A Lion's Tale: Around the World in Spandex

by Chris Jericho

  Eric also guaranteed that the WWF would be out of business within six months. With his ludicrous claims and gestapo tactics, Eric had become the Hitler of wrestling and was acting like he’d lost his fuckin’ mind.

  He constantly trumpeted to anybody who would listen that Hogan and the nWo were the sole reason why WCW had pulled ahead of WWF in the ratings war. He never stopped to think that another reason may have been the hard work of the leprosy-afflicted cruiserweights.

  Nobody in the mainstream audience had ever seen the style of matches that we were delivering on a consistent basis (sometimes for twenty minutes or more) on live TV. We were carrying the load and giving the fans tremendous performances while Hogan and the boys were stinking out the joint with theirs. In their arrogance, they’ll tell you that the people paid to see only them, and in my arrogance, I’ll tell you that the people walked away from the shows happier because of our hard work.

  The overall bad attitude and lack of attention toward 80 percent of the roster was leading to mutiny. I saw it firsthand at a World Wide taping before a match I had with Mike Rotunda.

  Alex Wright and a jobber named Hardbody Harrison were standing face-to-face. Hardbody had one of those Mr. T. bendable pump-up bars and was brandishing it like a weapon.

  “I wanna be the heel,” he said in his Ebonics accent.

  “No, I vant to be ze heel,” Alex said in his German accent.

  They were arguing over who got to be the bad guy, like a couple of eight-year-old kids who both wanted to be Darth Vader. The argument escalated to a pushing match and was broken up by referee Peewee Anderson.

  “Stup it! Who’s sposed ta bae the hee-ell?” Peewee said in his hick Georgia accent.

  The scene had turned into a bad Dana Carvey routine, as the German, Ebonics, and bumpkin accents all blended into one. The comedy show continued when Alex wrenched the Mr. T. bar out of Hardbody’s hand and conked him over the head with it. Hardbody pitied the fool and jumped on Alex. The two of them rolled around on the floor engaged in the worst fight ever. Meanwhile, my ring music was playing and I had to tear myself away from the catfight to go have my stupid match. It was far less entertaining than the match that was already taking place backstage.

  It wasn’t surprising that Hardbody had attacked Alex; he was in his own world anyway. He was constantly submitting weird angles and stories to the office, trying to get himself a push.

  First he came up with the idea of painting his face and becoming Sting’s black nemesis, Stang. Then he came up with another beauty that had Diamond Dallas Page (DDP) bringing a special magic diamond crystal to the ring. Hardbody would attack him, steal the crystal, and drop it into a tank of piranhas. This chicanery would force DDP to jump into the piranha tank to retrieve the magic crystal, live on PPV. I would’ve paid to see that one.

  Maybe I should’ve hired Hardbody to write an angle for me too, as I was grasping at straws to get noticed.

  I tried to jazz up my ring entrance by throwing my back up against the guardrail, goading the fans to pat me on the back and get their faces on TV. I was sick of seeing babyfaces (like Lex Luger) slapping the fans’ hands and looking like they would rather be dipping their balls in hot pitch. Unfortunately for me, most of the fans who lined the barricades were guys, so when I vigorously threw myself at the rail it looked like I was trying to get groped by a bunch of dudes. Mission accomplished.

  I also had another mission to accomplish by moving out of Canada. After avoiding it for a year it was time to leave Calgary as the flights were too long, the taxes were too steep, and Bischoff had been pressuring me to follow through on his original request.

  I didn’t have to worry about getting a work visa in the U.S., because I was born in New York when my dad was playing with the Rangers.

  But I did have to worry about finding a place to live and because of my hectic schedule I had no time to look for a place in Atlanta. I was able to convince Eric to let me move to Orlando (like he cared) and I found an apartment during the two-week World Wide tapings.

  So I packed up my Mustang, rented a U-Haul trailer, and made the drive down to Florida with my friend Ajax. I noticed right away that my new hometown was filled with tourists and old people. Since I didn’t know any vacationing seniors, I started looking for a church that could help me fill the rare downtime.

  I hadn’t attended church regularly since I’d been laughed out of St. Chad’s in Winnipeg over seven years earlier. Plus after my mom’s accident I had some issues with God and though I continued to talk to him every day, I hadn’t felt the desire to return to church. But the time had come to get some fellowship but I had no idea where to go. So I let God decide.

  I opened the Yellow Pages to the church section, closed my eyes, and pointed. God’s fingers did the walking and landed on an ad for the Tabernacle Baptist Church. I went to check it out and when I did, I was blown away. It was like the church scene in The Blues Brothers with people jumping up and down and dancing, all singing up-tempo hymns while accompanied by a ten-piece band. The pastor, Steve Ware, told jokes and showed clips from popular movies to back up his sermon.

  I’d never been to a church like it and I was surprised at how much fun it was. I was grateful that God had led me to Tabernacle via the Yellow Pages Ouija BoardTM. He must have known that my soul needed cleansing—and some detoxification.

  On the road, I went out every night to maintain my sanity. Since most of the crew was on the same boat as I was, it was easy to form drinking alliances with various groups, each gang possessing different qualities and unique names:

  1. The Chubba Bubbas

  Hugh Morrus

  Johnny Grunge

  Rochester Roadblock

  Rocco Rock

  Chris Jericho

  Special Quality—All the members accused the others of being fat, flabby, and chubby. A proper greeting was “Hello Fatso,” followed by “Hello Chuboots.” Girls of plus sizes and rotund shapes were appreciated, as was a one-legged woman. She was nicknamed Eileen. Think about it.

  2. The Drunken Four Horsemen

  Steve McMichael

  Raven

  Curt Hennig

  Chris Jericho

  Special Quality—Being the last people in the bar, NO MATTER WHAT. Must be able to gargle Jack Daniel’s for over thirty seconds. Must party with anyone, no matter the age or sexual orientation, a rule that encouraged Raven to go on a midnight motorcycle ride with a seventy-two-year-old woman.

  3. The Useless Pop Culture Trivia Triumvrate

  Konnan

  Raven

  Chris Jericho

  Special Quality—Being able to waste hours of time discussing such important matters as what Isaac from The Love Boat’s real name was (Ted Lange) and who was Meeno Peluce’s half-sister (Soleil Moon Frye).

  There were others, but you get the idea.

  I spent most of my time with the core members of my Indian caste system, Benoit, Guerrero, and Malenko. I’d known Eddy and Chris for years, but I hit it off with Dean the best. I’d never met him before WCW, but everybody who’d ever worked with him told me how good he was. What they hadn’t told me was how funny he was.

  When the camera was on, Dean was a stone-faced no-nonsense performer who kicked ass and got the job done. But backstage, he was funnier than Will Ferrell. If he had projected his natural personality onto the screen, he could have had his own sitcom on the WB fo’ sho.

  He produced a steady stream of one-liners, no matter what the scenario.

  When the overweight Brian Knobs walked around the dressing room in a thong, Dean mused, “That’s not a G-string, that’s the whole alphabet.”

  When we went to a strip club and watched an overly skinny stripper dance, Dean quipped, “I don’t know whether to tip her a dollar or a food stamp.”

  Dean and I began to travel together. We had to pay all of our own expenses, so doubling up helped to save money and kill time during the long rides.

  At first, Dean and I traveled toget
her with Benoit and Eddy, but after a while four guys in the same car and in the same room got to be too much no matter how much money we were saving.

  Plus Benoit and Eddy liked to get up at seven in the morning, have breakfast, and work out. Dean and I liked to sleep in until noon, have lunch, and work out. Why get up early when you didn’t have to?

  Eddy and Chris were very strict with their diets. They were the first guys I knew who checked the labels on food to find out the nutritional information. I ate whatever I wanted within reason (and looked like it) and Dean was the same way. One day I decided to mimic Chris and see what the hell the big deal with the labels was. I studied intently and looked up to see Dean across the aisle doing the same thing. Our eyes met and we burst out laughing at how stupid the situation was. We bought the donuts and left.

  Then we had the bright idea to stay up all night after every Nitro until our flight left the next morning. We started our plan by going to the seediest clubs we could find in whatever town we were in. But that “thrill” soon wore off, so we thought it would be funny instead to keep everyone else awake. Because so many of the wrestlers had their rooms paid for by the company (not us), everyone was based out of the same hotel. As a result, it wasn’t hard to con the hotel security guard into giving us the keys to the other guys’ rooms.

  Dean and I would open our victim’s door and run into their darkened room wearing lucha masks and screaming our heads off. One night, we broke into the room of a bunch of Mexican minis, midget wrestlers from south of the border. We found all five of them sleeping on the same king-size bed in a K position.

  It was kompletely hilarious.

  My three amigos and I had all wrestled for the bigger companies in Mexico, Europe, and Japan, earning us the nickname the New Japan Four. The name didn’t quite fit for me, because even though I’d worked in Japan dozens of times, it had never been for New Japan. I knew that WCW had a working agreement with New Japan and that was one of the reasons I’d been so excited to sign with them in the first place, but I still hadn’t had my chance to go.

  Just as I reached the end of my rope, New Japan called and saved my career.

  CHAPTER 46

  CHRIS BIGALOW, ORIENTAL GIGOLO

  I had just finished vacuuming my apartment when I received a call from Brad Rheinghans (who I used to watch in the AWA), the American liaison for New Japan.

  “New Japan needs you to send them your measurements. They want to bring you in to be Jushin Liger’s new rival and you’re going to have a costume like his.”

  Brad told me that I was going to debut as the evil Super Liger in front of 65,000 people at the Tokyo Dome. Liger was one of THE faces of New Japan Pro Wrestling and being introduced in this manner was akin to debuting at WrestleMania as Don Cena, John’s evil twin.

  So I bought a tape measure and gave my measurements. The company made me a replica of Liger’s famous bodysuit, but I didn’t get a chance to see it (never mind try it on) until I arrived in Tokyo the night before the show.

  It was basically a skintight white wet suit, made of material thicker than spandex. When I tried it on, it was like wearing a body cast.

  When I put on the trademark Liger horned mask, it was like putting on the Gimp’s gear. It had only a little hole for a mouth and the eyes were covered by a red mesh that totally restricted my sight. With my new Super Liger costume on, I couldn’t see, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t breathe, and I felt like I’d been dipped in candle wax.

  I would’ve been okay at an S&M convention but how in the hell was I going to wrestle?

  Drastic changes were going to be necessary so I went into MacGyver mode and began altering my costume. I took a pair of scissors and cut the chin out of the mask, allowing me to breathe. Then I tried to figure out a way to open up the eyeholes without messing up the red mesh, but it was futile. So I put the mask on and wore it to bed to try and get comfortable with it.

  The next day I was taken to the gigantic Tokyo Dome, aka the Big Egg, an intimidating structure that put major perspective on the fact that it was my:

  First time wearing a mask.

  First time wrestling with New Japan.

  First time wrestling in a full bodysuit.

  First time in the Tokyo Dome.

  When I went to meet with my opponent, Kanemoto, I got the vibe that he didn’t want any part of the match and wasn’t happy about having to put me over. It was a recipe for disaster but I was ready for the challenge and I knew I would persevere. This was my big chance and nothing was going to stop—

  Hold on, someone’s at the door.

  “Hello?”

  “Yes hello, it’s me...the JERICHO CURSE!”

  The Super Liger match was a bigger bomb than a Pauly Shore comeback.

  I walked to the ring on the football-field-sized walkway and couldn’t see a damn thing the whole time. I had to stare intently at my feet with every step as it was the only way I could keep on the path. Every time I looked up, the red lights that dominated the lighting rig made me feel like I was in the middle of a strobe light rave party. And me without my glowsticks.

  I had no peripheral vision, which made even hitting the ropes a challenge. I felt like Wilf from the Hart Brothers Camp.

  With the crowd going mild for the match, I tried to get something going. I knocked Kanemoto out of the ring and got ready to do my trademark crowd-pleasing move of jumping straight to the top rope and drop-kicking my opponent off the apron.

  But when I went for my big leap, my legs felt like they were painted with concrete. I didn’t even come close to getting my footing and slipped right off the ropes onto my ass inside the ring.

  The Dome crowds were notorious for being quiet and it was hard to hear any noise anyway as it dispersed in such an expansive building. But I sure as hell heard the sound of thousands of people laughing at me when I fell. Giggling crowds are the kiss of death in Japan; the Asian equivalent of “You fucked up!”

  I ended up winning the match but Super Liger’s fate had been sealed, especially when one of the New Japan employees took my costume “for safekeeping,” the moment I took it off in the locker room.

  There was a big party after the show that I had to attend while wearing the Super Liger Party Mask. I might as well have been wearing the Masque of the Red Death. I’d been painted with the scarlet letter and nobody at the party would even look at me, except for my friend Black Cat.

  After waiting to work for New Japan for a half dozen years, I’d finally gotten my chance and delivered a barn burner of match...people were burning their barns in protest.

  Failure be thy name.

  In order to live up to the huge Liger legacy, I needed to put on an A+ performance, but I’d responded with an F-(for Fugettaboutit) abortion instead. Super Liger was hung, drawn, and quartered, never to be seen again. Luckily, I was already contracted to return the following month as Chris Jericho.

  When I returned to the States I heard Mark Madden on the WCW Hotline say, “Chris Jericho stinks in his first appearance as Super Liger.” If word of my failure had reached America before I did, Super Liger really must’ve stunk worse than my nuts do. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even wrestle in the Dome. I was attacked and stuffed into a closet and my assailant actually wrestled as Super Liger. Years passed before Kevin Federline would enter a wrestling ring again.

  So I went back to New Japan the next month as plain old no-frills Chris Jericho. If my plane ticket and visa hadn’t already been processed, I probably wouldn’t have been brought back under any name. In my first match back I wrestled Takashi Iizuka, who had the reputation of making his opponents look good. I used to have the same reputation, but now New Japan felt I needed all the help I could get.

  My confidence was shot once again after the Dome disaster (coming soon to a theater near you) but I still had a decent match with Iizuka. The next night I was in a tag match against the masked Samurai and Jushin Liger himself. While a lot of guys in wrestling can hide their true feelings and
be nice to your face even if they don’t like you, Liger isn’t one of them.

  He knew I could wrestle from my matches with WAR and that’s why he’d come up with the Super Liger idea in the first place. But my performance at the Dome was miserable and he was furious with me. I’d almost tarnished his legacy and I’m sure he took some flak for suggesting the Super Liger character in the first place.

  We discussed our match while an 800-pound Super Liger sat in the corner. I was told in no uncertain terms that Liger was beating me with his finish in the middle of the ring, clean as a sheet. I’m sure that the consensus was to get whatever they could out of me by having me lose to everybody on the roster.

  Now I had something to prove and we had an exciting hard-hitting match that the crowd really enjoyed. Liger beat me but it didn’t make any difference because I’d brought Sexy back.

  Afterward Liger shook my hand and was clearly pleased. Even more importantly, I ran into the head booker, Riki Choshu, in the backstage hall.

  “You Chris Jericho? You same guy as Super Liger?”

  “Yes sir,” I said nervously.

  “Hmmm,” he pondered while nodding his head. “Chris Jericho very good. Super Liger very bad.”

  “I think maybe Super Liger dead,” I replied.

  “I think maybe good idea,” Choshu said and shook my hand.

  And that’s how I regained my Japanese mojo, baby.

  Now that I was back on track, I threw myself into the Japanese style like never before. I’d always been enamored with the whole feel of the Japanese wrestling companies and New Japan was the biggest of them all. We worked in bigger arenas in front of bigger crowds. That also meant that there were a higher class of female fans who had no problem donating to the cause by using their parents’ money to buy me expensive gifts and meals.

  Chris Bigalow, Oriental Gigolo.