And if you don’t remember what show I ended up on, you’ll have to go to @iamjericho on twitter.com to find out.
CHAPTER 25
Jelly of the Month Club
In the WWE, you get your PPV checks about three months after the show takes place. It’s a strange system where you really don’t know what you’re going to get until you get it. The number on the check is determined from a combination of the live gate, the PPV buyrate, and your place on the card. I was expecting my WrestleMania check in June and was curious to see what I’d get. I’d been in the technical main event of the show, and the second biggest match on the card. I had always heard that when you wrestled in the main event of Wrestle Mania, you made in the high six figures and in some cases even seven.
That’s why I was stunned when I opened the envelope and saw a check for five figures. Now, first off, believe me when I say that under normal circumstances a five-figure check is a big chunk of change—but this was WrestleMania and I felt that I should have made more. To give you an example of what I’m talking about, I made almost double that for the Invasion PPV and I was one part of a ten-man tag. Mania buyrates were bigger, the show was held in a stadium, and I was in the championship match that closed the show. Something had to be wrong, and as it stood, I felt like Clark Griswold getting a subscription to the Jelly of the Month Club for his Christmas bonus.
A week later I asked HHH how much he had made for Mania. He told me the number and I nodded and excused myself. I walked outside to the back of the arena in Columbia, South Carolina, and blew a fucking gasket.
He’d made almost five times as much as I had.
I was furious and insulted. I would’ve understood if he’d made a little bit more, as he was the returning babyface and the bigger star, but five times more!?!? I called Shane-O Mac and told him that I was so angry and hurt that I felt like quitting. He told me in no uncertain terms that I needed to talk to Vince about it face-to-face.
I called Vince and left a message telling him I needed to speak to him. The next day, I arrived in Greensboro, North Carolina, and waited in his office with Jim Ross. I told JR how slighted I felt and how I didn’t want to work for a company that held me in such little regard. Jim explained to me that he and Vince determined payoffs based on who they thought the fans were paying to see.
“Vince felt that in this match, people were paying to see HHH win the title.”
“I have no doubt about that, Jim, and I have no problem with that mindset. But it takes two guys to make a match and to sell it to the fans. I don’t care that Hunter got a bigger piece of the pie, it’s the fact that he got 83 percent of the pie that I have a problem with.”
JR nodded in agreement, and shortly afterwards Vince came into the office smiling.
“So what’s the problem?”
“The problem is, Vince, I got my check for WrestleMania and I understand how you grade the payoffs, but this is completely insulting. I mean I don’ t—”
Vince cut me off. “I’ll take care of it. JR, cut him another check.”
He walked out of the office, leaving JR and me staring at each other.
“Well, that was easy,” said the Okie from Muskogee.
A week and a half later, I received a check in the mail that was more than I expected. I’ll always admire how quickly Vince dealt with my issue. He heard me out and took care of the problem. End of story.
* * *
My return to PPV came the next month in a rematch with HHH in the dreaded Hell in a Cell. Cell matches were famous for featuring at least one big, nasty bump, like when Mick Foley (who has never defeated this sexy beast) was thrown off the top of the cell, or when Shawn Michaels fell off the side through a table. Even Vince fell off the damn thing.
HHH and I decided that we needed to break the chain, both because we wanted to focus on psychology and because neither one of us wanted to take that kind of crazy bump. We also wanted this cell match to be the transition from a spectacle revolving solely around an insane bump to a violent grudge match held within the confines of a barbaric cage. I thought it would be easier to make that transition if we did the finish on the top of the cage, and HHH agreed.
When I got to the arena in Nashville and looked up at the massive structure, it didn’t look so intimidating. It didn’t seem to be that high and I started having second thoughts about the big bump. I decided that we could break out of the cage, and as HHH was chasing me up the side I would have the Unamericans run down and attack Hunter. Then I would do a majestic cross body from the top of the cage onto the whole pile.
I climbed to the top of the cage to chart my flight plan, but when I looked down I instantly thought, “There is no fucking way I’m jumping off this thing.”
I felt like I was on top of Mount Everest glaring down at a gang of ants, and it reminded me of the first time I climbed to the top rope at the Silver Dollar Action Centre (for the full, charming story, check out A Lion’s blah blah blah), but on a much higher level. So I went back to my original plan of eliminating the big bump from the match.
But we still had to do something spectacular to bridge the gap between old cell and new. We came up with a unique finish where we would fight our way to the top and HHH would hit me with a Pedigree on the roof. We both liked the idea but couldn’t figure out a way to get up to the roof. Vince had just seen the Spider-Man movie and suggested we shoot webs out of our wrists and swing up there.
We asked Vince not to contribute any more ideas.
Hunter finally pointed out that if a cameraman or referee were to get injured during the match, the ring crew would have to open the cage door to get him out, which would allow us to break on through. Our referee was veteran Tim White, a true pro and most famous for being Andre the Giant’s assistant. He agreed that I could knock him off the apron to the cage, which would leave him incapacitated. When help arrived to carry him off the battlefield, HHH and I would brawl outside the cage and begin our ascent. But truth is stranger than fiction, and when I drove him into the side of the cage he separated his shoulder so badly that it never truly healed.
Timmy was as tough as a nihilist’s ear and never said a word about the true extent of his injury, as HHH and I brawled out the door. We went through the announce table and Hunter pulled out the same baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire that he had used on Mick Foley (who has … okay, okay, I’ll shut up now) in the cell match that made him a star. I scaled the cage in fear and when we got to the top he hit me in the head with it so hard the barbed wire got snagged in my hair. I put him in the Walls, which ended up being more than a little terrifying, because the fencing was bending and shaking underneath us. Finally, Hunter Pedigreed me on the top of the cage and pinned me. As I took the bump, I wondered what would happen if the steel beams collapsed and we crashed right through the cage and fell twelve feet to the mat. Thankfully the supports remained attached, as did the barbwire in my hair.
When it was all said and done, it was mission accomplished. We’d had a spectacular match and nobody had taken the crazy bump (except Timmy). The whole concept of what a Hell in a Cell match is now changed because of HHH and me, and both of us are proud of that to this day. Vince was pleased too and it seemed like I was back in his good graces again.
So much so that my next angle was with the Hulkster himself.
Even though Hulk had lost the Undisputed title to The Undertaker, he was bigger than ever and to work with him was a thrill professionally and personally. Hulk had been one of my childhood heroes dating back to when I watched him with the AWA in Winnipeg. I was a little intimidated at first, both because of his legendary status and his increasing immobility. It was going to be a little bit of a challenge to have a great match with him given his physical limitations. But I knew I could do it.
To prepare for our first match on Smackdown! in Pittsburgh, I watched Hogan’s classic WrestleMania matches with Randy Savage and the Ultimate Warrior. I came up with a do-rag full of ideas, and to Hulk’s credit he went
for every one of them.
He had come back to the WWE to work, and he was smart enough to realize that I could make him look as good as he wanted to. And he wanted to look good. The match we had in Pittsburgh and the follow-up in Chicago were two of my all-time favorite matches and (dare I say it) two of the last great matches Hulk had. But I made him work hard. He took a Lionsault and a DDT and gave me a second-rope superplex. The pièce de résistance was when he went for his patented leg drop and I grabbed his legs from the mat and put him into the Walls. I could tell that Hulk enjoyed working with me, and soon I was up against him at every show he was on. He let me put together the entire match and trusted my judgment entirely. He’d get to the arena and ask, “What are we doing tonight, brother?” I would run through my ideas and he’d say, “Sounds goodski, brother.” (For some reason he had a penchant for adding a “-ski” at the end of random words the same way my friends and I have since high school.)
He was really impressed with the guys from my generation, who were more interested in having a good match than in trying to get their shit in. He was right, the new generation had a different attitude than the older generation, and before long Hulk was working the same way we were. He wanted to have good matches—not that it was too hard to do that. He was so over with the fans and had them in the palm of his hand at all times, so it was a lot of fun to wrestle him.
I would rate Hogan as one of my all-time favorite opponents.
He was a master of including the fans and getting them involved in the match every step of the way. One time a kid was holding a sign that said HOGAN IS A JEDI. When I took umbrage to that blasphemy and ripped the sign into pieces, Hogan grabbed me in a full nelson, took me over to the kid, and let him take a free shot. Then he gave the kid a high five and said, “May the Force be with you, brother!”
Working with Hogan was always a blast. I noticed that whenever he hulked up, he would whisper “Hulkup-HulkupHulkup,” under his breath. It was how he got into character, I guess.
But Hulk was still Hulk and he had a penchant for exaggeration and self-promotion. Rock was still wrestling sporadically in between movie gigs, and while he was filming The Scorpion King he was flown to the shows on a private jet paid for by the movie studio. One week he offered to make a stopover in Tampa on the way to Rochester, New York, to pick up Hulk and me.
Rock always kept quiet about his blossoming film career, but eventually the conversation turned to his ascension in Hollywood as the next breakout star. After a few minutes, Hulk jumped in and started explaining why he never made it as big in acting as Rocky had.
“You’ve got no competition right now, brother. There’s nobody around who can challenge you, brother. When I was breaking into Hollywood, Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Van Damme, Seagal were all really hotski. There was no room for another action hero and I was a victim of the numbers game, brother.”
Either that, or maybe Santa with Muscles wasn’t the right projectski.
Rock and I were quite similar in personality and had become good friends. At that late stage in his WWE career, Rock could pick and choose the shows he wanted to wrestle on. When he found out that the WWE had an upcoming show in Hawaii, he jumped at the opportunity. He spent a lot of his childhood in Hawaii, and his grandfather, High Chief Peter Maivia, was a legend there as a promoter and wrestler. This would be Rocky’s first time wrestling on the islands, and it was a big homecoming as he still had a large contingent of family there.
I knew how much it meant to him and was honored and touched when he called me and said, “I handpicked you to be my opponent in Hawaii.” Jessica came with me and we were excited because it was our first time in Hawaii. When we came off the plane, we were met by a huge welcoming committee made up of Rock’s friends and family, each one of them placing leis around our necks. It was a classy move on Rock’s part—he went to the trouble of finding out what flight we were on and arranged everything to make us feel welcome in what he considered to be his homeland. His hospitality continued when we checked into our hotel room and found presents strewn across the bed—a pair of beautiful handmade Hawaiian silk shirts for me and a gorgeous flowing island dress for my wife. Later that night, Rocky took us to a luau complete with fire dancers and I even donned a grass skirt and matching crown and shook my shit to the delight of the crowd. It was a great night and I could see in Rock’s eyes how proud he was to be showing off his heritage.
Rocky’s cousins adorned us with flowers pre-match in Hawaiian tradition. A few moments later I tore my flowers up and the poor little girls started to cry. Straight up heelin’ yo.
The Blaisdell Arena in Honolulu was a jam-packed sellout of 9,000 people waiting to see one man and one man only. There was a huge chorus of boos as I came to the ring, and a small army of Rock’s cousins in traditional island garb again placed leis around my neck and gave me flowers. I feigned happiness for a few moments before throwing the flowers to the ground, tearing the leis off my neck, and ripping them into a thousand pieces. I stomped up and down on the torn petals and screamed, “I don’t want these! I’m not Hawaiian and I don’t want to be! I’m from the mainland and that means I’m better than you!” The WWE hadn’t been to Hawaii in years and the crowd ate up my taunts like a pupu platter.
After my antagonizing antics, the lights went dark and the fans went ballistic.
“If you smelllll what The Rock is cooking,” boomed the sound system, and it was a rage of mayhem. The cheers were louder than Japan (or anywhere for that matter) as the islanders went bonkers for their hero. It was one of the most magical moments of my career. The Rock entered the ring and bathed in the cheers of his fans and I could see he was ready to deliver. So was I.
We had perfect chemistry at this point; everything we did elicited a tremendous response from the capacity crowd, including Bruce Willis, who was sitting in the first row. Bruce was in Honolulu filming Hart’s War and came to support Rocky. Halfway through the match, Rock threw me out to the floor and we fought our way over to where Bruce was sitting. He was thin, unshaven, and in the stained wife-beater he was wearing looked more like a concentration camp victim than an A-list movie star. But the crowd buzzed when they were made aware of his presence. I knocked Rocky to the ground and started yelling in Willis’s scruffy face.
“ Hudson Hawk was the shits and you were terrible in Blind Date
!” Bruce stared at me bemusedly as Rocky recovered from my crushing blow and pinned my arms behind my back. He told Bruce to hit me while the fans cheered in anticipation. I started apologizing for my harsh critiques and stammered how great I thought he was in The Bonfire of the Vanities. He slowly rose up from his seat and turned his head to the crowd for approval. I tensed up my jaw, figuring that he would smack me in the face or at the very least take a Hollywood swing at me. He drew back and with all the force of John McClane … headbutted me in the stomach.
Who was he—Bushwacker Luke?
I collapsed to the floor laughing and said, “Come on, Bruce! How do you expect me to sell that?”
After an awesome and very sweaty twenty-two minutes, Rock finally beat me with the Rock Bottom. As he was pinning me, his voice barely audible over the screams of the crowd, he whispered in my ear, “Thank you so much, Chris. That was my favorite match of my career.” It was the last time I ever wrestled him and was a perfect end to one of the best rivalries of my career.
Afterwards, Rocky took Jessica and me out for dinner along with my new close personal friend Bruce Willis and his three daughters. Bruce was down-to-earth and really easy to talk to, and we spent most of the night talking about music and our respective bands (did you forget The Return of Bruno?). Eventually the conversation turned to Hollywood, and Bruce told Rocky that maybe it was time for him to stop wrestling, because Hollywood wouldn’t be happy if he continued and it might limit his opportunities. It wasn’t too long before Rock heeded his words and left the WWE for good. It was time for him to move on and I’m proud of him and the great work we did together
in wrestling.
When we finished eating Bruce asked me when I was leaving Hawaii. I told him we had an early flight to Anaheim the next morning and he replied, “Oh, that’s too bad! I’m taking my daughters and their friends to the big water park in Waikiki tomorrow for a birthday present. If you guys weren’t leaving, I’d love to have you come along. I rented out the whole place just for us.”
Rented out the whole place? Kind of makes my bitching about the $79.95 I have to pay for a day pass at Adventure Island a moot point, don’t it?
CHAPTER 26
Wacky Roll-Up Guy
After my program with Hogan, the plan was for me to work with Edge. But everything changed when Edge suffered an apparent torn rotator cuff and was scheduled to be out for a couple months. To explain his injury, we did a big angle where I trapped his shoulder in the crotch of the steel ring steps and bashed it with a chair. He was carried out on a stretcher, leaving the crowd incredulous at their hero’s demise. The good news was we had a ready-made angle as soon as Edge returned, but in the meantime I needed someone to work with.
Undisputed: How to Become World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps Page 21