A Lion's Tale: Around the World in Spandex

by Chris Jericho

  “Well, I’m going to go over to the Dollhouse,” Raven said. “Do you want to come with me?”

  The Dollhouse was an infamous strip club in Tampa, and it was now the enemy along with Raven, who was intent on stealing her away.

  She looked undecided and the moment of truth had arrived. Was she going to go to the Dollhouse with Raven, who she’d never met before, or stay at the restaurant with me where she belonged? Jessica turned and asked me, “Are you going to go?”

  I played it cool even though if she’d wanted to go to the Dollhouse you know damn well I would’ve followed her.

  “I don’t think so. I’m just gonna stay here.”

  She dazzled me with her smile and said to Raven, “No thanks. I’m just going to stay here.”

  Angels burst out of heaven singing, bells chimed, babies gurgled with laughter, and birds snuggled in the trees. All was now well in the world.

  We left separately and by the time I got home that night, she’d already left a message on my machine. There was no two-day buffer zone for her. I called her the next day and was disappointed to find out that she was going to her dad’s cabin in northern Minnesota (she’d grown up only five hours away from Winnipeg) for three weeks.

  We spoke on the phone every day while she was gone and the daily conversations helped us build a strong foundation for our relationship. We got to know each other well before anything physical happened. It was the exact opposite of the way most relationships begin and showed us that we had something special.

  By the time she came back from Minnesota, she was already my girlfriend even though I’d kind of forgotten what she looked like. When I saw her again, she was more beautiful than I remembered and we’ve been together ever since. (Great Caesar’s Ghost, that line is going to get me some brownie points when she reads it.)

  Right after I met Jessica, I sprained my ankle in Las Vegas during a match against Booker T and was told by the doctor that I couldn’t wrestle for six weeks. I only had sixteen weeks left on my contract, so the injury was a blessing in disguise.

  When Eric realized that I wasn’t going to re-sign my contract, he suspended me from appearing on TV. That darned suspension really taught me a lesson, especially since I still received every penny of my weekly check in the interim.

  It’s good work if you can get it.

  PART TEN NEW YORK, NEW YORK

  CHAPTER 53

  TIME TO RACK

  During my suspension, Barry was negotiating with Jim Ross, who in addition to being the best announcer in the business (and a hell of a Foreword writer) was also the head of WWF Talent Relations and Vince’s right-hand man.

  JR was a huge football fan and made an effort to recruit all of his new signings the same way a football team would. He made a point of flying down to Tampa to have yet another secret meeting with me. Was I in wrestling or the CIA? He and his associate Gerry Brisco gave me a big pep talk touting the virtues of working in the WWF compared to WCW and discussed plans the company had for me.

  The WWF’s contract offer was a three-year deal at $450,000 a year, with an intricate system of bonuses based on attendance and pay-per-view buys. If you worked hard in the WWF and succeeded, you were rewarded and made more money. During all the years I worked in the WWF I never made less than double my guarantee, sometimes triple.

  In the meantime, WCW had upped their offer to where with bonuses it almost reached the magical seven-figure mark, but it was too late. Even though the WWF was offering half the money I would’ve agreed to a bag of used hockey pucks to work for Vince. Or a bag of brownies.

  It wasn’t about the cash and it never had been. It was about finally achieving my elusive dream and enjoying my career again. All of the bullshit I’d experienced in WCW had drained my love for wrestling and I wanted it back.

  Since I was suspended from TV and had been taken off the road, I got to spend four straight months with Jessica. We knew we had something special when we saw each other every day and still wanted more.

  Eric however had had enough of me and felt that it was best for Chris Jericho to just disappear from WCW. My name was never mentioned and I was never seen on Nitro again. It was probably the right decision, as no matter what form of burial he might’ve thought of, I just would’ve taken it and got more over in the long run anyway. WCW had taught me the valuable lesson of taking any scrap of TV time given to you and using it to make an impression.

  That lesson would benefit me for years to come.

  I also used the time off to work on another one of my dreams.

  One of the greatest feelings in the world is hooking up with other musicians and playing music. It’s the ultimate form of both individuality and teamwork and a total creative rush. I’d never stopped playing, but since I’d moved away from Lenny in Calgary, I hadn’t found anybody to jam with. I missed being in a band and now that I had the time to rock, I picked up the phone and called a guitar player in Atlanta named Rich Ward.

  Rich was the backbone of the pioneer rap-metal band Stuck Mojo, and had been touring the world for years like I had. I’d seen Mojo in concert a few years earlier and I was impressed by their energy, their music, and their allegiance to wrestling.

  They had wrestling dolls lined up on the amps, wore championship belts while playing, and threw out wrestling-influenced catchphrases like “To be the band, you got to beat the band” and “That’s the bottom line ’cause Mojo said so.”

  Mojo had filmed a video starring DDP for their song “Rising” and our paths crossed when Rich came backstage at a WCW show in San Antonio during a Mojo night off. Rich and I were kindred spirits right from the start. We had the same sense of humor and liked a lot of the same bands, including Stryper. I was amazed because even though Stryper had been a huge influence on the early part of my career, it was rare to find somebody else who would admit digging them.

  When I mentioned that I’d been playing bass and singing in bands for years, he threw out a curious offer. “I have a cover band called Fozzy Osbourne. Whoever is in town comes down and we jam on our favorite cover tunes. You should come sing with us sometime, it’s a blast.”

  I loved the idea, but I never had enough spare time to make it happen. However, I kept in touch with Rich and when I hurt my ankle, he was the first guy I called. We booked a few shows, put together a loose set list, and I flew to Atlanta to rock.

  Our first gig was at a club called the Hangar in Marietta, Georgia. About 300 Jerichoholics and members of the Stuck Mojo Dojo showed up. I was freaking out, because ever since I’d seen my first concert (the Police/Synchronicity Tour ’83) I’d always dreamed of playing a full gig of my own. Now we weren’t exactly Van Halen in 1978 as far as quality, but we were good enough for Rich and me to feel a spark. There was something special about the chemistry of his guitar riffs and my vocals right off the bat. We played again the next night in Spartanburg, South Carolina, in front of about twelve people and that was supposed to be the end of it.

  But a funny thing happened on the way to the Casbah. Both Stuck Mojo and Chris Jericho were popular within our respective realms and due to the strange supergroup lineup of the band, a buzz started to build. Mojo’s manager started fielding offers from record companies who were interested in signing us sight unseen and sound unheard.

  (Interactive Portion of the Book: Download “Dream Weaver” by Gary Wright and press play now.)

  We were in the middle of a bidding war after playing only two gigs and my dream of being a rock star was starting to come true.

  CHAPTER 54

  ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG

  My dream of becoming a WWF superstar was about to come true and I began scouting my new company. To familiarize myself with the story lines and performers I studied every WWF television show, more specifically Monday Night Raw and the monthly PPVs.

  On May 23, 1999, I was watching the Over the Edge PPV from Kansas City. I had just made Jess and myself dinner and as I sat down to eat, I saw Owen Hart on the TV doing an int
erview about his upcoming match. Now there were many reasons why I wanted to sign with the WWF, some of them major, some of them minor. One of them was that being in the WWF would give me the opportunity to finally work with Owen Hart.

  Ever since I first saw him in Stampede thirteen years earlier, he was one of the reasons I’d decided to become a wrestler in the first place. Even though we’d worked for many of the same companies worldwide, except for that one plane ride from Calgary to Los Angeles, we’d never crossed paths. He’d become a big star in the WWF and was currently playing the masked Blue Blazer, a superhero who was decidedly un-super due to his squeaky-clean, goody-two-shoes antics. When I sat down on the couch to watch his always entertaining match, I noticed that the camera was panning the crowd. After a few minutes of the increasingly long and awkward crowd shots, I said to Jess, “Something is wrong here.”

  At that moment the cameras switched over to Jim Ross and his sidekick, Jerry Lawler, sitting at the announcer desk, their faces pale and ashen.

  JR said something like, “Owen Hart has suffered a serious accident. He’s had a serious fall.”

  My stomach plummeted and I thought, “He fell? What is he talking about? What do you mean he fell?”

  I knew it wasn’t a gimmick because both announcers were crying real tears and soon after, so was I. Owen had fallen fifty feet from the rafters into the ring when an apparatus that was supposed to lower him snapped. He died pretty much on impact.

  I was overwhelmed with feelings of desperation and helplessness much the same way I was when Magic told me that Art had died. I ran out of my apartment and called Benoit to tell him. There was no answer and I left a message ending with the same question I’d asked Magic: “What are we going to do?”

  I hardly knew Owen, but his journey through the business mirrored mine and I considered myself to be a surrogate member of the Hart family. He was an inspiration...almost a hero...to me and I couldn’t comprehend what had happened. I’ve often had this fantasy that on the day of the accident I have a premonition that something bad is going to happen to Owen, so I call the Kemper Arena and manage to warn him just in time, saving his life.

  But I didn’t have any such premonition.

  The next Monday I went to my first funeral for a friend (I’ve been to too many of them since) and all of the respect and sympathy shown toward Owen and his family was overwhelming. The entire WWF roster was there and the streets of Calgary were lined with thousands of people sharing in the massive grief. The Hart family was the royalty of Calgary and Owen was the crown prince. He was one of those guys that nobody ever said a bad word about and you could tell how much he was loved from the number of people paying tribute to him.

  He was planning on getting out of wrestling in a few short years to spend more time with his wife and two young children. They were scheduled to move into their new dream house the very next week. It’s an overwhelmingly dismal story and it still hurts to think about it.

  Only the good die young, all the evil seem to live forever.

  At the funeral home, Owen rested in an open casket. I leaned over and hugged him as the tears flowed down my face and I asked him the question I had been thinking all day: “What happened, man? We were supposed to be tag team champions someday.”

  I kissed his cheek and said goodbye to the nicest guy I hardly ever met.

  There was a first-class list of wrestlers paying tribute to Owen that day. I have a picture of Stu Hart, Bret Hart, Hulk Hogan, Chris Benoit, Terry Funk, Dory Funk Jr., Shane Douglas, Davey Boy Smith, and me standing together at Stu’s house after the funeral, all of us world champions at one point.

  While the reason for the summit was terrible, the experience itself was actually a good one and it provided a small bit of closure. It was also a riot listening to Stu tell all of his stories while some of the greatest wrestlers of all time gathered in awe, hanging on to his every word. At eighty-four years old, he was still feisty. He even coerced a reluctant B. Brian Blair into allowing him to apply a shoot hold.

  “This one can turn a man’s eyes completely bloodshot,” Stu said frankly as he applied pressure and then thankfully let go on his own. If he hadn’t, I’m not sure that any of us could’ve made him let go, nor did we want to get close enough to try.

  I saw Keith Hart for the first time since he tried to snap my teeth in half almost nine years earlier. I went and shook his hand, then we both stood there awkwardly. A fly landed on his face and when I went to shoo it away, he went into a fighting stance like he expected me to attack him.

  Maybe he thought I wanted revenge...or a refund.

  As I was leaving Stu’s house, I saw the Hulkster. He was the only guy from WCW to show up at the funeral (besides Benoit) and I thought it was a very classy gesture on his part. I talked to him for a few minutes until he came flat-out and asked me, “Are you going to go work for Vince?”

  I was still keeping my plans of defection on the down low, but on that day I didn’t care too much about keeping secrets.

  “Yeah, I think I’m going to give the WWF a shot.”

  He looked me in the eye and said, “Can you take me with you?”

  CHAPTER 55

  THE CLOCK HITS ZERO TONIGHT

  I didn’t take Hogan with me, but I was officially WWF-bound. My signing was announced on the WWE Web site a full month before my contract with WCW was up. I thought for sure that Eric would run me through the wringer on TV as a result. But he must’ve considered me damaged goods because he still didn’t do a thing.

  On the day my deal expired, I sent Eric a fax thanking him for the opportunity he’d given me. Even with all the animosity and bad feelings between us, he still gave me a chance with the company and paid me a huge amount of money to wrestle on national TV. At the very least I owed him a thank-you for that.

  Now that I was an official WWF superstar, I was on the phone with Russo constantly, discussing ideas and scenarios. He seemed to be as excited about me coming in as I was because my arrival into the WWF was going to be a huge deal and the company was already thinking of ideas for my debut. So was I.

  I was dropping off some mail at the post office when I saw a clock on the wall counting backward. Underneath the clock it said, “Countdown to the New Millennium.” It was six months before the year 2000 and the clock was keeping track of the time until New Year’s Eve:

  176 days, 17 hours, 8 minutes, 12 seconds, 11 seconds...

  I thought, “That would be a cool way for someone to come into the—wait, that’s a cool way for me to come into the WWF!” The WWF was famous for airing vignettes weeks before a new character’s arrival to build anticipation and excitement. I’d just discovered my vignette. I called Russo and he promised to run my idea past Vince that day.

  The Millennium Clock idea was…ahem...timely, because I’d been trying to think of a replacement for the Lion Heart name for a while. I’d been using it for years and I wanted to come into my new company with a new look, a new name, and a new nose. Well two out of three ain’t bad.

  So it was goodbye Lion Heart, hello Millennium Man. I would enter the WWF promising to be the performer to take the company into the year 2000 and beyond.

  Russo called me back a day later and said that not only did Vince love the idea, but he was going to calibrate the clock to start a month before my debut. This way, it would hit zero right at the exact moment of my first WWF appearance on the August 9, 1999, edition of Monday Night Raw.

  A month beforehand, I flew to the WWF offices in Stamford, Connecticut, to nail down the details of my debut. I met with Jim Johnston, who wrote the music for all of the superstars. We spent an hour talking about who I was and what my character’s attitude was, so he could get a feel for what my entrance music should sound like. Instead of recycled TBS basketball music, I was getting a custom-made fancy-pants song written just for me.

  I met with Kevin Dunn, the producer of Raw, to talk about my entrance video and his plan of using a double blast of pyro to give my arri
val extra impact. As I took promo shots and went over merchandise ideas, again I felt like I had stepped into Oz. Except Oz was now spelled WWF and Dorothy was bigger, sexier, and sporting a topknot. Come to think of it, I looked more like the Cowardly Lion.

  I went in for a meeting with the Boss himself. His office had a view of the Stamford skyline and was decorated with WWF memorabilia. I sat down in a plush chair that was worth more than my apartment and he pulled a script out of his desk for the movie Toxic Avenger IV, which included a part written specifically for me.

  “You’ve been here a day and you’re already a movie star,” he grumbled.

  My star-making role as Toxie’s new sidekick was never mentioned again, but it was a nice dangled carrot anyway.

  Then Vince hit me with a bombshell. His idea was to have the Countdown to the New Millennium clock reach zero right smack-dab in the middle of a promo by The Rock. I was floored because interrupting The Rock took me to the highest level right off the bat. It was a great example of VKM’s genius, as he’d taken my already good idea and increased it a thousandfold. We were a good team already.

  Then Vince asked me what my finishing maneuver was and I explained it was a submission similar to the Boston Crab. He was reluctant to have me use a submission, feeling that I was more of an explosive pin fall type of guy. I would’ve used a sweaty sock as a finish if he’d wanted me to and I wasn’t going to disagree. But I told him whether I was using a pin fall or a submission, I wanted to call my finish the Y2J Problem. Y2J was a take-off on the much ballyhooed Y2K problem that was apparently going to destroy us all at midnight on January 1, 2000. It didn’t, although I personally was destroyed on that night.