No is a Four-Letter Word

by Chris Jericho

  That was strange to me, not just from a religious standpoint, but from a business standpoint as well. The shows were about 70 percent sold with no females of any age allowed inside, which tells me that if the girls had been permitted to buy tickets it would’ve been a sellout. Not to mention it was a pretty weird scenario performing in an arena filled with all men, as the cheers during the matches were deeper and less frantic than usual.

  Another unusual thing about the Jeddah shows was that intermission had to start exactly at 5:55 p.m., because at 6 p.m. the show stopped so the entire crowd could go outside, face Mecca, and pray. Then twenty minutes later after the prayers were done, the crowd filed back in and the show continued.

  The Muslim traditions in the country were so strict that chanting prayers were blasted over loudspeakers every morning at six across the entire city, which woke me up daily like an Allahm clock (see what I did there?) without fail. Waking up to the mantras was an eerie feeling and reminded me that I was a long way from home. Throw in the fact that there was no alcohol available anywhere (even the possession of it was punishable by public flogging). and let’s just say it wasn’t the most fun I’ve ever had on a tour.

  Another thing that bothered me was the handful of female fans crowded around on the highway in front of the gate of the hotel, waiting to get a glance of their favorite WWE superstars. I was worried they would get hit by a car (or worse), but since Saudi Arabia was such a dangerous country, we had been warned not to leave the hotel premises to say hi to them. However, after seeing one of the highway girls holding up a Y2J sign as we drove by on the bus, I decided I’d had enough.

  We pulled up to the lobby, but instead of walking into the hotel I took a left and marched towards the gate, determined to give those ladies their moment.

  “You can’t go that way,” a jacked-up security guard (alcohol might’ve been impossible to get in the country, but it appeared steroids were quite accessible) mumbled in my direction. Watch me, I thought as I strolled through the opening.

  The first fan I saw was a little girl about eleven years old holding a sign that read: I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE JOHN CENA! It broke my heart to know that a random viewing of John on the bus was her only chance to lay eyes on her hero. I still can’t believe that in 2017 such inequality exists in the world, but seeing it up close hit me hard. I approached the mob and shook hands, took pictures, signed autographs (the girl with the Y2J sign got an extra hug), and spent as much time as I could with the small group of devotees, trying to give them a special moment I knew they wouldn’t forget.

  This isn’t an attitude that should only be limited to celebrities either; it can apply to everyone in all walks of life. If you’re in an influential position, compliment the people around you. Give them a smile and a pat on the back if they’ve done a good job, and let them know you appreciate them. This extends even more to your children—give them a hug and tell them you love them as much as you can on a daily basis. Praise them when they do good in school and don’t blow up when they make a mistake. Having a positive attitude solves problems and helps make difficult situations better.

  Another seemingly small detail that makes a huge difference is to make an effort to remember people’s NAMES. Full disclosure: I’m terrible at this and there are people I’ve worked with in the WWE for years whose names I’m still not completely sure of. It’s an awful thing to say, but don’t think I’m a total muttonhead, because I was never formally introduced to some of them in the first place. Whenever you go into a new environment and meet dozens of people in the first few days, it’s hard to catch everybody’s name, right? I think Elaine Benes’s idea that everyone should wear name tags is actually pretty smart, as calling someone “dude” or “man” for years because you don’t know their actual moniker is pretty embarrassing.

  The most embarrassing thing of all, however, is calling someone by the wrong name, especially if they don’t correct you. I once did a whole interview with Zach Myers from Shinedown thinking that his last name was Evans. I was making Evansville, Indiana, and “Good Times” jokes for an hour, until I realized my mistake.

  “Why didn’t you tell me I was messing up your name, dude?”

  “Because I didn’t want to make you feel bad!”

  I know the feeling, as I once spent the summer of ’86 working as a department store stockboy covering up my name tag because the old lady in housewares thought my name was Dave.

  “How are you, Dave? Do you know that my grandson’s name is Dave? It’s such a nice name!”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Bobski . . .”

  I was too ashamed to correct her, so I just went with it for three months.

  Something as simple as calling people by their names goes a long way, even if you’re the drummer for the biggest heavy metal band in the world.

  In February of 2013, Fozzy were fortunate enough to be invited on the Soundwave tour in Australia, headlined by the mighty Metallica. Soundwave was a traveling festival with some forty-odd bands playing five stadium shows across the country over the course of ten days. It was a lot of fun because it was like summer camp: you saw the same people for a week and a half straight, all of us traveling together and staying at the same hotels. By the end of the run everyone had pretty much gotten to know each other, but when we first arrived nobody really knew who was who for the most part, until Metallica had their pre– opening night barbeque bash in Brisbane.

  You see, a few days before the tour started, each band’s tour manager received an email invite to the soiree, welcoming every musician on the tour to hang out with Metallica and party on their dime.

  “As if James Hetfield is going to be hanging around talking to everybody,” Fozzy drummer Frank Fontsere mocked as the bus pulled up to the stadium concourse where the bash was taking place. Five seconds later, he stopped in his tracks when Papa Het himself greeted him as we got off the bus. James wasn’t the only Metallicat in attendance either, as Lars, Rob, and Kirk (who mentioned to me later that ’Tallica band attendance was mandatory) were also milling around, pressing the flesh, and introducing themselves to various band members, some of whom were in such a state of starstruck stupor they could hardly string six words together. You have to remember that a lot of these guys were meeting their heroes for the first time, so to be touring with Metallica AND hanging around with them was leaving them helpless . . . in the best possible way.

  The spread was impressive, but James and I only picked through the food, trying gamely to stick to the caveman diet he had turned me on to a few years prior. We had a conversation about ’80s doom metal pioneers Trouble who had no real image, and compared that to the image of the modern-day rock star. It seemed that every musician at the party under the age of thirty sported neck tattoos, cut-off skinny jeans, an aviator haircut with a handlebar moustache, and a tank top with the sides cut low to seemingly accentuate their developing man boobs.

  “Man, these guys look like posers,” James sneered. “If I was starting a band today most of these guys wouldn’t even get in the door.”

  We continued mocking the youth of the day like a pair of heavy metal Statler and Waldorfs until it was time for James to go mingle elsewhere. I wandered over to Lars, who was holding court with a bunch of kids so green they looked like Keebler elves.

  The rookies stood transfixed, mumbling stilted answers to Lars’s questions, but even though they were nervous beyond words, he handled it like a pro and was able to maintain a decent conversation. Lars looked them in the eye as they spoke and showed bona fide interest in what they were saying, which is one of his most endearing qualities. After listening to him talk for a few minutes, I noticed he knew some of the guys’ names and later asked him why, since it was obvious he’d never met them or heard of their bands before.

  “When we decided to have this party, I had my assistant put together a book with pictures of all the bands on the tour and their names written underneath,” he explained. “I looked through it for days hoping to remember some
of the names, or at least be able to put a face to a band.”

  I thought that was pretty fucking cool that Lars would put in that type of effort, because he sure didn’t have to. He was focused on giving some people their moments and that showed what a classy guy he was. As a matter of fact, the entire Metallica organization was pretty classy, and I learned a lot about how to treat and respect our support bands. Inspired by the effort Lars showed with his book, I now try to extend the same effort when getting to know the other bands on tour with Fozzy. I always try to have a chat with the members, give them our leftover beer or dressing room catering, and make it a point to watch their sets as much as I can during a tour. A little genuine attention goes a long way.

  I also decided to employ more of a Lars-style effort when it came to the extras backstage at WWE events as well. At every television taping, there are usually a half dozen or so local wrestlers who turn up with the hopes of having a tryout and getting booked on the show. You can spot them a mile away, standing nervously against the wall, dressed in suits and trying not to bother anybody, hoping against hope that Vince McMahon himself will walk by and go, “Wow, you’re exactly what I’ve been looking for! I’m making you world champion tomorrow!”

  While that has yet to happen, once in a while an extra will be selected for an on-air role, usually as a security guard or backstage random. And on rare occasions a local will end up with a match on Raw . . . and that’s how I became a fan of one James Ellsworth.

  I first saw James wandering around backstage confusedly at the Raw tapings in Pittsburgh in July of 2016. With all due respect, at first glance wrestling seemed like an odd choice for him, as let’s just say he didn’t exactly have the classic wrestler look.

  He was about five foot six with a body that resembled a pale Gumby, with no real muscle tone to speak of. His dyed canaryblond hair was slicked back against his scalp like a villain from a 1930s caper movie, with a large, smudged Offspring monster logo tattooed on his shoulder.

  But his most (or least) distinguishing feature was his apparent lack of chin.

  Now when I say “lack of chin” I’m not saying it was small or covered by facial hair. I’m saying he literally had no chin . . . like it had been blown off in the war. That particular peculiarity earned him the creative nickname “No Chin” among the boys in the locker room.

  Now, as much as his physical features would in theory seem to work against No Chin in the WWE big picture, on that night they worked totally in his favor. It was the first Raw after the 2016 brand extension, and in an effort to change the look of the show from previous Monday nights, Vince decided to bring squash matches back.

  A squash match meant that a local guy would be pitted against an established superstar, get zero offense in, and lose in a minute or two. These type of matches were a staple of WWE programming in the ’80s, but had disappeared over the last twenty years, even though they were a good way to get fans familiar with new characters, their gimmicks, and their finishing moves. With that in mind, it made sense to bring them back, and the first squash match in the WWE in years pitted No Chin Ellsworth against the gargantuan six foot ten, 375-pound Braun Strowman.

  After seeing Ellsworth backstage during the day, I thought his size and strange look would make him the perfect man for the job (pun intended), as his lack of stature and build made Strowman look even more impressive than he already was. Since I’d never seen James before, I figured he was just some green dude who’d been training for a few weeks and would be out of the business in a few months. But boy was I wrong . . . it turns out there was a lot I didn’t know about James Ellsworth.

  For example, I didn’t know that Vince had decided to give him a pre-match interview and once I heard it, the chinless, childsized Pidgeotto became my new favorite wrestler.

  In a shaky, terrified voice Ellsworth talked about having hope that he could pull off the upset on Strowman. because “any man with two hands has a fighting chance.” (Was he saying if you only have one hand you’re doomed? Tell that to Luke Skywalker, No Chin!). I was surprised that this jobber had gotten some mic time, and even more astonished when he nailed his promo. He took his time with a good delivery and really got across the sense that he was scared shitless. At that point, I realized he wasn’t as green as I’d thought—he knew what he was doing.

  He also did a great job of getting jobbed, as Braun brutally destroyed him and finished him off with a vicious reverse chokeslam. It was comical how easily Strowman jerked him up into the air, giving the crowd a bird’s-eye view of the Ellster’s “Oh shit” face and one-armed gingerbread man pose. The whole segment was a gas to watch and apparently Vince felt the same way, as he found James after and personally congratulated him for a job well done.

  I gained a ton of respect for James after watching his performance, and had to smile when I thought about the day he was having. He shows up at the arena and against all odds randomly gets booked to have a match on Raw (something that thousands of pro wrestlers dream about daily), gets promo time and totally kills it, then does such a good job in his match that the architect of the modern-day pro wrestling business gives him the thumbs-up. Not a bad twenty-four hours for a journeyman performer, I’d say!

  When the bout ended, I did a little research and found out that James wasn’t a clued-out rookie like I’d first thought. He’d actually been working in the business for years as Jimmy Dream, and even owned his own promotion in Maryland. But after years of probably being laughed out of the building when he told people he was a wrestler, he finally got some WWE vindication and a new cult following along with it. I was definitely on Team Ellsworth, as I pitched to Vince to bring him back (he brought him back a half dozen times and eventually signed him to a multiyear contract!) and invited him to guest on Talk Is Jericho.

  After the show, I asked one of the referees to find James’s number and gave him a call. When he answered, I complimented him on his work and congratulated him on his success that night.

  I could tell he was a little awestruck to hear from me, but I was happy for him and wanted to give him one last moment to add to his already amazing day.

  I wanted to give him The Gift of Jericho. Drink it in, Jaaaaaames!

  CHAPTER 18

  THE

  GENE

  SIMMONS

  PRINCIPLE

  ALWAYS LOOK LIKE A STAR

  (OR SPEND MONEY

  TO MAKE MONEY)

  They come runnin’ just as fast as they can,

  cause every girl crazy ’bout a sharp dressed man . . .

  —ZZ TOP, “SHARP DRESSED MAN”

  (Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill, Frank Beard)

  There’s a scene in the riveting Quiet Riot documentary Now You’re Here, There’s No Way Back, where bass player Chuck Wright, wearing a studded-leather jacket, multiple chain bracelets, and a fashionable fedora, is browsing through a rack of shirts in a rock ’n’ roll clothing store and proclaims, “Gene Simmons once told me that you should look like a star whenever you leave the house.” Makes sense, as I can’t envision seeing the Demon walking down the street in gym shorts and flip-flops, can you?

  I remembered reading that same Gene quote in Circus magazine when I was a teenager (I had a subscription and never missed an issue), and his words made intuitive sense to me. No matter where you are, there’s a certain allure to seeing someone walk by who is dressed to kill (and I ain’t talkin’ about Gene Simmons . . . no wait, yes I am); it gives them a special mystique and makes you think, Who is that?

  Gene has that mystique in spades and every time I see him in person or on TV, his suits, sunglasses, leather jackets, and spider bracelets (like the one he wore in the Shandi video) make him look like a rock god of thunder.

  I agreed with Gene’s point and bought into his mindset right from the start of my wrestling career. While most of the other guys wrestling around Calgary in the early ’90s were wearing biker shorts and cheap volleyball pads, I scoured the city looking for the best seamstresses to c
ustom make flashy, tassel-festooned (great word) tights, and ordered Trace knee pads (that I still wear) direct from the factory. It took a lot of effort and money that I didn’t have, but I always had Gene’s attitude that if you wanna be treated like a star, you have to look like one.

  I was spending far more money than I was making on that gear, but I always had the best ring costumes on the Alberta independent scene and almost became known for that. I had the same attitude outside the ring, as even though I was twenty years old and mostly broke, I still made it a point to wear cowboy boots with spurs, black bolero hats, dark purple dress shirts with the sleeves rolled up, and a dozen multicolored friendship bracelets every time I went out. The fact that I looked like a total dork to some was completely beside the point: the goal was to stand out from the crowd, and my early ’90s rocker look achieved that.

  As my career continued, I abided by the “look like a star” rule even more. The most famous example of me going the extra mile to stand out was the debut of my lighted jacket back in 2012, and suffice it to say, the ten thousand dollars (the fifteen thousand dollars I claimed it cost on Raw was a slight exaggeration) I spent to have it made has been earned back (avenged) sevenfold over the past five years. It helped me reinvent my character and propel my legacy in the WWE to new heights.

  But that’s not the only example. When I was “hypocrite” Jericho in 2008, I spent thousands of dollars on Hugo Boss suits, and even though it was a pain in the assski carting them around the world, those suits were a major part of the gimmick’s makeup and helped differentiate me from the rest of the pack. I’ve reinvented my character many times since then, and now I spend good chunks of change on John Varvatos vests and scarves. Those bad boys ain’t exactly cheap, but those damn scarves have now become my trademark, so I don’t mind spending the cash on them.