A Lion's Tale: Around the World in Spandex

by Chris Jericho

  PART NINE ATLANTA

  CHAPTER 43

  DOOMED FROM THE START

  After the Peace Festival, it didn’t take long to set up a meeting with Bischoff in Atlanta. There would be no Flair-style runaround this time.

  WCW had recently taken the ratings lead over the WWF, so if things went well with Eric I would be working for the biggest wrestling company in the United States.

  A few days after I’d received a plane ticket to Atlanta in the mail, I got a call from WCW booker Kevin Sullivan. He sounded almost annoyed, like he’d been forced to call me.

  “Eric wants to fly you in for a tryout.”

  Sullivan spoke in a thick Boston accent and came off like a total dick. He arrogantly told me that he wanted to book me for a tryout so he could take a look at what I could do. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was already flying to Atlanta in a few days to negotiate a long-term contract with the boss.

  Tryout? I don’t need no stinking tryout.

  In retrospect, Sullivan’s call was an early warning about how the communication between the people in charge of WCW worked. The left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing or what it was hiring.

  WCW was owned by Ted Turner and its offices were housed in the CNN Center along with TBS’s and TNT’s offices. WCW didn’t arrange a ride from the airport, so I took the MARTA (subway) to my meeting with the multimillion-dollar corporation.

  Eric wasn’t ready when I arrived, so I was told to wait with Paul Orndorff. Paul was working behind the scenes in WCW after being one of Hulk Hogan’s main WWF rivals in the 1980s as Mr. Wonderful.

  He was friendly to me but I must’ve gotten him on a good day, because the rest of the office referred to him as Oscar the Grouch. He was full of advice and his first suggestion seemed of utmost importance to him: I had to get a flashy robe to wear to the ring for my matches. Apparently Paul was quite morose about the lack of flashy robes currently being worn in the business.

  At least it was better than a loincloth.

  When Eric finally arrived he was brash and arrogant; a tougher John Davidson, wearing jeans, cowboy boots, and a leather jacket. His outfit seemed far too casual an ensemble for the head of a multimillion-dollar company.

  When we went to eat at a sports bar in the concourse of the towers, I started second-guessing my abilities. I was here to sign a contract and I’d never done any negotiating before—at least not at this level—so I wasn’t very confident about the process.

  WCW was spending a lot of money to get the upper hand in its nasty ratings war with the WWF. Both companies aired live shows head-to-head on Monday nights and were pulling out all the stops to get the advantage. Bischoff had taken the lead by masterminding one of the greatest wrestling angles of all time (which he had lifted from Japan): the nWo invasion.

  He’d convinced two of the WWF’s top stars, Diesel and Razor Ramon, to jump to WCW and threaten to take over the company. They became the first members of the nWo and were causing chaos (on screen and off) to a huge response from the fans and were on the verge of bringing in their new secret third member. During our lunch I asked him like a mark, “So, who’s the third member going to be?”

  He looked at me with a smirk and said, “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

  DOH! I was trying to get a job in the company and here I was asking questions like a twelve-year-old fan. I should’ve asked Eric for his autograph while I was at it. There went fifty grand in Jericho salary down the toilet.

  I wanted to grab the words and shove them back down my throat, but I still couldn’t get off the topic.

  “I’m sure that WWF owns the names Razor Ramon and Diesel. So what are you going to call them?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Eric said. “But if worse comes to worst, I’ll call them by their real names Kevin Nash and Scott Hall. We’re not going to get too fancy with it.”

  I couldn’t stop my verbal diarrhea and told him that Big Titan (who, ironically, would become the WWF’s Fake Razor Ramon) and I had come up with names that would still allow them to use similar gimmicks.

  “Instead of Diesel and Razor Ramon, you should call them Octane and Philoshave Phil,” I said with a grin. Eric didn’t respond and I wilted like a sixty-year-old man’s boner.

  Awkward silence.

  After I ate my lunch of crow, we went back up to Eric’s office and he got right to the point.

  “I’m not going to waste any time with bullshit, I want you to come work for WCW. I think you have the potential to be our version of Shawn Michaels. You have the look and the charisma and you could be a big asset for us. I want to bring you in and start you off hot.”

  I was honored by his compliments but I was confused by Eric’s next statement.

  “I’d love to see a Chris Jericho–Brad Armstrong feud. I mean, I really see this Brad Armstrong–Chris Jericho thing.”

  Talk about a mixed message.

  Eric had just compared me to Shawn Michaels, one of the WWF’s biggest stars. Then in almost the same sentence, he talked about starting me off in a feud against Brad Armstrong, who was universally regarded as a great worker but had been portrayed by WCW as a much smaller star than Shawn Michaels.

  A feud with Brad didn’t seem to be a fast ticket to stardom, but I respected Eric’s vision and agreed. Then he asked me how much money I wanted per year. This was the moment of truth. I’d done a little math and figured out how much I was making in Japan and how much I thought I was worth to WCW. I summoned up my courage, took a deep breath, and went for it.

  “Well, Eric, I thought about it and since I’m making good money in Japan, I can’t see myself coming in for any less than $100,000.”

  There...it was out.

  It was a ludicrously high number and I expected him to laugh my inflated-self-worth ass right out of his office. Instead Eric nodded and said, “I see you in the category of Dean Malenko, Eddy Guerrero, and Chris Benoit and I don’t want you to make any less than they do. I’ll give you $135,000, which is what they’re making.”

  My eyes bugged out of my head like Jim Carrey in The Mask.

  A hundred thirty-five thousand dollars to do something I loved? Was he high?

  But Eric wasn’t finished.

  “I’m also going to want you to move to Atlanta and that’s not going to be cheap. So I’ll give you another $30,000 a year to help you cover the cost of the move. And I want you to sign the deal for three years.”

  I was blown away by his offer despite the fact that he was negotiating against himself and telling me how much my fellow employees were making, and I was ready to sign for ten years. Keep in mind that the most I’d ever made in a year up to that point was about $50,000 and you’ll understand why I was in shock. I’d just been exposed to the magical generosity of ATM Eric.

  I accepted his offer, left his office, and called my dad to tell him what had happened. He was as awestruck as I was, but he told me a story about his first contract negotiation with the New York Rangers almost twenty-five years earlier.

  In 1970, he’d had a really good season with the Rangers, so he went to renegotiate his contract with the team’s general manager, Emile Francis.

  “You know, Emile, I had a good season and I think I showed my value to the team. I’d like to ask you for a raise to $27,000 a year.” He’d been making $25,000.

  Emile offered him $30,000 instead.

  My dad walked out of Emile’s office with a smile. A few minutes later, he began feeling like he’d made a mistake because Francis had given him more than what he asked for. A good negotiator asks for more than he thinks he can get and settles for less. If my dad had asked for $35,000, maybe he would’ve gotten it.

  I’d fallen into the same trap. Had I asked for $200,000, maybe I would’ve gotten it but I didn’t know any better. I had Constanza-d myself and negotiated for less money.

  But I was still ecstatic with Eric’s offer, even though I found out that with all the taxes and road expenses taken out
, $165,000 wasn’t the small fortune I originally thought it was.

  Bischoff mentioned that he wanted me to start with WCW as soon as I could finish up my previous commitments with ECW and WAR. My life was about to get busier than ever.

  So while I still had a few free days, I drove from Calgary to Winnipeg to visit my mom.

  It was the end of the summer and her health had improved enough that she was able to spend a lot of time outside. She navigated the neighborhood in her motorized wheelchair and we were able to take a walk to our favorite restaurant, D-Jay’s, for dinner. I was proud to accompany her.

  She was adjusting to her injury and dealing with it. The next year, she even flew three hours to Calgary to attend my cousin Chad’s wedding. She had used her iron will to rise to the challenge that God had given her.

  One beautiful Indian summer evening she asked me if I could give her a ride in my Mustang convertible with the top down. It was unusual for her to want to leave the safety of her house, but I was too busy hanging out with my friends (or something equally stupid) and told her I’d take her for a ride the next day.

  Then I got a call from WCW a few hours later telling me that I was needed for a TV taping the next day in Dalton, Georgia. I never did get the chance to give her a ride in the convertible and I kick myself for it every day. I’ve often wondered what she would’ve looked like with the top down and the wind whipping through her hair. I imagine she would’ve had a big smile on her face, but now I’ll never know for sure.

  I’d put her off when she was able and the chance had passed me by forever. It’s the other major regret of my life.

  Regrets are a terrible burden and even though I only have a few, they’re a few too many.

  The next day I flew to Atlanta and drove to Dalton with instructions to be at the arena at 1 P.M. I was on Japan time and arrived at the building at 12:45. When I got there, the place was deserted; no TV truck, no ring crew, and only two other wrestlers...Scott Hall and Kevin Nash.

  They were sitting side by side in the corner like wallflowers, so I went over and introduced myself. We exchanged pleasantries and Hall knew my name because he’d met my dad in an airport once. My dad was always my biggest fan and had put me over huge to Hall.

  The three of us sat around laughing at how stupid we felt for being the only ones at work on time. But we were all new to WCW and since I had the Japanese mind-set and they had the similar WWF mind-set, we had been taught to get to work on time with no exceptions. It seemed the rules were a tad bit looser in WCW-land.

  Hall and Nash hadn’t yet adopted the bad attitudes they would later become infamous for and on that day we were at the same level. But it was the last day that would be the case.

  Everyone else finally showed up and I was booked to wrestle my first match against Jerry Lynn. The office had recently given him a gimmick change and were portraying him as a masked superhero. They’d outfitted him with a cool purple and yellow costume and the clever yet cryptic moniker of Mr. J.L. I still haven’t solved the mystery of what the initials of Jerry Lynn’s masked identity stood for.

  But I had other problems to solve. Mr. J.L. and I were given seven minutes for our match, including ring entrances, which worked out to roughly five minutes of action. In Japan, I was used to working twenty-minute matches on a nightly basis...but I wasn’t in Kanagawa anymore.

  When Terry Taylor, the assistant booker, told me that the company had decided I was going to be a babyface, I didn’t think it was the best decision. The good-looking, blond-haired, muscular young babyface would have been a no-brainer a few years earlier, but in 1996 the world was changing.

  Society as a whole was starting to accept the bad guy as the new good guy and the good guy as the new bad guy. WCW was behind the curve in that respect and I was doomed from the start when I was booked as a nameless faceless babyface. I’d just come off a very successful heel run in Japan and in ECW everyone was a heel anyway, so turning into an instant babyface was a tough transition. I was in the heel mode of wanting to make my opponent look good, so I gave Mr. J.L. most of the match and stole a quick win from him at the end. I did my best to have a good match but an old friend still came a-calling.

  Knock knock.

  Who’s there?

  It’s the Jericho Curse bitch!

  The match went over like a dump in church. It was a horrible, red reels debut and everyone knew it. Except me.

  The chastising began the moment I walked through the curtain where Paul Orndorff was waiting for me. “Dammit boy, you need a fancy ring robe with gems and sequins sewn on it!”

  Then I saw Terry Taylor, who was famous for being blunt, maybe too much so. “Wow did that ever suck. Was that your first match ever? It was terrible. What were you trying to accomplish?”

  “Since I was winning the match, I wanted to make J.L. look good in the process,” I said defensively.

  “That match wasn’t for him. It was for you to show what you can do and from the looks of things, you can’t do much. I don’t even know if we can even show it on TV.”

  Ouch!

  Terry was furious and I’d fumbled the ball badly. In my defense, the booking committee knew it was my first match in the company and that I’d been working Japanese-style, but they still sent me out to sink or swim on my own with no tips or advice.

  It was typical of a larger problem that existed in WCW—nobody was on the same page. Terry Taylor was one booker, Kevin Sullivan was another, and others like Hulk Hogan (who ended up being the mystery third member of the nWo), Hall, and Nash did whatever they wanted to do no matter what the bookers said. Bischoff was supposed to be in charge of it all, but he was a marionette that did whatever Hogan and his lackeys puppeteered him to do. It was hard to tell who the boss really was.

  The disorganization continued when Terry decided that he wanted me to go to Orlando the next day for the TV tapings the company did at Universal Studios. I’d flown from Winnipeg to Dalton for one day, so I only had one change of clothes and one pair of tights. Since the Orlando tapings lasted for two weeks, I was unprepared for such a long stay.

  Terry decided it was best for me to fly back to Winnipeg, grab my stuff, and come back to Florida. But the comedy of errors continued when I told him that I didn’t live in Winnipeg and my stuff was actually in Calgary.

  So I flew from Atlanta to Winnipeg, arriving at twelve noon, kissed my mom goodbye, drove fourteen hours back to Calgary, arriving at 3 A.M., turned down the only official booty call I’ve ever been offered, grabbed my stuff, and got back on a plane to Orlando at 7 A.M. All because they decided they needed me in Orlando with one day’s notice, even though I’d been with the company for a month and they could have booked me weeks in advance.

  YaskY.

  CHAPTER 44

  BASKETBALL HIGHLIGHTS #12

  The tapings in Orlando were for the syndicated World Wide Wrestling program that ran in smaller markets around the world. The show was at the bottom of the totem pole for the company and was devoid of all the top stars.

  But WCW boasted a huge roster so there were still over 100 contracted wrestlers hanging around the backstage area of the Universal Studios lot. It looked like a casting call for One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest 2—Electric Boogaloo.

  There were a lot of familiar faces in the mass of misfits, including Tonga/Haku (who had now become Meng), Eddy Guerrero, Horace Boulder, and Chris Benoit. When I saw Benoit I could tell he wasn’t happy. He pulled me into a corner and said, “What the fuck happened in Dalton? Terry told me that you stunk the joint out. The word is already going around that you aren’t any good.”

  I didn’t think my performance was that bad and I was surprised to hear such a harsh opinion had developed after only one match. I thought I’d be given the chance to acclimate to the new style, but WCW employed far too many wrestlers to spoon-feed a nonheadliner like me.

  The browbeating continued: “You have to dress nicer too. You’re wearing shorts and a tank top; you look like a s
lob. This is the big leagues, act like it.” He was wearing dress pants and a nice shirt. Chris adhered to the dress code ten years before it was officially instituted.

  His words freaked me out and my confidence was shot. I don’t know if I felt worse about possibly getting fired or letting Benoit down.

  My first World Wide match was going to be against the Gambler, a journeyman wrestler that I’d never seen before (or since). His gimmick was he was a Kenny Rogers impersonator.

  Even though that gimmick would rule, his actual gimmick was of a Maverick-style riverboat gambler. It was a horrible feeling knowing that my future was in the hands of a man who did card tricks on his way to the ring. I didn’t know if he was good or if he sucked, but my self-esteem was at such a low that I was going to leave the match up to him. I was gambling on the Gambler.

  Having confidence is a huge part of being successful. When you have it, you can do no wrong. When you don’t, all you can do is wrong. At that point all of my previous accomplishments didn’t mean a damn thing.

  This was my last chance.

  The Gambler led the match and I followed him. He was a meat-and-potatoes wrestler so it was nothing fancy, but it was exactly what I needed. It was the type of basic match that I would’ve had in wrestling camp. No bells or whistles, just a good story and solid execution.

  Lo and behold, we had a good little match and within five minutes I regained my confidence and once again became Chris Jericho—World Beater.

  As ricockulous as it sounds, the KISS rule always works. I’m not saying to go put on Demon makeup and spit blood, I’m saying Keep It Simple Stupid. We kept the match simple and I was no longer stupid.

  Since we filmed four shows a day in Universal, there was a possibility of wrestling four times a day. But the matches were a piece of goozleberry pie. The audience was always loud and excited because the matches were one of the park’s attractions. People would go on the Back to the Future ride, get cotton candy, go to the wrestling matches, take a ride on the Diggler, whatever.