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After the match, Ricky Fuji took me to the most famous wrestling restaurant in the world, Ribera Steakhouse. It was discovered in the 1970s by Stan Hansen and had been a favorite wrestler hangout ever since.

But the steak was only part of Ribera’s sizzle. After the meal, all the wrestlers were presented with official Ribera jackets. They were tacky satin and rayon striped numbers with “Ribera” stenciled across the front and back. They were brutally ugly, but any wrestler given one wore it loudly and proudly like a badge of honor. Ricky joked that Ribera was Japanese for “I’m a wrestler and I’ve been to Japan.”

On the walls of the restaurant hung dozens of signed pictures from all the wrestlers who’d been there. Amazingly, whenever you went you’d find your picture on the wall. Ribera himself would check the tour lineups in the magazines to find out which gaijins would be in the country and for how long. He’d put up those wrestlers’ pictures and when the tours were finished, he’d put up photos of the next batch of foreigners. He was more of a worker than the wrestlers.

CHAPTER 33

WRESTLE AND ROMANCE

I left Japan this time with no invitation to come back. It bothered me because I didn’t see many guys in FMW who could wrestle better than me. What I did see was a plethora of outlandish gimmicks: the Ninja Turtle, Pandita, Battle Ranger, Ultraman, his giant lobster nemesis Bartak, all of these larger-than-life characters. It was obvious that to be a big star in Japan I needed a gimmick that could match those.

The first idea I had was the dastardly Master Sebastian (named after Sebastian Bach), who would be Dr. Luther’s manager. The Master would wear a long black leather trench coat and sport one of those Madonna ponytail hairpieces on the top of his head for no apparent reason.

Then I thought I could be Dr. Luther’s brother Mr. Hannibal, a character FMW wanted to create to cash in on Luther’s immense popularity. Lenny tried to talk me out of it saying I didn’t need to be a copy of him, but I was desperate. FMW turned me down flat for the gimmick anyway. Since I’d already wrestled in the company, the fans knew I wasn’t a homicidal maniac.

Then I came up with the Parasite. I painted my face with Alice Cooper style makeup and carried around a can of WD-40. When the time was right, I’d hold a match up to the spray and create a blowtorch. What I was going to do with the torch, I have no idea. I never got that far.

When Parasite baby bombed like the Enola Gay, I got my next gimmick idea from watching an Iron Maiden Powerslave concert video. When I saw singer Bruce Dickinson don an Egyptian bird mask, I decided to become the Phoenix.

I designed the whole costume and started assembling it by first buying a bird mask at a costume store. I gave it full plumage by attaching a bouquet of multicolored feathers with a glue gun I found in the Palkos’ garage. The costume also called for a pair of Hawkman wings, so I bought some thin aluminum poles from a hardware store and soldered them together into a frame of bird wings. I sewed some black spandex over the frame and glued strips of sequins, fake costume jewelry, and rhinestones onto the material. I ran out of money before I could buy the leather straps necessary to attach the wings, so I tied thin strips of spandex to the frame instead. When I put the costume on, I was quite impressed. The wings were a little lopsided and the mask was a touch too small, but the ensemble looked pretty darn cool and there was no way I wouldn’t get a gig this time.

But my carefully constructed wings were brutally flimsy and the wind bent them askew during an outdoor photo shoot. They eventually blew right off my back, forcing me to chase them down like Rocky Balboa chasing the chicken in Rocky 2. When the wind died down momentarily, I hastily tied them back on and screamed, “Take the picture now!”

The comedy continued after the shoot, when I tried to practice my big ring entrance. After a few attempts, I found that it was