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

by Chris Jericho

  He was the Deadman.

  I expressed my concerns to The Undertaker, who listened intently before giving me his thoughts.

  “The one thing that’s different here is that Vince is the boss. He’s in charge and we all know it. In WCW there were a half dozen bosses, and that made it easy for everyone to get what they wanted. These guys are going to do business and do what they’re told, and if they don’t, they won’t last. I’ll make sure of it.” With that he waved his hand and disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

  The master had spoken.

  All shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.

  D-Day finally arrived, and after three years of amnesty I found myself in the same company as Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, and Hulk Hogan once again. When they showed up on the first day, they of course were all on their very best behavior, especially Hulk. He shook my hand with a smile and reiterated what he’d said to me at Owen Hart’s funeral three years earlier.

  “You said you were going to take me with you when you jumped over here.”

  “I knew you’d find a way to get here on your own,” I replied with a bigger smile.

  Nash attempted to bust my balls right off the bat by commenting on the bright red color I had dyed in the tips of my hair, inspired by Ozzy’s latest coif.

  “Nice dye job there, Jericho.”

  Not missing a beat, I fired back, “Well, some of us dye our hair red when it’s blond and some of us dye our hair brown when it’s gray.” The truth hurt, and Nash’s sarcastic smile faded like his hair pigment.

  Hall was the last to arrive and was all phony smiles and fake hellos, but I could see his true self waiting to emerge like a shark beneath the surface. It didn’t take long for Jaws to attack as only five minutes later he shook Bubba Ray Dudley’s hand and murmured in his deep voice, “I love the 3D. What a great finishing move … can’t wait to kick out of it.”

  Hall was full of such witticisms and was always saying things like, “It’s the wrestling business, not the wrestling friendness,” and “It doesn’t say anywhere in my contract that I have to be nice to anybody.” That was his old WCW attitude, but that shit wasn’t going to fly here. The WWE was about making money, not a corporate sandbox where you could drop trou and take a dumpski whenever you felt like it.

  Things were different now and I wasn’t intimidated by them like I once was. I wasn’t the same guy I was in WCW. I was the motherfucking champion now.

  But how good of one was still to be determined.

  Austin was my opponent at the next PPV, No Way Out. Steve and I were pretty much left on our own to think of how to build up the match, and we came up with a few good ideas (including me pummeling him over the head with his own beer cooler) with no input from the boss, which was surprising. But as mediocre as the build was, the match was 316 times worse. Nothing clicked for us at all and my performance was brutal. We’d had decent to good matches in the past, but that night we were like Peanut Butter and Chong. It just didn’t work, and I take full responsibility for it because Steve was a proven great worker and I was the damn champion whose job it was to take control and make a match work no matter who I was up against.

  I ended up beating Steve after the NWO interfered, and I disappeared as they continued to beat him down for minutes afterwards. I was a complete afterthought and should’ve been after my dismal performance. Maybe I wasn’t good enough to be the top guy in the WWE after all.

  The next day, Paul Heyman told me that I would be losing the title to HHH in the main event of WrestleMania X8 in Toronto. He also told me there were rumblings that certain people were lobbying for Nash to beat me for the title on Raw and go on to face HHH at Wrestle-Mania instead. But to Vince’s credit, he wanted HHH and Jericho, and that’s the way it was going down no matter what anybody said.

  Unfortunately, Vince also booked Hogan vs. The Rock for the show. It was wrestling’s version of Mike Tyson vs. Muhammad Ali and by far the most anticipated match on the card—they were the true main event and everybody knew it.

  But the advantage that HHH and I had over Rock and Hogan was the Undisputed Championship. If booked properly, a well-thought-out angle centering around the ultimate prize in the business could compete with the magic of two legends facing each other for the first time.

  But it wasn’t.

  I pitched a lot of ideas, but in my opinion one of them in particular could’ve made a huge difference in the way our match was perceived. The story would begin after HHH returned at the Royal Rumble. He would be in the ring on Raw telling the fans how great it was to be back when I would come out to confront him and give him some serious news. In the seven months he was away from the WWE, his wife, Stephanie, was having an affair. I was only telling him about it because I obviously had a huge dislike for Steph and did some serious detective work in order to bust her. In the course of my investigation, I’d found out that she was having an affair with RVD.

  Then I’d run hidden camera footage of his wife in bed experiencing unlawful carnal knowledge with a guy with a long brown ponytail grinding on top of her. Trying to gain his trust, I’d attempt to soothe his heartbreak.

  “I hate to show you this, but you needed to see the real tramp that you married.”

  HHH would be steaming with anger and betrayal as he watched the video. The footage would continue until the guy with the ponytail rolled over and we would see that he wasn’t actually RVD, he was actually me.

  As the footage ended, I’d be standing behind him with his very own sledgehammer and bang the shit out of him, the same way I just had his wife.

  I thought Stephanie having an affair with her former worst enemy was the perfect twist to the story. She would justify her actions by saying, “You know how hard it is for a woman to be on the road by herself—she has needs! Needs that can only be satisfied by a champion.” I would justify my actions by saying I knew that HHH would be returning to gain revenge for me causing him to tear his quad in the first place. Therefore I needed to gain a psychological edge against him, and what better way to do that than by shtuping his wife?

  But my idea was canned due to the mindset that HHH wasn’t the kind of babyface who would be stupid enough not to know his wife was cheating on him. The whole plan was scrapped—well, almost all of it.

  The last part of my story was that I would be totally pussywhipped by Steph and become a shameless patsy who did whatever I was told no matter how bad she treated me. I thought it would be a great way to get heat if the World Champion was an avatar for Stephanie McMahon. It was the only part of the story that Vince liked, but now the problem was I was pussywhipped without the pussy.

  Now I was just whipped—which was apropos, because I became Stephanie’s personal Kunta Kinte. She would send me out for groceries, make me sweep the floor, carry her bags, whatever. I wasn’t the World Champion anymore so much as Stephanie McMahon’s lackey— a fact that was made evident in the WrestleMania matchup graphic. It said: “HHH vs Chris Jericho w/Stephanie McMahon,” with me in the background behind her shoulder.

  Stephanie and I had amazing chemistry, but I was disappointed with our storyline in the buildup to WrestleMania X8. The good news? At least I’m in the foreground of this picture.

  The buildup to the match was weak and began with me stealing HHH’s first ring robe, a purple velour monstrosity given to him by Killer Kowalski, only for him to get it back later in the show.

  When Stephanie and HHH’s dog Lucy pooped all over my dressing room in Detroit, I had to clean up the scheisse. Then when she told me to walk Lucy, I accidentally ran the mutt over.

  I was the World Champion as played by Lloyd Christmas. Needless to say, it didn’t work. Shawn Michaels, Ric Flair, and Bret Hart had been tremendous heel champions who got red-hot heat due to their exploits in the ring and the dirty tactics they used against their opponents. I was an average heel champion who got lukewarm heat due to my exploits of stealing Grimace costumes, cleaning up shit, and running over dogs in the par
king lot. With the exception of my Royal Rumble match with The Rock, my run as the first Undisputed Champion had been a bust.

  But there was a reprieve coming that would prove to the company (and most important to myself) that I did have the attributes to be a great World Champion.

  CHAPTER 23

  Whiskey Gargling

  Three weeks before WrestleMania my salvation arrived in the form of an Asian tour to Japan, Singapore, and Malaysia. I had a good history and a great fan base in Japan, who’d seen me have some of the best matches of my career. I hadn’t been there in four years and was hungry to return to show them what I’d learned during my time away. Most important of all, I was booked against The Rock for all three shows and he brought out the best in me. He’d just finished The Scorpion King and was killing two birds with one rock by promoting the movie in Asia and touring with the WWE at the same time.

  The first show was in Yokohama Arena and had sold 18,000 tickets in sixty minutes. Rock and I were the main event and I was honored to be headlining a sold-out show in my adopted home country in front of some of the best fans in the world.

  I was getting prepared for the match when Flair found me in the dressing room.

  “This is the real deal over here, Chris. Being the World Champion means more in Japan than it does anywhere else. You know how much these people respect the tradition and the history of this business and the work you have to put in to become champion. They’re expecting your best, and I know you’re ready to give that to them. Enjoy this night and tear the house down—be the champion that I know you can be.”

  It was an inspiring pep talk from one of the greatest champions of all time and the last push over the cliff that I needed. I forgot all about dogshit in the dressing room, being pussyless-whipped, and mediocre matches. It was my time to shine.

  My music played and as I walked through the curtain the fans jumped to their feet clapping and cheering. I had grown up in front of their eyes, starting in Japan as a twenty-year-old rookie. Now that I was a thirty-one-year-old champion, they had as much pride in me as I did in myself.

  I was walking up the ring steps when I saw the Great Muta at ringside. He was one of the biggest stars in the history of Japanese wrestling and had just taken over the reins of All Japan Pro Wrestling. Throughout the evening, many of the other wrestlers had paid him their respects by shaking his hand or giving him the thumbs-up as they walked by. Being a heel and knowing how the Japanese style works, I walked over to Muta and smacked him in the face. He fell off his chair and then tried to jump the rail and attack me as his young boys held him back. All the fans were oohing and ahhing in shock as the ringside photographers snapped as many pictures as they could. Then The Rock’s music played and the fracas broke up instantly as the entire arena exploded.

  It was the first time that The Rock, the biggest star in the WWE, had ever appeared in Japan, the most wrestling-crazed country on the planet. The reaction he received was one of the loudest I’d ever heard in my career. It was as if Elvis had joined the Beatles and all of them were wearing Godzilla costumes. The normally polite and reserved Japanese jumped to their feet and chanted, “LOCK-Y, LOCK-Y” in unison with orange-segment smiles on their faces. They had adopted the fairly new American tradition of making their own signs and there were hundreds of them glorifying Rock’s name and vilifying mine.

  They were ready to be the type of audience they had seen on Raw, as opposed to the typical quiet, polite Japanese crowd. There were even boos at the beginning of the show when Shane McMahon used a translator to greet them—they understood English and weren’t about to be patronized. The combination of their electric reaction with the special chemistry Rocky and I had spurred us to accomplish exactly what Flair had demanded. We tore that damn house down.

  It was as close to a perfect match as I’ve ever had, a twenty-minute classic featuring the greatest hits of Rock and Jericho. Our “Rock and Roll All Nite” was me thwarting (awesome word) the People’s Elbow by putting Rock in the Walls and him subsequently making it to the ropes. We followed with our “Detroit Rock City,” which was me kicking out of a well-timed Rock Bottom. We followed up with our “Love Gun” of Rock’s Sharpshooter. We were having so much fun that at one point Rock threw me to the floor, grabbed a ringside photographer’s camera and snapped some shots of me as I made the stupidest faces I could. Then I turned the tide and took some pictures of my own, with Rocky returning the favor by making even dumber faces.

  We rolled back into the ring and continued, and by the time we finished our chain of false finishes, the educated Japanese fans were on the edge of their seats, knowing they had witnessed a classic.

  The match ended when I rolled him up and put my feet on the ropes for extra leverage. The fans booed politely at first because they knew they were supposed to, but after the announcements had been made they gave us a standing ovation. They were such an amazing crowd that they deserved an encore. Rock grabbed the mic and started into one of his famous post-match speeches.

  “You know, The Rock lost a hard-fought match, but The Rock isn’t sad. As a matter of fact, The Rock is very hungry and is excited to go and eat the best yaku niku in Tokyo!” The crowd went crazy, hanging on his every word. “After that The Rock is going to have some dessert. He has a sweet tooth and he likes many different desserts, but by far The Rock’s favorite is … pie.”

  They all knew where he was going and ate up his words, with chopsticks.

  “And The Rock has tasted pie from all over the world—but he has never tried Japanese pie.” Thousands of Japanese girls wet their American designer jeans at the thought.

  “Now, Chris Jericho, you won your match tonight and I know you must be quite hungry as well. Do you like pie?”

  This was my cue to feed Rocky’s lines, the same way I fed his moves. “I hate pie. I would never eat pie, especially Japanese pie!”

  Rock raised his famous eyebrow. “You don’t like pie? What is wrong with you, Jericho?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me, I just don’t like pie!”

  “Well, do you like … strudel?” The Rock inquired.

  “As a matter of fact, Rock, I love strudel! Strudel is the tastiest treat in the world and I love stuffing as much of it in my mouth as I can. If I could eat strudel every day, I would!”

  Now the fans were catcalling me over my choice of pastries. I put my mic down and whispered to Rocky under my breath, “Call me Okama.”

  “Call you what … Osama?”

  “No … Okama,” I said as 18,000 people wondered what kind of horrible trash we were talking to each other.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means gay,” I whispered under my breath. “Trust me.”

  Rock gave me a nod, lifted the mic back to his mouth, and asked, “So you like strudel, huh? Does that mean that you’re … okama?”

  The crowd detonated and you would have thought that Buddha himself had waddled into the arena handing out Pocky. They went hamatteru, chanting, “O-kama! O-kama!”

  I marched around the ring defiantly with a frown, acting as if I had no idea what they were saying. My line got The Rock more over than he already was, never mind that all the respect I’d accrued during my years in Japan had been deleted in about ten seconds. Despite all of the great matches I had in this country, I’d never live down the night Rocky called me gay in Japanese, a point illustrated by the headline on the front page of Tokyo Sports the next day: “The Rock Calls Jericho Okama !”

  It was worth it.

  I mean, how often do you beat one of the biggest stars in wrestling history, retain the world title, get verbally insulted, have your sexuality questioned, and get Rock Bottomed all in one night?

  Later on, I was celebrating a job well done at the Hard Rock Café in Roppongi when I received a call from Muta. He laughingly told me that I “gave him a nice Idaho potato,” which is a term for a stiff shot.

  “Tonight was very good for business. If you ever want to work
for my company, give me a call.”

  Only in Japan could you sucker-punch the CEO of a company and have him offer you a job.

  Taking Flair’s words to heart both in the ring and out, I sure as hell acted like an old-school World Champion during that tour. I had three consecutive five-star matches against Rocky in three different countries, combined with three consecutive five-star nights of drinking on about three hours total sleep. I learned that another important duty of a champion was to be the last man standing at the bar—and there were shortcuts to achieve that.

  One of my favorites was to buy trays of shots for whoever was out that night. When everyone toasted and drank, I simply tossed every third shot over my shoulder. Or poured it into a nearby flowerpot. Or flicked it onto the floor.

  At the end of the night, the ground underneath my feet was wet and sticky from all the alcohol I hadn’t drank, but when 6 a.m. rolled around and everybody was plastered, I was still standing—totally loadski, mind you, but still standing.

  Hey, I was the champion and I couldn’t pass out—I had responsibilities, dammit!

  Another of my favorites was to challenge random fans to whiskey-gargling contests. Whenever we went out to a bar, there were always people around who wanted to hang out and be one of the boys. These fans were usually filled with liquid courage and bravado and would always agree to have a Jack Daniel’s gargling contest with me.

  What the poor fans didn’t know was that Curt Hennig taught me how to gargle Jack years earlier, but more important, Flair taught me how not to gargle Jack years earlier.

  I would let the fan go first and he would dump the shot glass into his open mouth and proceed to gargle it back and forth for a respectable forty-five seconds or so. Now, as I explained in my wildly popular first book, A Lion’s Tale (available … well, you know the drill), gargling alcohol isn’t as easy as it sounds. Imagine swishing yellow Listerine around in your mouth for thirty seconds and then swallowing it. Now multiply that by a hundred and you get a small sense of what I’m talking about.