Being in the big leagues meant that the attitudes and the work rate were more serious as well. Every day I trained with the entire New Japan roster in the arena before the show. We would run laps and work out with the weights that were set up in every venue. I did a Japanese style workout where you took a deck of cards and threw them to the floor one at a time. Then you would do the number of squats (black suits) or push-ups (red suits) listed on each card, with the ace high, in quick succession. Sound easy? Try it, junior.
We did a lot of stretching in the ring, which confirmed my suspicion that Stu’s training regimen we’d followed in Calgary was indeed derived from Japanese techniques. We did one style of back bridges that involved being stretched around a spare tire like a Gumby for minutes at a time and another style where we only used our necks for support. It was thirsty work and everybody did the stretching as a team. The camaraderie was cemented by the tradition of everyone wearing uniform track suits with their last names written on the back like hockey jerseys.
It was traditions like these along with the air of dignity surrounding the sport that made Japan my favorite country to work in. Benoit felt the same way and we were stoked when we found out that we’d been booked on the next tour together.
We were near the end of the fifteen-hour flight from Atlanta to Narita so I started filling out my customs form. I grabbed my passport to check the work visa number and almost threw up when I realized I’d brought the wrong one. Having both an American and a Canadian passport was one of the benefits to being a dual citizen; it was also one of the detriments especially when you are as scatterbrained as your fearless scribe. My visa stamp had gone into my American passport and I had brought my Canadian one instead. I was freaked out that the customs officials would simply send me back to the States. When we landed, I was placed into a holding room with the other dregs of society who had tried to sneak into Japan without the proper documentation and had been detained.
After spending an hour with Borat’s extended family, a customs official rescued me. Since New Japan had such a high profile in the country, the company was able to smooth things out for me. But before I was allowed to go, I had to sign a form that literally said:
I, Chris Irvine, promise to never enter Japan again without the proper visa forms.
I’m surprised I didn’t have to write it 100 times on the blackboard too.
Then they searched my bags for drugs and porno, fast- forwarding through my VHS copy of Planes, Trains, & Automobiles looking for boobies and confiscating my Road House video when they found some.
Kelly Lynch! Kelly Lynch! YEAHHH Kelly Lynch!
Benoit was one of my best friends, but you wouldn’t have known it on the first night of the tour. When we were booked in a tag team match against each other, he attacked me before the bell and pounded me like a meat tenderizer.
Similar to when he’d slapped me at the J Cup, the attack was like having a bucket of ice water poured over my head. We took out our WCW frustrations by beating the living shit out of each other. During the melee I went for a spin kick and instead of connecting full force, I brushed the side of his face instead. He still took a bump and nobody knew the difference—nobody except him.
After the match I went looking for him but he’d pulled his usual Houdini act and I couldn’t find him anywhere. I finally found him in the corner of a boiler room and asked what was wrong.
“I bumped off that spin kick. You didn’t connect and I never should’ve bumped.”
“Nobody noticed. The match was killer.”
“No, it was a rookie mistake and I never should’ve done it.”
He was a perfectionist and decided that he needed to purge himself by doing 500 hack squats right then and there. I’d thrown the errant kick, so I thought it was only fair to join in on his Opus Dei routine and cleanse myself too.
I hadn’t done a single hack squat since wrestling school, never mind 500. After doing 300 my legs felt like they were going to detach themselves and beat me over the head for being so stupid, so I stopped. I don’t think Chris noticed and he continued squatting with machinelike precision until he reached 500.
My legs were not pleased with their boss and they completely mutinied on me when I woke up the next morning. When I tried to get out of bed I collapsed on the floor while my legs stood beside me snickering. I crawled to the shower and sprayed hot water on my screaming limbs, hoping to reach a truce. They laughed in my face and knotted themselves tighter than Mick Foley. To make matters worse, when I showed up at the arena I found out that I was supposed to wrestle Liger in a championship match for the NJPW junior heavyweight title.
It was my first shot at the title and I was walking like the Tim Conway old man (dated reference). So I secluded myself in the corner and stretched my legs for an hour. I was able to pull off a decent match but I paid dearly the next day when I spent the whole afternoon in bed negotiating with the terrorists that had taken my pins hostage.
My legs went back to work the next night when I was put into a match with the legendary Great Muta. He was one the biggest stars in Japanese wrestling and a seasoned vet who knew all the shortcuts necessary to having a long career in the business.
Muta had Red Light Fever, which meant whenever the red light of the camera was on, he was an animal (just like me in Germany). He did all of his crowd-pleasing moves and had great matches every time. But whenever we worked in the smaller towns where there were no TV cameras, he worked at half speed and did just enough to get by. He probably extended his career ten years by pacing himself that way. When I asked him about it, Muta pointed to his head and said, “Wrestling is all up here. It isn’t about moves and high spots, it’s all about psychology and thinking.”
He was right.
As the tour marched on, I started going stir-crazy. Being on the New Japan tour for three weeks, living and working in a foreign country, could mess with your head. The best way to alleviate the stress was to have a few cocktails. There were always fans who wanted to hang out with wrestlers and be a part of the revelry no matter the cost. So I developed the hazing process of drawing Kiss makeup on their faces with a permanent marker. If the diehard fan wanted to hang out, he would have to boast a star over one eye or cat whiskers under their nose. Then they would be allowed to stay and rock.
When four fans showed up and wanted to experience the initiation, I drew full Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley, Gene Simmons, and Peter Criss makeup with a silver permanent marker on their faces and taught them to do a move that mimicked each member. I had the Paul guy pucker his lips, the Gene guy stick out his tongue, the Ace guy acting spaced-out drunk, and the Peter guy scratching the air with an imaginary claw. Whenever I’d point to them they’d do the move on cue as if I was James Brown and they were the band. I still have fans come up to me with silver markers in their hands whenever I’m in Japan.
One of the top drawing tours of New Japan’s year was the Top of the Super Junior Tournament, a round-robin that took place over a three-week period. It was an honor to be booked on the tour along with Doc Dean and Robbie Brookside, who I hadn’t seen since Hamburg.
The party started the exact moment we saw each other again. We went out to Roppongi to celebrate and quickly met five dancers from England, who were promptly rechristened the Rice Girls.
Darby Rice had a little gut. Pizza Rice had mild acne. Cougar Rice was older but still hot. Punky Rice had multicolored hair and a nose ring and Shnozz Rice had...I’m sure you can guess. But besides Punky and Cougar (who Robbie and Doc claimed quickly), the others weren’t my type and I didn’t want them hanging around and ruining the vibe for any other interested parties.
But the Liverpool Lads insisted that the Rice Girls come back to the Keio Plaza and continue the party. I went to my room alone as soon as we arrived, but a few minutes later I got a call from Doc. “Shnozz was being a real cock block, but she likes you so I sent her up to your room. Please keep her away for a while or else she’s going to ruin everything.”
>
It pissed me off, but I had to follow the code and take one for the team. A few minutes later there was a knock on my door and I opened it slowly as if I was in the midst of a dead sleep. Shnozz Rice was standing there, so I hung my coat on her nose and said, “Hey, I was just sleeping.”
I lay down and pretended to go back to sleep. I felt her slide in bed next to me but I didn’t move. I lay there wide awake for the next four hours hoping that she would get the hint and leave, but she didn’t. Maybe I should have just nailed her and gotten some sleep instead.
A few weeks later the Jeri-Charm struck again and after spending some time doing the Haka with a model from New Zealand, I woke up late for the bus. I was scared of being tardy (I don’t feel tardy), so I made the executive decision to be nice and let the delicious Kiwi stay in my room. I didn’t really trust her and I padlocked my suitcase to the hanger pole in my closet so she couldn’t steal it. When I came back twelve hours later she was gone, along with all of the alcohol in the minibar ($300), my extra room key ($50), and a pair of jeans ($100). My suitcase was still there, but its weight had pulled the hanger pole down and trashed my closet ($300).
That left me with a $750 tab.
Who says that the best things in life are free...and what was she planning to do with my jeans?
The Top of the Super Juniors tour was a blast and Robbie, Doc, Chavo Guerrero Jr. (Eddy’s nephew), nWo Sting (Jeff Farmer), and I had a nightly post-match ritual of playing a card game called Beale Street (which was renamed Destroyer) and drinking all the beer out of the hotel lobby vending machine, while singing the hits of the 1980s. Chavo had the superpower of being able to name any one-hit wonder’s other hit. If I said “I Ran” by Flock of Seagulls, he would instantly fire back with “Space Age Love Song.” He would’ve made the Flock and their swank hairstyles proud.
The tournament was carefully booked and I won four matches in a row, including a big win over eventual tournament winner, the masked el Samurai. Samurai wore a mask because he was an ugly mother. He also had the worst smoker’s breath and would damn near kill you when he applied a chin lock and breathed in your face. Tear gas would’ve been more merciful.
But Samurai was a good worker and I’d been given the win over him because New Japan was setting me up to be a challenger for the junior title. Black Cat told me that NJPW wanted to bring me back for the next tour as long as Eric gave his permission. I didn’t think that would be an issue and I was happier in Japan than in WCW anyway. The New Japan office liked me and I was about to become a challenger for the most prestigious junior title in the world. I was on a roll and nobody was going to stop me.
Nobody except Eric Bischoff that is.
Even though I practically begged him to let me return he didn’t want to hear it and denied New Japan’s request.
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder. They’ll just want you more the next time. Besides Terry Taylor has some big plans for you.”
I got up off my knees and wiped the tears from my face. Big plans? Me? Was it the feud with Roddy Piper that Bischoff had promised me months earlier? Or maybe an angle with Booker T. for the TV title?
“You’re going to be the new cruiserweight champion.”
Instead of happy happy joy joy, my heart sank.
Cruiserweight was a dirty word in WCW, a derogatory term. The belt meant about as much as a belt from JC Penney. If I’d been given a choice, I just would’ve gone back to Japan but, alas, there was no choice.
CHAPTER 47
THIS IS SHOW BUSINESS, BABY
The plan was for me to win the championship from nWo member Syxx (1-2-3 Kid). Syxx losing his title should’ve been a big deal, because it was the first time a chink had been taken out of the nWo’s armor. But instead of happening on Nitro with millions of people watching, the title change was going to happen at a house show (nontelevised) in Los Angeles in front of 7,000 people. What made the idea worse was that I was going to win immediately after Syxx wrestled a twenty-minute match against Rey Mysterio Jr.
He was going to beat Rey and then I would run down and goad him into giving me a shot. Too fatigued from the previous bout, Syxx would be at a disadvantage and I’d become the new champ. It was a great way for a heel to win a title, but a horrible way for a babyface to win and the fans responded by booing me right out of the building.
Shortly afterward, I pleaded with Kevin Sullivan to put me in a few matches with big names to give me some credibility. He responded by booking me with Scott Hall in a five-minute squash loss on Nitro.
But Hall decided to rebel and let me win instead.
He kicked my ass for most of the match until I beat him with a small package, a basic move that I had to teach him in the dressing room beforehand. He had ten years of experience on me, but I had to teach him a freakin’ small package. I might as well have tied his boots for him too.
After I got the pin the fans exploded in elation, but nanoseconds later he beat the snot out of me and left me lying in a pool of my own lost credibility.
After Eric signed almost every available performer in North America, he started bringing guys over from Japan. I was booked to face Gedo, my fellow Fuyuki-Gun-ner, at Halloween Havoc ’97 in Las Vegas. I flew my dad in (Curt Hennig kept calling him Mr. Jericho and Flair thought he was NHL Hall of Famer Ted Lindsay) to hang out for a few days.
We were having a drink at the MGM Grand the night before the show and Terry Taylor approached me to say that they wanted Gedo to go over. It made no sense, as I was under contract as a regular employee and Gedo was only going to be in WCW for a week.
“Well at least you’ll be on the show. The boss can take a look at you and see what you can do.”
See what I can do? I’d been in the company for a whole year!
If Eric didn’t know what I could do by now, losing to a foreign exchange student certainly wasn’t going to help. When Eric showed up at the bar, I couldn’t contain myself any longer. I’d never complained about doing a job before, but when I told him the plan he was just as surprised as me.
“Why are you supposed to lose, who are we promoting here? I’m going to change that immediately.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything about the finish, because the next day Gedo almost killed me.
In the middle of a decent match in front of an apathetic crowd who had no idea who either of us were, I prepared to give Gedo my standing Frankensteiner off the top rope. It was the move I’d been using ever since Drew McDonald had suggested it in Hamburg years earlier.
For some reason when I jumped up to wrap my legs around his neck (no filthy remarks please), he gave me a double arm push to the chest. I didn’t get the leverage I needed as a result and when I swung my head backward, I didn’t clear the mat. I landed straight on top of my head with my legs flipping directly over my neck. A second later Gedo, who had still taken the proper bump, landed right on my head with his full weight.
The whole crowd in the MGM Garden Arena went silent and I lay there for a few seconds too scared to move, fearing I’d suffered the same fate as my mother. I was so terrified of what had just happened, I jumped straight up to my feet trying to prove to everyone (including myself) that I was okay.
It’s interesting that when you’re in a match and you really get hurt, it’s hard to sell it. There is such fear of not knowing how badly you’re hurt that it’s hard to pretend you are and you just want to hop up on your feet as if nothing is wrong. It’s the same principle as when you trip and bust your ass in front of a bunch of people.
The Lord was with me that night and I was fine—even though everyone who saw the botched move knew that tragedy had been narrowly avoided. I’ve never watched that match and I never will.
The office’s original decision to put Gedo over in our match erased the last shred of optimism I still had that I might have a future in WCW. I started thinking about working someplace else because I believed I deserved better than what the company was giving me.
WCW was a g
reat place for veteran stars to make easy money and be lazy doing it. However, it was an awful place for a young guy to try and make a name for himself. I knew that the WWF mission statement was to create new stars and that’s where I needed to be more than ever.
I had an ace in my pocket to help me in my escape from the proverbial Alcatraz.
Even though I’d been working in WCW for over a year I had never signed my contract. I wasn’t holding out for more money or having a legal disagreement, I simply had never put the pen to the paper and returned the contract to WCW’s lawyers. Nobody seemed to realize it and I decided to see how long I could go without signing. It was astonishing that no one in the office had ever followed up with me about it, but this was the same company that once sent me a FedEx with nothing inside, so it wasn’t too hard to believe.
As a free agent, I made a call to my friend Don Callis. I’d come up through the business with Don in Winnipeg and we’d worked together many times on the Tony Condello tours. He was working in the WWF as the Jackal and had the ear of head booker, Vince Russo. I asked Don to ask Russo if he would ever be interested in hiring me.
“Russo said whenever you want to come to the WWF, just say the word,” Don reported a few days later. Those were the words I’d waited to hear since I pulled out of my mom’s driveway eight years earlier at nineteen years old. I could show up in the WWF the next week and toss the WCW cruiserweight belt into the garbage if I wanted to. I was legally clear to do so and there was nothing stopping me.
Except myself.
As much as WCW had ignored me, I still couldn’t justify walking away and screwing them over. I had never given up on anything in my life and if I quit WCW, I’d be admitting to everyone that I’d failed.
Plus Eric had given me a chance when the WWF never did and had even given me a raise (in good faith) a few months earlier. As much of an asshole as some of the bookers and wrestlers had been, Eric had always been fair with me and I didn’t take that lightly. I signed with him for three years and if I backed out on that deal I would’ve felt like a real shithouse.
A Lion's Tale: Around the World in Spandex Page 33