A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [104]
My dreams of going back to Japan were falling apart along with my wings. I was ready to give up, when Ricky finally called me and said FMW wanted to bring me in as the Phoenix and give me a Porsche.
I was a little surprised with the offer and wondered how I was going to drive a Porsche from Japan to Canada. Unfortunately he was saying “push,” not “Porsche.” Even though a push was almost as good as a Porsche, it was a moot point because FMW was a day late and a keychain short.
The day prior I’d been offered a tour for the bigger and more prestigious Japanese company WAR. I’d started working in Mexico City at this point and had met Ultimo Dragón, a Japanese wrestler who’d made a huge name for himself in Mexico and with WAR in Japan. I hoped to get booked with the company for months, since Dragón was always looking for new opponents and with my Calgary/Mexico/European hybrid style, I knew we’d have great chemistry. Since we both worked for Paco Alonso, we’d teamed together frequently and Dragón was familiar with what I could do and thought I would fit the bill perfectly. Now I had my chance.
Dragón’s real name was Yoshihiro Asai and like me his dream as a kid was to be a wrestler, but he’d been turned down by New Japan because of his small stature. He refused to take no for an answer and moved to Mexico, where he became a star under the masked gimmick of Ultimo Dragón. The name translated in English was the Last Dragon, the idea being that he was the last student of Bruce Lee. I guess that would’ve made him about eight years old when he trained with Bruce. After making his mark in Mexico, he’d returned to Japan and found a home with WAR.
WAR wasn’t pronounced in the “What Is It Good For” kind of way, but rather “W...A...R,” an acronym for Wrestle and Romance. It was classic Japanglish in that it was just English enough to make no sense. I was confused as to whether I was supposed to bring the Wrestle or the Romance.
Wrestle and Romance was operated by Genichiro Tenryu, one of the top ten biggest names in Japanese wrestling history. Much like Tonga, he’d started as a sumo wrestler and then achieved huge success when he switched to wrestling. He had the best chops to the chest this side of Ric Flair and worked very stiff, which the fans loved and I learned to hate. One of the ways he was building his company was by focusing on his junior heavyweight division, which was second in quality only to New Japan’s crop of high-flyers.
The difference between working in FMW and WAR was similar to the difference between working in Monterrey and Mexico City. You could see the increase in professionalism instantly. The fine people at the newly christened Wrestle Association R (makes even less sense than Wrestle and Romance, don’t it?) provided me with a work visa and sent me a notarized contract for the king’s ransom of $1,400 a week. I was upgraded accommodation-wise from the Tokyo Green Hotel to the Hyatt Regency and upgraded opponent-wise from kickboxers and Pandas to real wrestlers.
Two of them were Jado and Gedo, who I’d met while they were making pennies working in Mexico. They’d followed Dragón’s path and gone to Mexico after being told they were too small for New Japan. They were also tremendous performers and were major contributors to the strengthening WAR junior division.
I got along well with them, because I could speak the legitimate language of Broken English. I learned Broken English by proxy because Jado and Gedo could speak decent English, but only understood certain words. For example, they didn’t know what a store was, but they knew what a shop was.
So if I said, “Would you guys like to spend the afternoon looking through the record store?” they wouldn’t get it. However, if I said “Maybe you me go CD shop?” they would nod in agreement. Once I figured out what words they understood,