A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [107]
I was wearing a soft cast on my still healing arm since I’d rushed the recovery but the doctor told me I’d be okay to wrestle as long as I avoided taking a blow directly on the break. So I asked Vamp to do me a favor and stay away from my metal plate.
He agreed and did this annoying bow that he’d starting doing, thinking he was ingratiating himself with the Japanese. Instead he just looked like he had a nervous twitch. He should’ve just played X for his ring music, since it had worked so well for me in FMW.
Vamp considered himself something of a martial arts expert at this point and wore Muay Thai shorts in the ring to prove it. He based the majority of his offense around a variety of kicks that he had no idea how to do properly. He made that apparent when his first move of the match was to kick me directly in my bad arm. The pain spread like panic and he said, “Whoops, I was aiming for your ribs.”
The rib was on me for trusting him.
Out of the ring, it wasn’t long before Vamp was resorting to the same bullshit he’d tried to pull on me in Mexico.
A few days into the tour, I got a call to meet up with Tenryu after the matches. When I arrived at the Lobby bar, Tenryu wasted no time in asking me, “I’m very happy with your work and I just want to make sure that you’re happy working for my company.”
I was a little taken aback and assured him that I was indeed very happy. “Of course I am. Why would you even ask?”
“Well, I went out for drinks with Vampiro a couple of nights ago and he told me that you didn’t like coming to Japan. He said you weren’t happy here and were planning on walking out. Is that true?”
Meet the new ass, same as the old ass.
I assured Tenryu that nothing could be further from the truth and I was planning to work on as many WAR tours as he wanted me to. Then I spared no detail in telling him about my experiences with Vampiro and I made sure to let him know exactly what I thought of him. When the dust settled, the final score was Jericho—twenty-four tours with Tenryu’s company, Vampiro—four tours. I guess lil old Lion Heart won that WAR.
Later in our conversation Tenryu brought up an interesting proposition. Since I was going to be working for him on a monthly basis, I’d have to fly back and forth to Japan every few weeks. He wanted to remedy that and asked me if I would consider moving to Japan for six months to live in the WAR dojo.
A dojo is a combination school and training center, where all the young boys (rookies) lived and trained to become wrestlers. Not every Western wrestler would have wanted to live in Japan—most guys either loved it or hated it. It wouldn’t be easy to adapt to the ways of life in a completely different culture but I was intrigued and honored by the proposition.
A major reason I was especially interested in the idea was that Benoit had lived and trained at the New Japan dojo for six months. I had a lot of questions, so I decided to call Chris and ask for his advice.
When he answered after a few rings, I almost hung up the phone like a high school kid calling a girl for a date. But cooler heads prevailed and I introduced myself, “Hi, this is Chris Jericho (My name’s Chris too!) and I’m calling you from Calgary. I met you at the Stampede reunion show a few years ago.”
His response was curt and cold. I’m sure he got calls from wrestling wannabes all the time. So I got right to the point and told him that I’d been offered a chance to live in Japan for six months.
His tone immediately changed. Not too many wrestling wannabes got the chance to live and train in Japan so that gave me instant credibility. Without hesitation, Benoit highly recommended that I do it and the conversation was a turning point in my life. It not only fired me up about wanting to work in Japan full-time, but it also was the beginning of one of the best friendships I’ve ever had in the wrestling business.
I had so much respect for Benoit that I developed