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

by Chris Jericho

  I was the only one who saw him do it, and when Paul turned and said, “Oww! What was that for?!?” Scott turned to me and asked, “Why did you do that, Chris?”

  I sneered back, “I didn’t hit him! You did!” I couldn’t believe that the son of a bitch was trying to frame me! I was Dr. Richard Kimble and Badweeds was the one-armed man.

  No matter what I claimed, due to my drunken behavior earlier, it made perfect sense to Jess and Lisa that I would deck Paul from behind. “Chris, you’re so drunk, you’re hitting your own friend in the back of the head,” Jessica said.

  “I didn’t do it, Jess! I’m innocent! Erickson did it!”

  “Now you’re trying to blame Scott? Stop being such a jerk and admit that you did it already!”

  Weeds sat there grinning like a badly coiffed cheshire cat as his evil plan came to fruition.

  I had enough and decided to knock the smirk off his face right then and there. I reached over and took an awkward swing at him in the crowded backseat. Just as I did, the taxi hit a pothole and I ended up grazing Jess in the back of the head with a weak blow.

  Sammy burst out laughing at my faux pas and I completely snapped.

  “That does it! Pull this car over right now,” I screamed at the driver.

  I swung open my door and ran around the side of the car to Sammy’s half-rolled-down window. I reached through and punched him in the face. Suddenly I was public enemy number one (and I ain’t talkin’ about Nikki Sixx) to everybody in the taxi.

  The evidence was stacked against me, as I had sucker-punched the “innocent man.” Even though it hadn’t been much of a punch, Erickson sold it better than Shawn Michaels ever could. When we got back to the hotel neither Jessica nor Lisa would talk to me until I apologized to him. I was reminded of my forced apology to Chyna as I mumbled a few words of remorse while Erickson stood there smugly nodding his head. It was torture for me, made worse by the fact that we both knew he had won.

  Damn you Badweeds! I’ll get you back someday …

  The next morning, I woke up with one of the worst hangovers in the history of drunk. I had to go to an autograph signing, and when I slid out of the car in front of a long line of Jerichoholics waiting to meet their hero, I tripped and almost fell down. I started signing covered in an alcoholic sweat, and even though I felt like nauseous prison ass, I scrawled my name on picture after picture as friendly as could be. Finally I put my pen down to greet a cute little guy wearing a Y2J shirt and holding his Jericho doll.

  “You’re my favorite wrestler, Chris Jericho,” he said with an adorable gap-toothed grin.

  “Well thank you very much! What’s your name, little buddy?”

  “Conner,” the precious little angel said shyly.

  “Awwww. Well hello, Conner. Thanks for being such a big fan! Listen, can you do me a favor and hold on one second, big guy?”

  Conner beamed and said, “Okay, Chris Jericho. You’re my hero.”

  I smiled back and got up from the table, giving the crowd a big wave.

  I made my way to the bathroom, locked the door behind me, knelt in front of the toilet, and puked my damn guts out.

  After a few minutes of bapping and barfing, I splashed some cold water on my face and walked back to the signing table.

  Conner was anxiously waiting and couldn’t stop grinning as I sat down.

  “He’s your biggest fan,” his mother said proudly as I scribbled my name across his action figure.

  “Well, thank you, very much, ma’am. By the way, do you have a mint?”

  After my career-making Last Man Standing match with HHH, I had a long feud with Kane, a good worker and one of most intelligent men in the WWE. I always enjoyed wrestling him, and he’s still the only coworker with whom I’ve had an in-depth discussion about Aldous Huxley’s (not Iron Maiden’s) Brave New World. The angle started with me spilling coffee on him backstage and ended three months later with another Last Man Standing match, which I won when I pushed the set (made of dozens of barrels attached together) on top of him, apparently squashing him to death.

  Then I moved on to a feud over the Intercontinental title with Benoit. It was always a war working with him, but in a good way. He worked a no-nonsense, raw-boned, strong style that meshed perfectly with mine, and with our similar backgrounds and worldwide experiences, we always had good matches. He was one of my all-time favorite opponents.

  The war between the Calgary Kids (see A Lion’s Tale for an explanation) culminated with a Ladder match at the 2001 Royal Rumble. It was a tough assignment, as the high-water mark for Ladder matches was Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon from WrestleMania X, regarded as one of the best matches in WWE history.

  So the initial temptation when putting the match together was to try a lot of dangerous stunt spots, but we decided instead to base the match around using the ladder as a weapon and saving all the climbing until the end. We used it as a lance, a battering ram, and a shield, but the best idea came when we were standing in the ring throwing around suggestions. Chris came up with the idea of me bending him over the top of the ladder backwards and applying an upside-down version of the Walls of Jericho. It was brilliant in concept and looked amazing on TV; I have to say it was one of the frootest looking moves I’ve ever done in my career. I re-created it many times in other Ladder matches, but the first time I did it with Chris was still the best.

  After a brutal twenty-minute fight, I finally dumped Benoit to the floor, scaled the ladder, and grabbed the title. The crowd went ballistic as they knew they had seen something special. Watching it back now, I feel that it was just as good as the famous Shawn-Razor Ladder match, and if you see them back to back, you might agree.

  It’s unfortunate that the match has been buried and technically doesn’t exist anymore.

  CHAPTER 15

  No More Beards

  Backstage at SummerSlam 1999, I was pleasantly surprised to see Zakk Wylde, Ozzy’s guitar player, hanging around. He was in town for a gig with his solo band Black Label Society and was a huge WWE fan. When I say huge, I mean it literally, as Zakk was no run of the mill scrawny rock star. He was well muscled, which combined with his long blond mane of hair made him resemble a rock and roll viking. He had the attitude to match and was a loud, boisterous, and, most important, friendly guy, and we clicked instantly. He also knew his wrestling; more specifically his Ultimate Warrior. The first words out of his mouth when I introduced myself to him were, “Hey, brother, I’m a big fan. But the bottom line is: have you ever met James Hellwig?”

  When I told him that I had indeed met Mr. Hellwig, a.k.a. the Warrior, the ice was instantly broken.

  I’d worked with Hellwig briefly in WCW, and he was such a character that I had half a dozen stories about him. But it was a quid pro quo (Clarice) conversation, and after every Warrior story, Zakk reciprocated with a tale about his boss.

  I told him how Warrior had arranged to make a surprise appearance on Nitro by entering the ring through a secret trapdoor. Unfortunately, nobody clued in the rest of the crew and we were bumping on pure steel for the entire show. Zakk listened in wonder like a five-yearold during story time and then told me a tale about the recording of the album No More Tears, when he decorated the studio with posters of Jimi Hendrix and Aleister Crowley to inspire him. Ozzy walked into the studio, looked at both posters, and mumbled, “Zakk, I know this guy is Hendrix, but who the fuck is the other one?”

  Zakk said bewilderedly, “Ozzy. It’s Aleister Crowley … Mr. Crowley? You know, the guy you’ve been singing about for twelve years?” Ozzy stared at the poster and said, “I’ve never seen a fucking picture of him before …”

  I reciprocated by telling him how Hellwig wouldn’t eat dessert, but would instead crush a cookie into a thousand little pieces and simply smell it, which he claimed gave him the same effect as actually eating it.

  Zakk then told me how Sharon had imposed a backstage ban on alcohol in an effort to keep Oz on the wagon, so Zakk bought cases of O’Doul’s non
alcoholic beer and replaced the beer in each bottle with Heineken. His plan to stay tipsy worked great, until one night he was in the middle of a fifteen-minute guitar solo while Ozzy watched him from the side of the stage and decided to sip on one of the O’Doul’s. By the time Zakk finished his solo, Ozzy had drunk three of them and told him, “Zakk, these O’Doul’s taste pretty fucking good, man. I almost feel like I’ve got a fucking buzz on!”

  Zakk and I became fast friends. We’d both been in show business since we were teenagers, we both loved the same music, wrestlers, and movies, and shared a goofy sense of humor. We were also quite competitive, and when I noticed he had started growing a beard, I smarmily (great word) mentioned that I could grow a longer one than him.

  So we decided to have a beard-growing contest. I grew a goatee so long, that if it wasn’t braided or tied into a little bun it resembled Linda Lovelace’s bush in Deep Throat. I went months without cutting the damn thing in order to win that stupid contest, until finally it became unbearable. I shaved it off, and Zakk was declared the winner. He kept growing his and it currently hangs down to his waist, but for me it’s No More Beards.

  I tried valiantly to beat Zakk Wylde in our beard-growing contest, but alas, I lost miserably. The weird thing was, Jess actually liked my frenzied facial hair.

  The comedy continued a few months later when I was in New York City promoting Happenstance and I heard Zakk was in town for an Ozzfest gig the next night. I met him at a seedy little pub that had good beer and a great jukebox stocked with the best bands from the ’70s like Journey, AC/DC, Foreigner, and Bad Company. My party motto has always been, “It’s not where you go, it’s who you’re with,” and Zakk and I proved it by hanging out, drinking beer, and talking music until the bar closed at 4 a.m. Not wanting the night to end, Zakk invited me back to his suite to drink more. So we stumbled out of the pub and wandered down the street to buy more beer, playing car chicken on the way.

  Car chicken is when you lie down in the middle of the street and wait until a car comes. Then you stay there as long as possible until rolling out of the way before you get run over. We were in downtown Manhattan and it was like Death Race 2000 as the cars swerved and honked trying to avoid the two idiots lying in the middle of the road.

  Then we bought a dozen beers and a dozen hard-boiled eggs from a convenience store and walked over to the Waldorf-Astoria, which was quite a contrast from the Jerry’s Motel– Hourly Rates Available dive that Megaforce had put me up at. I guess Ozzy was making a little more cash than Fozzy.

  Thoughts of sugarplums and strippers danced through my head and I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of huge rock star debauchery awaited on the other side of his hotel room door. But as Zakk slid his room key into the slot, he whispered, “You gotta be quiet, brother, my daughter and her friends are inside sleeping.”

  There would be no snorting cocaine off the voluptuous backsides of exotic dancers that night, my friends, only a quiet march straight into the bathroom. Zakk closed the door and sat on the edge of the bathtub and I squatted on the throne. We said nothing as we drank beer and ate boiled eggs in silence, until finally our eyes met and we burst out in stifled laughter. Here was one of the greatest guitar players of all time and one of the biggest wrestling superstars in the world, hiding in the bathroom and sipping on beer in silence at 5 a.m. so as to not wake the children.

  The comedy never ends.

  The following year I flew to Ozzfest in San Antonio and was hanging with Zakk backstage on his bus. We’d thrown back a few cocktails and were bored, so we decided to go into the parking lot and play some baseball. Zakk grabbed a glove and a bat from the bus and announced that he’d be up first. So I threw the first pitch and it bounced off the asphalt a few feet in front of him. He started laughing and taunting me.

  “Come on, brother! You’re throwing like you’re a member of the Backstreet Boys!”

  I threw another pitch and this one careened wildly into the rapidly expanding crowd that had gathered to watch us play.

  “That’s fucking terrible, bro! You’re gay and your parents know it!”

  Murmers of laughter starting emanated from the mob and I started getting angry. I wasn’t going to let this dipshit rock star make fun of me in front of all these people. I focused on my target, assumed the pitcher’s position, and in my best Nolan Ryan threw that ball as hard as I could. It careened across the parking lot like Frehley’s comet and he swung with all his might—Zakky at bat.

  There was a distinct crack as the aluminum connected with the leather, and the ball flew above the crowd and over the fence that separated the band parking lot from the fan parking lot.

  “It’s a home run! A fucking home run,” Zakk yelled with glee as he pumped his fists and stomped around. “I beat you, Jeri—”

  “ZAAAAKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!”

  He was interrupted by a screech that could’ve only come from a demon dwelling in the tortured depths of hell itself. When I saw the source of the scream, I realized that my initial assessment wasn’t too far off, because storming at us from out of nowhere was Sharon Osbourne.

  And she was furious.

  “What the fuck are you two idiots doing? You can’t be playing baseball in the fucking parking lot! Do you know what kind of a lawsuit we would have if that baseball lands on somebody’s head?!? We could lose the whole festival, you stupid twats!”

  I’d never been called a twat before.

  Sharon shoved her face only inches from Zakk’s and scolded him like he was a juvenile delinquent. “Zakk, how can you be so stupid? You should know better!”

  Then she turned her death gaze on me.

  “And who the fuck are you?”

  I wasn’t quite sure who the fuck I was and kept staring at the ground, more terrified of her than any other female I’d encountered in my entire life (my wife and mom included). After a few tongue-tied terrifying seconds, I mumbled that I was nobody.

  “You most certainly are a nobody, you wanker! Now get back on that bus before I throw you both out of here!”

  “Yes, Mrs. Osbourne,” we said in unison and scampered back to the safety of the bus with our tails between our legs. Once the door slid shut, we burst out laughing like a couple of kids who had been caught stealing crabapples from the neighbor’s yard.

  The word about Fozzy had made its way to Europe and we were offered a slot at the 2002 Bang Your Head Festival in Balingen, Germany. It’s hard to understand unless you’ve been there, but in Europe heavy metal is not just a style of music, it’s a way of life: long hair, leather jackets, leather pants all day, every day. It’s so popular that during the summer there are dozens of festivals all over the continent featuring bands that are huge in Europe but haven’t had a hit in the United States in years. We were still wearing wigs and playing mostly covers, but once again the powers that be figured the concept would go over huge and booked us on a bill that included Slayer, Rob Halford, Nightwish, and Overkill.

  The headliners on the night we played were Saxon, a band from England who’d had minor success in the States fifteen years prior. But in Germany they were bigger than ever and 25,000 fans were abuzz because “Saxon is playing Crusader, complete with the entire castle stage set!” They said it the same way a movie buff might proclaim, “Spielberg is making another Jaws movie!”

  When we got to the huge open field that was serving as the concert grounds, we found out that Fozzy was billed third from the top behind Saxon and Nightwish, not bad for a cover band that had only played a handful of gigs—a fact that wasn’t lost on some of our fellow musicians.

  Gamma Ray, one of the biggest metal bands in Germany, was slotted to play right before us. Their leader was vocalist/guitarist Kai Hansen, who had formed the band after he left Helloween. I’d heard through the grapevine that Kai was furious that they were on before Fozzy, and since I’d met him in Hamburg ten years earlier, I decided to go try and smooth over the situation.

  “Hey Kai, I’m Chris Jericho. We met at y
our house in Hamburg years ago.”

  His eyes burned through me as if I was Michael Weikath and he said, “I know who you are.”

  I didn’t dig his attitude, but I held my tongue.

  “Kai, in my opinion, Fozzy should totally go on before Gamma Ray. If I could change it I would, but I have nothing to do with the order of the bands.” I meant every word. “I just want you to know I understand why you’re pissed.”

  Kai continued staring and then gave me an arrogant smirk. He walked away without saying a word. I tried to be nice and he completely blew me off.

  Now I wanted revenge.

  I went to our backstage tent and called a band meeting. We weren’t sure what kind of reception we’d get from the metal faithful at Bang Your Head, if they would appreciate our homage to the music or crucify us for our costumes. None of us knew for sure but when I told the rest of the band about Hansen’s snub we agreed that our mission for the day was to blow Gamma Ray off the stage.

  With that mantra in mind, we watched their set from backstage in order to size up the enemy. They were technically proficient and the audience liked them, but it seemed like they were only one step away from simply sitting down onstage during their entire set. They didn’t move and they didn’t go out of their way to involve the crowd. Big mistake, Gamma Ray—that was Fozzy’s forte.

  Hansen mmm-bopped his way to the end of the set and now the shit was on. Our intro music played and I sent out our swinus-inflicted mascot Arthur onstage waving a German flag. It was a standard wrestling trick to get a cheap pop from the audience, but it worked. The crowd erupted when he walked onstage, especially since he had spent the day walking around the grounds handing out Arthur buttons. People who had never heard of Fozzy knew who we were now—or at least who Arthur was.