Undisputed: How to Become World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps

by Chris Jericho

  After a few weeks in the company, I was in a difficult spot. On one hand, insulting everybody else was a great way to come in and make a name for myself, sharing screen time with the company’s biggest stars and showcasing my promo skills. On the other hand, the more I verbally buried the big names, the more trouble I amassed for myself. To them I’m sure I was this little peon who’d been feuding in WCW with Prince Iaukea and was now getting this big push without the know-how to back it up.

  When I first signed with the WWE, I asked Vince, “What do you want me to do?” He said, “Don’t worry, I’m going to be watching you like a hawk. I’ll tell you what I want you to do and what I don’t want you to do. If I don’t like something, I’ll let you know. You are going to be one of my pet projects.”

  He had spent a lot of money to get me; a guaranteed contract of $450,000 was a very big deal at the time. He had heard great things about me, and seen a couple sparks that convinced him I might be the real deal; but he wasn’t exactly on the Jericho Ho Train yet. I didn’t suspect that something might be wrong, because if there was I figured Vince would tell me.

  But he didn’t and there was.

  My second night in the company was at a Raw taping in Milwaukee. The plan was for me to interrupt The Undertaker, the most respected wrestler in the locker room and one of the biggest stars in the company. He was calling himself the Personification of Evil at the time, so I began my promo by calling him the personification of boring and proceeded to tell the crowd how bland and mediocre he was.

  Maybe this wouldn’t have been such a problem if Taker hadn’t just cut a fifteen-minute promo about how he and Big Show were riding their motorcycles in the desert and they ran out of gas and Big Show picked up a scorpion and ate it or something … a promo that really was incredibly boring.

  He knew it was boring, the crowd knew it was boring, Vince knew it was boring, Funaki knew it was boring. So when I came out and called him on it, I made things even worse because I was kicking him when he was down.

  Taker responded to my claims by saying that he had more shower time than I had ring time. At first I thought he was bragging about his personal hygiene (maybe he was a clean and freshly scrubbed Deadman), until I figured out that he was really saying I was wet behind the ears and should know my role and shut the fuck up. Backstage afterwards, I walked past Shawn Michaels, who glared at me incredulously and offered the following advice: “The next time you cut a promo, maybe you want to avoid calling the biggest star in the company and the leader of the locker room boring.” It was a friendly warning from HBK to watch my mouth.

  I’d told Taker before the promo that I was gonna stick it to him and he’d told me to go for it. However, I crossed the line and insulted him by saying what I said. I can’t believe the lack of respect I showed him and so many of the other guys in the locker room during my first month in the company, especially since I knew how important the hierarchy of the business was (and still is). Respect your elders. That aphorism had been drummed into my head my entire career, but I was so caught up in trying to be revolutionary and controversial that I forgot. And my absentmindedness cost me.

  In just two short days I had more heat than Al Pacino and Robert De Niro combined. I was playing a character and didn’t really believe the shit I was saying, but everyone thought I did and assumed I was an arrogant prick who thought his shit didn’t stink (believe me, it does).

  The original plan for my appearance in Milwaukee was for me to cut a promo on Steve Austin where I was going to talk about how he was a drunk who shaved his head bald in order to hide his receding hairline. In retrospect I’m glad that it changed, because Steve is a lot less diplomatic than Taker and I’m sure he would’ve opened a can of political and verbal whoop-ass on me. But things were bad enough as it was and my Walls were cracking.

  I just had no idea how quickly they were about to come tumblin’ rumblin’ down. The fact that Vince didn’t give me any insight or guidance to what was expected from me or my promos is still confusing, especially since he was so hands-on regarding every other aspect of my career right down to the name of my finish.

  I’d started to use the Boston Crab in WCW and dubbed it the Liontamer. But Vince didn’t like the name because he thought it was too close to Ken Shamrock’s Lion’s Den training facility. “I’ve got too many lions running around here,” he said.

  So the edict went out to creative to come up with a new name for the move. You could hire one hundred monkeys and have them type for one hundred years and they wouldn’t have come up with the shit I was presented.

  I was handed a list of some of the worst names for a finish ever: the Salad Shooter (a takeoff on the Sharpshooter, named after an infomercial product), the Rock and Roll Finisher (because I was a rock and roller and this was my finisher … get it?), and the Stretch Armstrong. You read that right—the Stretch Fucking Armstrong (you want to take a crack explaining that one? Cos I got nothin’ … ). Someone was actually getting paid to think of this stuff. Then again, these were the same brainchildren who suggested changing Billy Gunn’s name to Billy Bitchcakes.

  After eating the list, pooping it out, eating it again, and vomiting it back up, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I thought about calling my hold the Vertebreaker ( pre– Shane Helms), but Vince didn’t like that. I asked HHH for suggestions and he came up with the STD—the Standing Torture Device. I have no idea if he was ribbing me or not, but while it wouldn’t have been a bad idea if I were Val Venis rocking the pornstar gimmick, it didn’t seem quite right for me. So I went back to the German power metal well and took another idea from Helloween, whose first album was called Walls of Jericho. I suggested that to Vince and he liked it, even though it didn’t really make sense. But it was better than Billy Bitchcakes.

  CHAPTER 2

  Prematurely Ejaculating Nightsticks

  Due to a strange twist of happenstance, my debut match for the WWE happened to be in my hometown of Winnipeg.

  During the first month of my arrival I didn’t have any matches; I only cut promos on the fans, telling them how great I was and building up anticipation for my eventual first match. The original plan for the Peg was for me to cut a babyface promo professing my love for the prairies and how I still considered Winnipeg home. Then after I sucked them in I was going to turn the tide by saying how happy I was to have moved away from this freezing cesspool because I was embarrassed to have grown up there—a typical heel 101 promo.

  But on the day of the show there was a bomb threat at Miami International Airport that prevented The Rock (and even worse, D-Lo Brown!) from flying into Winnipeg. Tears were shed over the absence of Brown, but since The Rock was in the main event of the show against The Big Bossman in a Nightstick on a Pole match, his nonattendance was much more dire. Fearing a riot by the packed house of crazy Canadians, the office went into a panic. Who could replace The Rock? Who could fill the massive boots of The Brahma Bull? Who could save the day and electrify the fans like The Great One? Chris Effin’ Jericho, that’s who!!

  So I was tapped to be The Rock’s replacement, but unfortunately I had ignored the number one rule of wrestling—always bring your gear. So I sped thirty minutes back to my mom’s house to get my tights and got back to the arena just in time to hear the announcement that The Rock was not going to be there but Chris Jericho would be wrestling instead.

  Eight thousand fans farted in unison.

  Actually they began cheering and throwing their panties in the air, even the dudes. They were going to get to see their hometown hero make his WWE wrestling debut in front of their very eyes!

  I was pretty excited myself, as it was the first time I had wrestled in the arena where I had first seen my heroes Hulk Hogan, the High Flyers, Shawn Michaels, Ricky Steamboat, and Randy Savage in action. It was within these hallowed walls that I discovered my love for the business, and it was within this old barn I would have my debut match in the WWE.

  The idea of a Nightstick on a Pole match
was that you had to climb a pole sticking up out of the turnbuckle and grab the nightstick, which you could then use to brutalize your opponent in any way you saw fit. The nightstick was several feet above the turnbuckle, so you had to climb to the top rope, shimmy up the pole, and get the weapon. This allowed for plenty of drama as the two foes attempted to climb only to be knocked down just before they could grab the stick. It was a fun and easy match—under normal circumstances.

  Hearing the crowd’s reaction when my name was announced gave me a chubski. When I walked through the curtain, the roar I received was so loud it made the response I got in Chicago seem like the reaction for a Bullet Boys reunion. Peggers were jumping up and down, holding jericho signs in one hand, draft beers in the other, and giving each other high fives with both. In retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t go through with the heel promo. Sometimes you have to give the people what they want.

  I got in the ring and surveyed the crowd—my crowd—and got ready to give them exactly what they wanted: a great performance from their new hero. I had gone from sitting in that same crowd fantasizing about being in the ring, to actually being there.

  My dream had come true! The circle of life had closed! I had returned to Winnipeg to entertain the fans the same way I had once been entertained, and I was going to reward them by having the greatest five-star match of all time in honor of my fans, my friends, my family, my …

  “Knock knock.”

  “Who’s there?”

  “It’s the Jericho Curse and I’m back, bitch!”

  Ahhhh yes, my old nemesis was back in the hood and he was pissed. It had been a while and he was ready for more revenge than Bruce Kulick.

  I’ll never forget the roar of the crowd when the bell rang to start the match. I’ll also never forget the feeling I had when I gave Bossman a shoulder tackle and the nightstick hit the mat two seconds after he did.

  At first I thought someone in the crowd had thrown their own nightstick into the ring, but when I glanced up at the pole I realized that it was our nightstick that was lying there. Someone had forgotten to properly tie it to the pole, which allowed it to fall off its perch as soon as Bossman shook the ring with his first bump. The weapon was a mere eight inches from where I was standing, and instead of an exciting match full of drama and suspense, we now had a game of pickup stick.

  We spent the remainder of the match trying to grab the baton rolling around in the middle of the ring. We scrambled for it like a fumble and it kept slipping through our hands, as if it were a greased Steely Dan. The match absolutely sucked and the Jericho Curse—ensuring that my first match in any new company was terrible—had struck again.

  Oh how I hated that inglorious bastard.

  No one else really cared that the bout was bad, especially not The Bossman. He was laughing the whole time and for him it was just another match that would be forgotten the next day. But for me it was my first match in the WWE, and instead of it ending up outstanding, it ended up in the outhouse.

  But there were some positives to focus on. After I won the match for the fine people of Winnipeg, I told the fans to meet me at Wise Guys, a local night club. The bar owner was so excited by my free advertisement that he gave me free lifetime drinks— the fact that it closed down about a year later is irrelevant. It was a true homecoming, as all of my friends were there congratulating me and telling me how proud of me they were. They thought the match had been great and didn’t care about little details like prematurely ejaculating nightsticks. The place was packed, and as I looked around I saw a lot of the same friends who had been to see me at Georgie’s eight years earlier working in front of eighty people. It was nice to know they’d stuck with me long enough to see me working in front of eight thousand people at the Arena.

  When I first started wrestling, there were four places I dreamed about working: the Winnipeg Arena, Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Arena Mexico in Mexico City, and Madison Square Garden in New York City. Within two months of joining the WWE, I finished achieving that dream when weeks after the disaster in the Peg I made my debut at the Garden. MSG is the world’s most famous arena and the place where my father, Ted Irvine, a.k.a. the Baby-Faced Assassin, enjoyed his glory years in the NHL playing for the New York Rangers. I still remember sitting in the stands at the Garden as a four-year-old kid, complaining about the noise and getting mad at my dad because he never looked at me while he was playing. I thought the least he could do when he was skating down the ice on a breakaway was smile and wave.

  MSG is a barometer for stardom within the business, and as the old saying goes, “If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.” If the fans responded to a performer in MSG, it went a long way with the McMahon family in determining who would get pushed as a star. Vince’s father believed that and so did he. The shows at the Garden are still so important that Vince attends almost every one whether they are televised or not.

  Once again I was scheduled to cut a promo about how I was going to save the WWE from its mediocre self. Vince wanted my opening line to be: “Welcome to Madison Square Jericho,” after which I would insult the fans of New York City and tell them how much better I was than them.

  The reaction I received as I walked to the ring was the ying to the Winnipeg yang. People were booing and calling me names— Y2Gay was a favorite—and I was drawing some good heel heat. I marched to the center of the ring and surveyed the crowd with an arrogant glare.

  “Welcome to Madison Square Jericho!” I proclaimed pompously into the mic as the crowd jeered.

  “I am the savior of the W—E!” Huh? Halfway through my tagline, the mic cut out momentarily, muting the second W.

  Undeterred, I continued with my scathing promo, preparing to infuriate the NYC faithful.

  “My g—tss knows n—b—dries! I—” Now the mic was stuttering worse than ECW-era Bubba Ray Dudley, rendering my scathing promo useless.

  “I’m gonna do—what—Mad—n—cho!”

  Apparently, the Jericho Curse had diverted from its usual habits and had decided to take charge of the MSG soundboard that night. Due to the technical difficulties, my reaction went from boos to catcalls to silence to laughter. I felt like a complete fool and threw the mic down in frustration, which only served to intensify the guffaws of the New York brethren. To make matters worse, Vince was watching the whole debacle from the wings, shaking his head in disbelief.

  My night didn’t get any better either. Later on, I was supposed to run in during a Steve Blackman– Ken Shamrock match, distract Shamrock, and have him chase me out of the building. Shamrock was an MMA fighter turned wrestler who wasn’t quite in on our joke. In his mind, if he was supposed to chase me, he was going to chase me at full speed—and he did. I ran down the aisle and when he spotted me he charged as fast as he could. I knew if he caught me he would hurt me, so I took off down the aisle like Ben Johnson post water bottle swig.

  When we raced through the curtain out of the audience’s view, I slowed down but he didn’t, and he tackled me as hard as he could in the hallway.

  “Ken, did you really need to tackle me? Nobody can even see you!”

  “I knew I could catch you,” he replied laconically.

  I have a feeling he would’ve chased me all the way to Yonkers until he did.

  Next up was SummerSlam, and my assignment was to cut yet another promo, this time on D-Generation X member Road Dogg. Dogg hit the ring to massive cheers and did his patented introduction for himself: “I’m the R-to-the-O-to-the-A-to-the-D-to-the D-to-the-O-to-the Double-G.”

  I interrupted him with my patented countdown clock (which had gone from ten seconds, to five seconds, to a much more efficient three seconds) and told him, “You think you’re impressing everyone by spelling ‘Road Dogg’? Big deal. If you want to impress me, spell ‘lugubrious.’ ” The camera showed a close-up of his face as he mouthed, “I don’t even know what that means.”

  It was one of the few good segments in my early WWE career. I was in the groove that night and R
oad Dogg totally sold my verbal barbs. But even at that, it was one of the biggest shows of the year and I was still only doing a promo. I was the one feeling lugubrious.

  My first televised WWE match was on the very first episode of Smackdown! against Road Dogg. Backstage, I saw the sheet listing the matches for the night, but it looked different than what I was used to in WCW. Beside the listing of Chris Jericho vs. Road Dogg were a pair of initials. I asked what they meant and was told they were the initials of the agent who would assist us in putting together our match.

  Someone to help us with our match? That was new to me.

  In WCW, there were no agents. We would walk into an office in the arena that was deemed the War Room and the booker, Kevin Sullivan, would tell us who was winning, how much time we had, and that was about it. We would be expected to do the rest ourselves, with no direction from the office at all. But here in the WWE veteran former wrestlers were hired solely to work with the younger talent and help us put together the best possible match we could, using guidelines set by Vince himself.

  Everybody was working together to produce the best match—what a concept.

  Unfortunately, even though my agent, Blackjack Lanza, did the best he could to help us, my match with Road Dogg was mediocre at best, and afterwards Russo had a new plan for me. He decided that I needed a bodyguard, someone who could do my dirty work. What I didn’t know when I agreed to the plan was that the guy they wanted to put me with was Mr. Hughes. Curtis Hughes was a former football player who used to weigh 400 pounds, but by the time they put him with me he was down to about 250. I started calling him “Curtis Huge,” but Vince didn’t like the moniker because he’d lost a ton of weight and wasn’t so huge anymore. As a matter of fact, he was pretty much the same size as me. But Russo thought Hughes looked great and was hell-bent on putting the two of us together.

  I didn’t care for him from the start. He loved to talk shit about how good he was. He constantly bragged about how his sunglasses never came off during his matches … like that was somehow the secret to becoming the next Lou Thesz. Combine that with the fact that Hughes was also narcoleptic—he could fall asleep at any time and once did in the ring mid-backdrop—and you can see I had a real dandy of a bodyguard.