A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [106]
On my first day of work, he introduced himself and thanked me for coming. Later on in the tour when I sneezed, he asked with concern, “Are you sick?” When I said no, he replied deadpan, “Oh, I thought for sure you were sick. Sick of watching Kim Duk’s movies...”
(Curious Author’s Note: I heard rumors that Tenryu had pearls implanted in his wiener, which was a Yakuza technique used to increase sexual pleasure. I never had the balls to ask him if it was true.)
The last match of the tour was a big show at Ryogoku, an 11,000-seat arena known as the Sumo Hall. Ryogoku was where all of the important sumo matches had been held for hundreds of years.
The Hall was a unique traditional Japanese venue; besides the chairs set up on the floor section there were no actual seats in the arena. There were only sections cordoned off by steel rails that held four people per section. The fans would sit cross-legged on the floor of their area and watch the show.
All of Tenryu’s big shows were held at Ryogoku and the draw to this one was a battle between WAR and New Japan. I was pitted against Super Strong Machine, a New Japan wrestler who’d worked for Stampede Wrestling as Sonny Two Rivers. I was nervous and Super Strong Machine kicked the shit out of me, but you know my mantra by now...I was taking him with me. I kicked him square in the face and set him up for my new patented move of jumping straight up onto the top rope and drop-kicking him off the apron. Just as I took off running, the referee wandered right in front of me and I totally blew the spot.
I’d been Mal Mason-ed!
But the match still got a couple pages of coverage in the magazines, which was always a watermark of whether something was good or not. There was a great shot of Machine dumping me on my head and another of me caving in the side of his face with a spin kick. When all else fails, just beat the shit out of each other I always say.
CHAPTER 34
YASKY
A few tours later, right after I was asked to be a regular for WAR, I broke my arm in SMW. After using my amazing mental powers to heal myself, I was booked to return to Japan. Even though I wasn’t completely healed, I’d already been forced to miss one tour because of my arm and there was no way I was going to miss another one.
While I had to endure the long flight from L.A. to Tokyo in a middle seat of the smoking section, I was happy to get the upgrade for the Calgary–L.A. leg of the trip. I was even happier when I boarded the plane and sat down next to Owen Hart.
Owen was the guy that had made me want to be a wrestler in the first place and I’d drawn pictures of the two of us as tag team champions. Our paths had crossed a few times and while he was always friendly, I’d never had the chance to have a true one-on-one conversation with him. He told me that he was on his way to a WWF pay-per-view that day in L.A. and his brother Bret had given him shit for not leaving the night before.
“An extra night with my family at home is worth the possibility of missing the PPV,” he explained. It turned out that we had a lot in common and we started sharing stories about working in Mexico and Germany.
Three and a half hours later we were suddenly in L.A. I apologized for talking his ear off, but he said, “No man, it was great getting to know you a little bit.” I walked off the plane grinning ear to ear because he was even nicer than I’d expected him to be. Now I just had to figure out a way to become Owen’s tag team partner.
My first match back from my broken arm was in Tokyo against my old buddy Vampiro, who was so saccharine friendly to my face that I felt like I was choking on cotton candy. I was past the point in my career where