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

by Chris Jericho

  He also told me not to get discouraged. “Your time is coming, Chris.”

  It was a vague statement, but much better than hearing that I wasn’t worth the paper my contract was printed on. With his words fresh on my mind, I went to the ring and had what was, in my opinion, one of the best matches Viscera ever had. It wasn’t easy, but I worked my ass off to put him over and he did the same for me. I was even able to get him into the Walls of Jericho.

  But I was still irritated about being so low on the totem pole, and I decided I was going to talk to Vince again the next week at Raw in State College, Pennsylvania.

  I couldn’t find him all day and had worked myself up into a frenzy by the time I finally ran into Brian Gewirtz.

  “Listen, Brian, I’m going to barge into Vince’s office and demand that he does something with me right fucking now. I’ve had enough!”

  Brian listened bemusedly and said, “Okay, but before you go in there, let me tell you what we have planned for tonight.”

  “Whatever, Brian, but don’t try and talk me out of it. So what am I doing?”

  “You’re going to win the heavyweight title from HHH.”

  My anger blew away like a Buddy Rose diet (obscure, I know) and suddenly I had a lot more interest in talking to Brian.

  He explained the story of the night, a story that had been building for months.

  Hunter and Stephanie were together onscreen at that point, and a few months earlier I had done a backstage pretape where I mistook Stephanie for one of the Godfather’s hos. It was supposed to be just a one-time thing, but the crowd enjoyed it so much that it became a recurring bit and started a feud between us. I started abusing her verbally on a weekly basis, ending each tirade by calling her a “filthy, dirty, disgusting, brutal, bottom-feeding, trash-bag ho.” The fans chanted along with me and it became one of my most popular catchphrases. You gotta love the Attitude Era.

  In a lot of ways, my grudge with Steph was the first thing I did that took me to the next level in the eyes of the fans and the company. But it helped her character too, as we had great chemistry as adversaries and played off each other magnificently.

  Raw began with me insulting Stephanie, which goaded her into having HHH defend his title against me against his will. The plot thickened when I revealed that I’d hired the APA to be my bodyguards for the night. They chased away Hunter’s cronie Shane McMahon, which left me to face the champ mano a mano.

  It was my first match against Hunter, and we had gone over things in great detail, since neither one of us quite trusted the other yet and we wanted it to be special. Standing in the Gorilla position as the show began, Hunter told me sternly to take my time and that this was my chance to shine. At that moment all of the animosity that had built up between us over the past nine months disappeared.

  It was time to make the doughnuts, and that night we were better than Krispy Kreme.

  The match was hard-hitting and went like clockwork. Crisp and in the pocket, it showcased each of us to the best of our abilities. What made the night even more memorable was the raucous crowd. Since my arrival they had seen me lose to women, freaks, geeks, brains, dorks, dweebs, nerds, and Trekkies; now they were ready to see CJ get his due.

  HHH had done a spot with referee Earl Hebner a week earlier where he had physically threatened him and Earl said to never put his hands on him again. During the match, Hunter bumped into Earl, and Earl pushed him back. This distracted Hunter long enough for me to nail him with a spin kick, followed by the Lionsault. The crowd worked itself into a frenzy as Hebner delivered what was supposed to be a fast count (it really wasn’t), and suddenly for the first time ever, Y2J was the World Champion!

  The crowd exploded like Belloq’s head.

  People were giving high fives and jumping up and down as I grabbed the title and held it over my head in jubilation. It was definitely one of the best moments of my career, made even more special by the first-time-ever standing ovation I received from Vince when I walked through the curtain.

  HHH and I deserved every clap in Vince’s ovation, as Hunter had made me look like a billion dollars and I had finally lived up to the potential Vince had expected when he signed me.

  Most important, I had finally killed the Jericho Curse for good—even though the son of a bitch had more lives than Michael Myers and it took me nine months to do it.

  But my victory was only the beginning of the night’s story, which continued with me being forced to forfeit the title due to HHH threatening Hebner over the supposed fast count. I felt a little strange doing that, but when I asked Vince about it he said, “You’re eventually going to get it back anyway so don’t worry about it. That’s just the story for tonight.”

  Stop. Hold on. Stay in control.

  Did he just say that I was going to get the title back?

  It was the first time I’d heard anything like that from the boss. It was a pretty big statement from Vince and I took it at face value. If he said I would get another chance, then I wasn’t going to question giving the title up. But I was still the champion for the next three minutes of commercial break and I was going to enjoy it. I put the title around my waist and looked at myself in the makeup girl’s full-length mirror. I allowed myself a mark-out moment as visions of Hogan, Savage, Hart, and Michaels danced around in my head.

  I was the World Frickin’ Champion!

  If aliens from Grimlak attacked Earth right at that moment and blew it up with a gigantic nuclear cannon, I would be the final WWE Champion. That was good enough for me.

  It didn’t matter that I had to relinquish the title. What did matter was that I proved I could hang at the top and that the fans were with me when I did it. When I got back to the dressing room I had twelve messages on my cell phone from people telling me how happy they were that I’d won the title. Twenty minutes later, there were twelve more messages on my cell phone telling me how stupid I was to give it back. Fuckin’ fascists …

  The next night we were in Philadelphia for Smackdown! —the first time I’d been back since my ECW days. For the second night in a row I was in the main event, this time against The Rock in a Lumberjack match that I won due to HHH’s interference. But even though I beat The Rock, Hunter’s music began playing. As far as I’d gotten, I still had a long way to go. But still, for those keeping score (and I am), I had beaten Hunter for the title on Monday and then pinned The Rock in the Lumberjack match on Tuesday. It was a hell of a lot better than losing to Bull Buchanan and Stevie Richards.

  Once again it was my night, and after the show ended I stayed in the ring to address the great crowd. It was customary in the Attitude Era for the babyface to give the fans something extra at the end of the night: Austin drank beer, Rocky did improv comedy, Funaki did a jeet kune do demonstration. The crowd seemed like they wanted more, and since I was the last man standing for the evening, I decided to give them a little more Jericho. These were my people and this was my night, dammit!

  I picked up the microphone and said in my best Paul Stanley voice, “Did everybody have a good time tonight?”

  Twenty thousand Philadelphians roared their approval.

  “Well, I did too!”

  The crowd cheered wildly for my shameless pandering.

  “I’ve spent a lot of time here over the years, and I can honestly say that Philadelphia is one of the best fucking crowds in the world …”

  The crowd popped even bigger that time.

  “And I …”

  Wait a minute. What did I just say?

  I stopped midsentence as I flipped through my mental Rolodex and asked myself if I had just called Philadelphia one of the best “fucking” crowds in the world. There’s no way I let an F-bomb slip in the middle of a WWE ring, was there?

  I looked over at Jerry Lawler, and the look on his face told me all I needed to know.

  I had just told them they were a great fucking crowd—adults, kids, grandparents, all of them.

  To their credit, in another city the
crowd would have gasped, children would have run to the door, schoolmarms would have barfed. But this was Philly, baby!

  Swearing here just made me a bigger star.

  I walked through the curtain and saw Vince standing there with a big smile on his face, waiting to give me a handshake and congratulate me on my two-day WWE coming-out party.

  Even though he was smiling, he had to have heard the F-bomb I dropped on the crowd, right? I had to acknowledge it.

  “I’m sorry for what I said out there.”

  The smile wavered on his face and he said, “What do you mean?”

  “You didn’t hear me say that Philadelphia was the best fucking crowd in the world?”

  His smile turned to a look of apprehension. He put his hand down, shook his head, and mumbled that I should keep an eye on my language. Then he walked out of Gorilla, leaving me there with my mouth open and my hand still extended.

  Classic Jericho. Even in my finest hour I had still managed to put my foot directly into my mouth. But the taste of my own toe jam didn’t change the fact that I had just beaten The Rock and HHH in successive nights. I didn’t think I could outdo myself on that one—but I did.

  After my Raw mitzvah, Vince started relying on me more. I started working in the main events on house shows and getting more important matches on TV. This was never more evident than the night I worked three matches on Raw as the top babyface on the show.

  We had a PPV in England, and as was the way at the time, we flew out on a Friday night for the show on Saturday and took off directly afterwards, landing in the United States again on Sunday.

  But Rocky stayed in the UK to film his first feature film, The Scorpion King, and since Austin was out with an injury, I was the top babyface on Raw by proxy. Not that it was unwarranted. If you look at the merchandise from 2000 and 2001, the top sellers were Austin, Rock, and Jericho.

  This is a mockup for a Y2J soccer jersey. The name of the fictitious team was the Jericho Reign, but I liked the Bad Mama Jamas. I gave myself that moniker, not realizing that it’s slang for a hot chick.

  The show started with me coming out to insult Vince and Stephanie: “Vince, the fact that you have a big ego is simply a cover for the fact that you have a small penis.” After Vince told me to watch my language so as to preserve Stephanie’s honor, I retorted with, “The only thing Stephanie knows about honor is jump on her and stay on her !” (Thanks to Jani Lane for that one.)

  The McMahons were furious, and to exact revenge they booked me in a gauntlet of three matches. First I beat Big Show via count-out, then I beat Kurt Angle with the Walls of Jericho. The third match was against Benoit with HHH as the special referee. The match ended when HHH screwed me, allowing Benoit to win. But I had delivered three good performances and carried the show successfully on my massive back. Vince had given me the ball and I took off with it, runnin’ all the way back to Saskatoon.

  CHAPTER 9

  Moongoose and the Diceman

  With the advance Fozzy got from Megaforce, we booked a studio in Atlanta and started recording our first record. I had zero studio experience, and the first song we decided to do was “Riding on the Wind” by Judas Priest.

  Nothing like breaking your vocal recording cherry with a Rob Halford song.

  Before the very first take, I thought I was a pretty good singer. After listening to said take, I realized I was not. Singing in the studio was the equivalent of warbling in the shower and recording it in Dolby. You could hear every little pop, ping, and bad note emanating from my throat, warts and all. And my voice had more warts than Lemmy at that point.

  It took me a while to get into the groove of what I wanted to do and to figure out just how to do it. It’s not that I couldn’t sing, but I was unpolished and didn’t really know what I was doing. One look at Rich’s face as he sat behind the mixing board told me I wasn’t delivering the goods on “Riding on the Wind” the way we both hoped I would. But I improved as the sessions went on, and the last four or five songs we recorded, including Iron Maiden’s “The Prisoner,” Krokus’s “Eat the Rich,” and Motley Crue’s “Live Wire,” turned out really good. We brought in a local musician named Butch Walker to play guitar and sing on Ozzy’s “Over the Mountain.” A few years later Butch became one of the biggest producers in the country, boasting Avril Lavigne, Weezer, and Katy Perry on his résumé. We rounded out the album with two originals, “End of Days” and “Feel the Burn,” to give the fans an idea of how Fozzy sounded now that we had returned from our innocent exile. When the sessions were done, we ended up with a pretty good first effort that we simply entitled Fozzy.

  In the studio recording the first Fozzy album. I might look like I know what I’m doing, but I don’t.

  A graphic artist designed our logo and we took photos with a bigwig New York City photographer named Clay Patrick McBride for the cover. We had everything going for us—aside from the fact that we were wearing wigs and playing cover songs.

  (Embarrassed Author’s Note: We buried “Riding on the Wind” at the end of the record and I still hate listening to it to this day.)

  The WWE wanted to get behind us by signing us to their brandnew music division, Smackdown Records. But I didn’t want to place the band in the hands of the company. For better or for worse, I had a vision for what I wanted Fozzy to be and I wanted to build it on my own. But the WWE still supported Fozzy as much as they could and decided to do a feature on us for the Saturday morning Superstars show.

  The piece started with me as Chris Jericho acting like a crazed fanboy, gushing at how excited I was for my favorite band to return to the States. “I’m ecstatic that the best band ever has returned from Japan after all these years to finally reclaim their glory! I’m a huge Moongoose McQueen fan—my look, my act, it’s all taken from Moongoose.”

  Then I did another interview as Moongoose, who said he’d never heard of Jericho but thought he should be sued for ripping off his act.

  The way the piece was filmed and edited, it really looked like Moongoose and I were two separate people. After the piece aired, quite a few people were totally confused as to what the hell was going on. Brooklyn Brawler, who’d been working people for fifteen years as a wrestler, asked me, “Did you hear what that Moongoose guy said about you? What a jerk! But that band he plays in is pretty good. I can’t believe I’ve never heard of them before.”

  I gave him a bewildered look and said, “Come on, Steve! It’s me … I’m Moongoose McQueen!”

  He gave me a wan smile and said, “Oh. I thought Fozzy was real.”

  So did I. So much so that I refused to break character—ever. When I did interviews as Moongoose, I acted like I had no clue who Jericho was. I fell into the Clifton/Kaufman act and wouldn’t budge, no matter who tried to make me break character, even Vince McMahon himself.

  Fozzy was booked to be the musical guest on Sunday Night Heat, a pseudo variety show that aired on MTV on Thursdays—okay, just making sure you’re still paying attention.

  The idea was that Moongoose and the rest of Fozzy would arrive at the show, act like prima donna rock stars, and finally hit the stage to throw down with a live performance. All of the preparation and scripting was going great until an hour before showtime when the word came down from above that Vince decided he didn’t want Moongoose to be Moongoose. Instead, he wanted Moongoose to be Chris Jericho. He didn’t like that I was claiming that we were separate people.

  But he wanted me to drop the façade onstage and admit that I was really me. I was so committed in what we were doing that I was adamant to not give up the (moon) Goose. I called Vince and told him that I wanted to keep the two characters separate. It’s totally preposterous today to think that I was willing to debate my boss over Moongoose McQueen, but I was insistent.

  “Vince, Moongoose is just a character I’m playing.”

  “Why would I allow you to play a character on our show?”

  “Well, have you ever heard of Andy Kaufman’s Tony Clifton?”

>   “No, I haven’t, and I don’t care. Our fans aren’t stupid and they’ll resent you for trying to fool them with this.”

  Fooling wrestling fans by playing a character with a storyline and a performance?? Never!! Besides, I was a heel, so wasn’t it the idea to make people resent me?

  I offered a compromise to Vince: “Well, can I say onstage that Fozzy is Chris Jericho’s favorite band? Like in a nudge-nudge, wink-wink kind of way?”

  Vince agreed. “Okay, you can do it as long as you insinuate that it’s you.”

  That’s what I did and the joke worked.

  Unfortunately, the concept of Fozzy wasn’t working, and even though we were a pretty smokin’ rock and roll band, nobody was buying what we were selling.

  Nobody, that is, with the exception of our record company.

  Jonny Z and the rest of Megaforce were still treating us like we were Metallica circa 1984. We kept hearing how we were going to break out huge, and some of us started to believe it. After one particularly rousing Jonny Z pep talk, Frank was so excited because he was convinced that after all his years in the music business, he’d finally be headlining arenas with Fozzy. I, on the other hand, woulda been happy headlining a kid’s birthday party for a hot dog and a glass of orange juice.

  On October 22, 2000, the day the record was released, we went to New York City for a media day. We played a short set at the Virgin Megastore in Times Square to a big crowd and had a successful CD signing afterwards. Then we appeared on a number of radio shows, and everywhere we went I stayed in the Moongoose McQueen character no matter what.

  Since part of the backstory was that Fozzy was stuck in the ’80s, we dressed accordingly. Leopard-print vests, skintight pants, studded leather wristbands: we looked absolutely ridiculous, but we were committed to the act and had no problem keeping in character. I’d been in show business for ten years, and I knew what kind of dedication was required for success. It didn’t bother me at all to walk down the streets of New York City dressed like Vince Neil circa 1983.