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

by Chris Jericho

  He asked everybody within earshot if they had seen his missing lid.

  “My hat! Has anyone seen my hat?”

  But no one had. And no one has seen it since.

  Long after the video was completed, we got requests from Robert demanding that whoever stole his sou’wester to give it back. It became one of America’s great mysteries, on a par with the Kennedy assassination and the existence of Bigfoot. Now the truth can be revealed.

  Robert, I stole your hat and threw it the fuck away.

  And while I’m at it, the C.I.A. assassinated Kennedy. Can’t explain Bigfoot, though.

  When the “With the Fire” video was completed, we got the good news that MTV2 had decided to play it in semi-rotation. I was quite proud of the fact that for the first time ever, a WWE Superstar (as they like to call us) was in a band with a video being played on MTV. That’s why I was quite confused when the WWE didn’t really promote that monumental occasion. Sure they had done a piece on the making of “WTF” for WWE Confidential but concluded it by only airing two minutes of the video, and I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t show the whole thing. If “WTF” was good enough for MTV, why wasn’t it good enough for the WWE? WTF?

  But instead of being thankful for the airtime they’d given the band and keeping my mouth shut, I couldn’t leave well enough alone and called the producer of Confidential to see if they would air the whole video. A few days later, I was in Fort Lauderdale for a PPV and got summoned into Vince’s office.

  “Here’s the deal. You have this video you want to show. We aired a piece of it. What more do you want?”

  “Well, I think you should show the whole video the way it was shown on MTV. It’s the first time that someone from the WWE has had a video on the channel, and it seems like that would be a big deal.” I thought it was a totally valid point.

  Vince felt differently and quickly took the wind out of my sails.

  “Well, quite frankly, I heard the video sucks.”

  Well, that was blunt.

  “And why did you call the producer of Confidential and ask her to air it? We’d already decided not to. If you’re going to play that game you have to come to me first, not the people working for me. Listen, Chris, I’m not just trying to teach you wrestling lessons, I’m trying to teach you life lessons here. And going behind my back is not how you do things if you want to get something done.”

  I didn’t understand at the time why Vince was so interested in teaching me life lessons when all I was trying to do was get my video played. But now I think it’s because he saw a little bit of himself in me. Just like me, he was a rebel who listened to no one and did whatever it took to get the job done, pissing people off with his stubborness and drive in the process. Therefore he was trying to teach me how to better myself instead of repeatedly getting into trouble by rubbing people the wrong way.

  Maybe he was right?

  Even if he was, he was certainly wrong about one thing: the “With the Fire” video does not suck. If you don’t believe me, Vince, go watch it right now.

  I’ll wait.

  CHAPTER 13

  Love at Full Volume

  By December 1999, Jessica and I had been together for a year and a half. Things were going great in our relationship and I loved her very much, so I decided it was time to take the plunge and ask her to marry me.

  I thought it would be a froot idea to pop the question at the stroke of midnight on January 1, 2000, just as the new millennium began. At the time, the entire planet was nervous about the potential onslaught of the Y2K virus, which could apparently destroy life as we knew it. From what I’d heard there were plenty of similarities between getting married and the end of the world, so I figured my timing was apropos. I didn’t believe that Y2K was really going to be the end of the world, but I’d listened to enough Art Bell on late-night radio to be prepared in case something did happen.

  Jess and I strike our best thrash metal pose. Lars and James would be proud.

  I bought multiple boxes of Tang, bottled water, protein bars, protein drinks, and stashed $5,000 in cash at the bottom of a drawer just in case all of the world’s power went out and I was left in the dark like Snake Plissken at the end of Escape from L.A.

  I figured in the wake of the Y2K cataclysm, water and cash would be at a premium, and with my foresight and preparation I would rule the world … or at least my neighborhood. But in the end nothing happened and I was left with two dozen boxes of powdered orange crystals. Cocaine for Oompa-Loompas.

  When it came time to find the wedding ring, I had no idea where to start. I asked The Rock if he had any ideas, and he mentioned that he’d bought his wife’s ring in New York City from the father of one of the WWE office employees. So one night after a Garden show, I went to the jeweler’s house to find the perfect ring. I was traveling with Jeff Hardy that weekend, so the two of us perused the selections one by one. I narrowed it down to three final choices, all of them beautiful and unique. I wasn’t sure which one to pick so I asked Jeff which one I should choose and the Charismatic Enigma made the final decision on the ring that my wife is wearing right now. Shhhhh … don’t tell her.

  When I gave Jessica the ring and asked her to marry me at the stroke of midnight, she said yes, and the world didn’t end. As a matter of fact, my world was about to get a whole lot better.

  I had my bachelor party at Wise Guys, the bar I went to after my first match in Winnipeg. It didn’t take long for Drunkicho to surface, and he was a total barbarian. When he drank a shot, he celebrated by smashing the glass against the wall. When a fan was kind enough to order him and his friends a round of drinks, he repaid her by pouring them all over her head … and smashing the glasses against the wall. Not wanting to be left out, he poured the next round all over himself.

  All of this ridiculosity was left untouched by the bouncers and bartenders, maybe because the owners felt indebted to me due to my endorsement the year before? Either way they said nothing even when I decided to get behind the bar and pour drinks … and then smashed the bottles against the wall.

  Jessica and I decided to have our wedding in July, and while Winnipeg has ridiculously cold winters, it also boasts sweltering hot summers. So our guests were forced to sit outside pouring sweat in the scorching July sun as they waited for the ceremony to begin. However, there was one guest who could have cared less how hot it was and would’ve waited until she melted for the wedding to begin: my mom.

  She had been a quadriplegic for almost ten years, after being injured in a late-night fracas with her then boyfriend. Those of you who have read A Lion’s Tale know the story of the trials and tribulations my mom and I went through after her accident. She had adjusted to her injury quite well for a few years, until she fell out of her wheelchair in 1997 while riding down the sidewalk in front of her house. She’d been deteriorating mentally and physically ever since.

  Her health was one of the main reasons why Jess and I chose to get married that summer, as I wasn’t sure how much longer she would have the strength (or desire) to leave her house.

  It was the right decision, and on our wedding day all of her pain and hardship from the past decade seemed to drain away. She looked so beautiful and happy in her purple silk dress and it was such a blessing to have her there. It’s one of my favorite memories of her.

  We wanted to do something different for our wedding, so we ordered a flock of butterflies from Toronto that we planned to release during the ceremony. The idea was to store them in the fridge, which kept them cold and dormant until it was time for them to fly. When you took them out of the fridge a few hours before the wedding, they thawed out, and when released would flutter to the sky to the delight and amazement of your Auntie Joan and Uncle Larry.

  But when I took the butterfly envelopes out of the fridge, they were completely silent. I shook them and listened for a rustle, a scratch, a peep, a tremble, a flap (or whatever sound butterfly wings make), but there was nothing. A horrible thought crossed m
y mind: what if when the wedding guests opened the envelopes, the butterflies were all dead? Would they be my own personal “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”? Would I have to wear them around my neck like an albatross when I said my vows? In order to avoid certain tragedy, my cousin Chad wisely advised my groomsmen that if the butterflies were indeed dead inside of their packets to just toss them in the air anyway. Luckily, when it came time for the little guys to do their job, they awoke and fluttered straight up to the heavens, to the delight and amazement of my Auntie Joan and Uncle Larry.

  The wedding was a huge success and my queen was the most breathtakingly gorgeous woman in the world in her beautiful wedding gown(and she still is). I was in love at full volume and knew that she was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

  The flowers were beautiful, the band was incredible, the food was delicioso, and almost two hundred people celebrated with us that day. It was one of the best days of my life and was by far one of the most amazing parties I’ve ever been to. I highly recommend that everybody give this wedding thing a try at some point.

  I had invited all of my friends in the business, and most of them showed up, including Edge, Christian, Billy Kidman, Disco Inferno, and Cyrus. I invited Vince and he responded by saying, “Winnipeg. Why would I want to go to Winnipeg?” The ones who couldn’t make it, like Dean and Eddy, RSVPd to let me know beforehand.

  But one friend was quite conspicuous by his absence: Chris Benoit.

  Not only did he not RSVP, but he never mentioned anything about the wedding at all—beforehand or afterwards. It hurt my feelings, because even though he was one of my best friends, he didn’t have the courtesy to politely decline my invitation or even wish me luck. But it didn’t surprise me, as Chris could be quite elusive and hard to figure out at times.

  The day after the wedding, Jessica and I were on the cover of The Winnipeg Sun with the headline, “Manitoba’s Sexiest Man Gets Married!” I’d won that dubious honor a year earlier after topping a poll that saw Burton Cummings, the fifty-three-year-old singer of the Guess Who, finish in second place. Well, I should hope that I’m sexier than any middle-aged man with an afro and a mustache, no matter how good a singer he is.

  At the bottom corner of the front page there was a little blurb announcing that Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt had also tied the knot the previous day.

  It was nice to see that, at least in Winnipeg, my Q rating was bigger than Burton and Brad.

  CHAPTER 14

  Banned on Broadway

  Flashback Heart Attack to 1987

  When Iron Maiden came through Winnipeg on their Somewhere On Tour, I found out they were staying on the seventeenth floor of the Westin Hotel. So I snuck into a freight service elevator, like a pimply-faced Jack Bauer, and knocked on random doors until I was rewarded by guitarist Adrian Smith answering one of them. He had a towel wrapped around his head like a turban, with another one wrapped around his waist.

  I stood in shock, not believing that one of my rock and roll heroes was actually standing in front of me.

  “Uhhhhh, excuse me, Adrian, can I have your autograph, please?”

  “Not right now, mate, I just got out of the shower.”

  He closed the door and I did a primitive version of the Nitro Dance, until the hotel detective (who wasn’t outta sight) discovered me and gave me a personal escort out the front door.

  Hot Tub Time Machine Fast Forward to 2000

  Iron Maiden had just released Brave New World, their first album in ten years, with the returning Adrian Smith and singer Bruce Dickinson, who had left the band a decade earlier.

  My cousin Chad had the wise idea for the two of us, my other cousin Todd, and my friend Rybo, all of us huge Maiden fans, to take a road trip to see them on their Brave New World Tour in Milwaukee and Chicago. Maiden’s PR firm were big fans of the WWE, and with some finagling I was able to procure tickets and backstage passes. We watched the Chicago show from the crowd and briefly met the band backstage but were too intimidated to say much. I mean, this was Iron Fuckin’ Maiden, our childhood heroes!

  For the next show in Milwaukee we decided to take full advantage of the passes. We wandered backstage and were enjoying Maiden’s fine catering when their head of security recognized us from the night before. He brought us back into their inner sanctum and introduced us to Adrian’s wife, Nathalie.

  “You’re Chris Jericho? Wow, my son is a huge wrestling fan, and he would just die if he knew you were here. Would you mind giving him a call to say hi?”

  I’m choking Adrian for leaving Iron Maiden in 1989, allowing Virtual XI to happen.

  Are you kidding me???

  Thirteen years earlier I had interupted Adrian midshower by knocking on his hotel room door, and now his wife was asking me to call his son? Talk about things going full circle!

  Nathalie took me to the production office, dialed the phone, and handed it to me. A groggy child’s voice answered (it was pretty late in the UK), but I was eager to gain some serious metal points and I went into full babyface mode.

  “What’s going on, little buddy? It’s Chris Jericho here …”

  I talked to him for a few minutes, until Adrian himself wandered over to say hi and thanked me for talking to his son. He was so laid-back and friendly that we got along right away. It was surreal having a beer and discussing music, wrestling, and the finer points of Iron Maiden with one of my favorite guitar players of all time. He hooked us up to watch the show from the side of the stage and introduced us to the rest of the band, and I was reminded of the similarity between rock stars and wrestlers. We were both in the entertainment business and we made our living by being on the road. There was a mutual respect between us and I was no longer the sixteen-year old fanboy chasing autographs. I was now at the same level in my world as Maiden were in theirs and had gone from punter to peer.

  A few months later, Adrian came to New York to do publicity for his solo project Psycho Motel. I had a show at MSG the same weekend, so Jess and I came in a day early so we could meet up with the Smiths and go see the Broadway play Jekyll and Hyde, starring Sebastian Bach.

  Sebastian was great and did a tremendous job, and after the play we went to celebrate at a pub across the street that he and his cast members frequented. Gargano was also there, and we were such bad influences on each other that it wasn’t long before Drunkicho stumbled in. The night started to unravel with the standard throwing of the shot glasses against the wall and the spitting of alcohol into each other’s faces. It got even more out of control when Gargano and Mr. D started squirting condiments all over each other, which the two of them thought was absolutely hilarious. Then Drunkicho (covered in a noxious cocktail of Crown and Ketchup) cornered Adrian, bragging that he wasn’t just another garden-variety Maiden fan; he in fact knew every song that Adrian Smith had ever written for the band.

  “But I know what songs I’ve written, Chris,” Adrian said in his polite English accent.

  “Chris? Who is this Chris?” Drunkicho thought to himself.

  “No, you don’t understand, Adrian. I know every song … ‘Prisoner,’ ‘Gangland,’ ‘Sun and Steel.’ ”

  “Yes. I remember. I …”

  “ ‘Two Minutes to Midnight,’ ‘Can I Play with Madness,’ ‘22 Acacia Avenue’ …”

  Adrian was mercifully released from captivity when Sebastian lurched over, blubbering and crying drunkenly about how nice I’d been to his kids when meeting them earlier.

  “You were so great to my son. You signed his autograph … snivel … and took the time to talk to him … sob … and I’ll never forget that … sniffle … I love you, man.”

  Then he leaned over and kissed me on the lips.

  I’d never been kissed on the lips by a man before. Never mind one who was six foot five with long blond hair.

  It wasn’t bad.

  Before I could kiss him back, Gargano tackled me from behind and we started wrestling on the floor of the pub. After my draw with Sneap in the re
staurant in Charlotte, I wasn’t about to lose another floor-wrestling match, especially to a lowly writer (wait a minute … ). We barreled into a table knocking a big pitcher of beer to the floor, and a million pieces of barley-tinted glass exploded all over the place. That was our cue to leave. Well, that and the manager kicking us out.

  He was so angry with our idiocy that he sent a letter to Sebastian (which Gargano printed in Metal Edge ) that said, “Dear Sebastian, Chris Jericho and his friends are never allowed in this bar again. I don’t know what kind of conduct the WWE allows, but I assure you that we do not allow that sort of stupidity here.”

  Stupidity? I took great offense to that accusation. Inanity was more like it.

  Either way, I was banned on Broadway.

  After we left the pub, Paul, Jessica, her best friend Lisa, and her boyfriend Scott Erickson grabbed a taxi to take us back to the hotel. Erickson was a pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles, whom I met for the first time at our wedding and hadn’t liked since. He rubbed me the wrong way with his arrogance and sarcasm right off the bat (see what I did there?). He also had the same horrible hair as Ted Danson in Cheers, which led me to dub him Sammy Badweeds.

  When we got into the cab, Badweeds got on my nerves again by being his arrogant and obnoxious self.

  “Hey man, you’re pretty small for a wrestler. You must really get your ass kicked!”

  Adrian, me, and Bas were all set for an awesome male bonding photo op in a Broadway pub, when Erickson stuck out his arm and ruined the picture. It’s no wonder I ended up smacking him in the face a few hours later.

  I tried to ignore him, but he could tell from the look on my face that I was getting pissed.

  “What are you getting so upset about? It’s just fake wrestling! It’s not really a sport like baseball!” he said with a smarmy grin. I closed my eyes and tuned him out.

  Gargano was in the front seat of the taxicab and the rest of us were sitting in the back. The girls were engaged in conversation, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Badweeds lean in and slap Gargano in the back of his head.