. I shook the hand of the man with whom I’d have a dozen great matches, and it was still wet from a post-dump washing.
The Whole Poop N Show.
My first match in ECW was against the Eliminators with RVD as my partner. Because of all the press and hype ECW was getting worldwide, I was expecting a big-time atmosphere. I was surprised when I walked into the dark and dingy Slammer’s Gym, which was no bigger than a community center. It felt like I was returning to the Bloodsport arena in Matamoros.
The first thing I noticed was the vibe of the fans. I wasn’t in Kansas anymore—these critters were rabid. They were very knowledgeable and could tell instantly if someone wasn’t up to snuff at their craft. You hear a lot about how certain writers or rock bands have a cult following—well, the ECW fans were a cult. They believed they were part of an uprising and had an elitist Us vs. Them mentality...with WCW and WWF being Them.
If the fans saw something they liked during the match, they would chant “ECDub, ECDub!” It was unusual for a crowd to chant the name of the company rather than the name of a wrestler, but the whole situation was unusual.
My match went well and I broke the Jericho Curse midway through when the crowd started chanting “Five-star match!” They took their wrestling seriously and knew the difference between a good and a bad match. They were like a Japanese crowd, if the Japanese crowd was on crack.
When I came through the curtain after the match, Paul E. was waiting for me with a smile on his face. He gave me a big hug and told me, “That was great! You hit the ropes harder than anybody since Steve Austin.”
That was definitely the most unique compliment I’d ever received.
It was then that I saw Paul E.’s greatest strength: He was an exceptional motivator. He made his crew feel like a million bucks even though he was only paying them a couple hundred. Paul waited for every single wrestler to come through the curtain so he could congratulate them personally for their contribution to the show.
His encouragement meant more to his crew than money. I’m sure there were guys in the WWF who would’ve given a week’s pay to get that kind of acknowledgment from Vince McMahon. Paul’s currency was compliments and he spent it freely.
He was a master of accentuating the strengths and hiding the weaknesses of his roster. This was apparent when acts like Public Enemy and the Sandman went to the big leagues and were exposed as average performers when they weren’t protected in the same way. Paul hid Sandman’s weaknesses in the ring by turning him into a beer-drinking, hard-hitting son of a bitch (sound familiar?), and Public Enemy went from a stock tag team to a pair of hot-stepping table-breaking wiggers, who became the most popular act in the company.
With his limited financial resources, Paul had to use whoever was available to the greatest of their abilities. The fans truly loved or hated every performer on the roster and if they didn’t, that wrestler wouldn’t last long.
There was a family-type atmosphere in the locker room and I didn’t sense the jealousy that usually existed toward a new performer in the fold. I felt welcome right off the bat. In that same locker room there was also a platoon of beautiful, scantily clad women roaming around like wildlife. Paul had stocked his company full of gorgeous girls on the theory that sex sells.
I was sold.
There were alwa
ys women involved in the wrestling business, but these knockouts were in a different league: Beulah, Francine, Woman, Miss Patricia, Lady Alexandria, Missy Hyatt; all of them drop-dead gorgeous.
I was blown away in particular by a tiny Asian girl named Kimona Wanaleia, who had one of the best bodies I’d ever seen. I couldn’t take my eyes off her to the point where I couldn’t concentrate on my work. It’s hard enough to put together a match as it is, never mind being in the middle of a Cinemax flick to boob...er boot.
It wasn’t just the girls who were distracting—the entire roster was a plethora of freaks and misfits. There were half a dozen guys walking around wearing tie-dye shirts and black-framed nerd glasses called the Dudleys. Their gimmick was that Mr. Dudley was a jobber (sorry Bubba) who’d spawned a whole brood of half-brothers with ricockculous names like Snot (my old SMF roommate Anthony), Spike, Bubba, Devon, Chubby, Big Dick, Sign Guy, and the Indian, Dances with Dudley.
There was an obese guy with a blue Mohawk, wearing a half shirt and short-shorts, named the Blue Meanie. While I appreciated the reference to the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, I thought it was the worst name for a wrestler ever. There was a fifty-year-old man with Captain Caveman hair and a Roman gladiator outfit named Salvatore Bellomo. Another guy called J. T. Smith had the gimmick of falling off the ropes and making mistakes in the ring, inciting the fans to chant, “You fucked up!”
The chant became J.T.’s legacy and you still hear it whenever a wrestler makes a mistake. I should know, as I’ve been the recipient of the dreaded chorus many times.
But the crowd loved a good chant and if they didn’t like what they were seeing, they would start up with “End this match!” If one of the girls did something dastardly, a rousing refrain of “She’s a crack whore” would sound throughout the building. If one of the heels did something evil, they would be greeted with “You suck dick!”
Fun for the whole family.
CHAPTER 41
CAN YOU DIG IT?
My victory over the Jericho Curse in ECW was short-lived when the bastard used Mapquest and found me during my second ECW match in Queens, New York. It was hard to believe that the New York City fans could be more brutal than the Pennsylvania brethren, but they were.
Paul booked me against RVD and wanted to use the match as our official TV debut. Rob and I had similar styles, similar size, and similar worldwide experience. He’d spent some time overseas and made a name for himself in Japan just as I had. But the match sucked worse than a toothless vampire. We were a step off on everything and there was no sign of the chemistry we’d had the night before. The fans turned on us, chanting “This match sucks,” “Please go home,” “End this match.” Even the dreaded “You fucked up” chant reared its ugly head when I screwed up a simple arm drag.
At the time neither of us realized how bad the match actually was. Paul claimed he couldn’t air it on TV because the tape in the camera was defective. It only took me five years to figure out that the tape was fine. It was the match that was defective.
A lot of the same fans from the Reading show were also in Queens and some of them had their own gimmicks. One guy brought his own signs and was one of the first fans to do so. Another wore the same straw hat and Hawaiian shirt at every show. Another dude with long black hair, beard, and black aviator shades looked exactly like Jim Martin the guitar player from Faith No More. All these guys sat in the exact same seat at every show.
The fans were a part of the ECW experience and they were proud to be a part of the revolution. The whole scene reminded me when I found the first Metallica record in Winnipeg in 1984 before they had any mainstream success. I got jealous when they started becoming more popular.
They were my band and nobody else could have them, dammit!
The hardcore ECW fans felt the same way. Whenever a wrestler left to go to bigger and more lucrative pastures, they were often greeted with chants of “You sold out,” as if they were personally turning their backs on each one of the people in attendance.
I sure wasn’t working in ECW for the money—I wasn’t expecting to make a whole lot of cash. But I knew that being a regular there would increase my visibility and value overnight. I hadn’t discussed a specific money guarantee with Paul and I was curious to see what he would give me for the weekend.
When I received my check, it looked like a doctor’s prescription—practically illegible. I had to study it for a few minutes to figure out that Paul had ended up giving me 150 bucks for the Reading show and 250 bucks for the Queens show. He also tacked on a $25 bonus.
Even though Paul couldn’t pay a king’s ransom, that $25 bonus might as well have been $5,000. It was a motivational tool that boosted my morale and made me proud to be a part of the company. Paul was notorious for bouncing checks, but I can honestly say that I never had a single problem cashing a check from Paul E. I also had a stack of pictures of him fornicating with a walrus, but that’s a different story.
I went back a few weeks later for my debut at the famed ECW Arena. The Arena had developed a life of its own and was becoming as legendary as Korakuen Hall. Yet it wasn’t an arena at all, but a bingo hall that had been converted into one. But after wrestling in bowling alleys, a bingo hall was actually a step up.
It seemed like the whole place was under construction. The backstage area was dirty and full of trash, with a grungy bathroom and a shower that was so filthy, a Mexican toilet wash would have been better.
Paul wanted my first Arena appearance to be a big deal, so he booked me against the Human Suplex Machine, Taz. Taz was the biggest star in the company and was known for destroying everybody he wrestled. He was another perfect example of Paul’s adeptness at accentuating strengths, as the fans really believed he was the biggest badass in the company...even though he was smaller in comparison to some of the other wrestlers.
In the dressing room before the match, I heard a few people mention the name Alfonso while talking to Taz. Since we were working together that night, I decided to address him on a first-name basis.
“What do you want to do out there tonight, Alfonso?”
He stared at me sternly, “What?”
“Ummm, your name is Alfonso, right?”
I thought he was going to choke me out when he told me that Alfonso was his manager’s name. It seemed that Mr. Taz wasn’t too fond of Mr. Alfonso either. Instead of breaking the ice, Taz almost broke my face.
Because Paul had built Taz into such a destroyer, the fans were convinced that I was going to be his pupu platter for the evening. In reality, the match was designed to make me into an instant star. The story was for me to hold my own against Taz, until finally maneuvering behind him and giving him a German suplex. It would be a huge deal because Taz rarely left his feet during a match and he’d never been suplexed before.
By giving Taz a taste of his own suplex medicine, the fans would know that ECW was taking me seriously as a contender, which would make them take me seriously.
It wasn’t hard to see that the company took itself quite seriously as well. Before the show started, Paul addressed the entire crew from the top of a staircase and delivered a motivational speech that would’ve put Knute Rockne to shame. It was like Cyrus addressing the gangs in The Warriors.
“You are some of the most talented people in the entire wrestling business and nobody wants you. WWF has cast you out. WCW won’t return your calls. They won’t hire you because they are afraid you will outshine and embarrass every single one of their so-called wrestlers. And they’re right. They don’t want you, they won’t take you, but I am honored to have you as a part of this company. I thank you for putting your bodies on the line to entertain these fans and give them the show that they deserve; a show that no other organization on this planet can give them. I sincerely thank you.”
He might as well have finished up with, “Can You Dig It?”
I looked around and saw that this ragtag bunch of misfits were ready to kill for Paul E. at that point—and I was one of t
hem.
Paul was Jim Jones disguised as a wrestling promoter and he had just served us a Big Gulp full of Kool-Aid. I drank it down like a fine wine and was more fired up for that match than any other in my life. I was determined to make Reverend Paul E. proud of my performance.
I took it to Taz with my Japanese stiff offense and when the big moment arrived, I suplexed the War Machine right off his feet. The crowd erupted with astonishment and surprise. They knew it was no coincidence that both Taz and ECW had allowed me to do that. Then, at the apex of my domination, Taz got behind me and returned the favor by suplexing me literally right on the top of head. He followed up by putting me in his katahajime submission finish (a judo choke hold), guaranteeing his victory.
But my subtle push continued when I didn’t tap out. The story was that the suplex was so vicious, it had knocked me out cold. But I’d shown incredible fighting spirit in taking Taz to the limit and the fans accepted me as a member of the family. Paul’s plan had worked.
Taz continued to apply his submission until the locker room emptied to try to save me. He murdered a few job guys, until Brian Pillman, a huge star who’d been one of my Stampede heroes, ran into the ring. Pillman distracted Taz long enough for me to get rolled onto a stretcher.
As I was being carted down the aisle, a fan leaned over the rail and said, “Hey Jericho ya faggot, why doncha go work in New York!” I guess not everyone in the Arena was ready to bake me a hero cookie.
The comment reminded me of a story my dad told me from when he was playing with the Rangers in the old Chicago Stadium. The arena had a staircase leading from the dressing room up to the ice and as he was climbing the steps a fan yelled, “Hey Irvine ya faggot, why doncha go back to New York!”
Same asshole, different Irvine.
As the stretcher took me through the curtain (where I was greeted by an ecstatic Paul E.) I saw Pillman rebuke Taz’s challenge and jump over the rail into the arms of Philadelphia Eagle lineman Harry Boatswain. It fit Pillman’s character to play the unorthodox chickenshit coward because it seemed like he’d gone completely insane in real life...or had he?
A Lion's Tale: Around the World in Spandex Page 28