A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [116]
It was weird working with Onita. I still felt screwed over because he owed me money and he’d never treated me with any respect when I worked for him. I talked to him briefly before the match and he claimed to remember me but I got the vibe that he was lying...again.
The finish of the match was booked to have me do the Lionsault onto Onita. But before I could get the win, Tenryu would make the save and Onita would pin me with his shitty Thunder Fire Power Bomb finish.
I went for the Lionsault, which I usually hit 9.9 times out of ten. But this time, I nailed Onita square in the face with my knees. Maybe he was out of position, maybe the ring lights hit me in the eye, or maybe it was a Freudian slip, but the bottom line was I knocked the bastard out cold.
I looked into his glazed eyes and I knew he was in Ra Ra Rand. I was in front of 10,000 fans and I’d just knocked out my former boss with my finishing move. Time stood still and a lil devil Jericho appeared on my shoulder saying, “Pin him! Pin him! If you get the clean win over Atsushi Onita, it will catapult you to superstardom! Plus the son of a bitch still owes you $200.”
A lil angel Jericho appeared on my other shoulder saying, “Christopher! Don’t you even dare. It’s so unprofessional and you’ll get fired. You’ll never work in Japan again!”
In the end I sided with the angel and as the ref counted to 2 I discreetly popped Onita’s shoulder up, making it seem like he’d kicked out of my pin. He was still dazed man walking, so I basically power-bombed myself and told him to pin me. That’s got to be the first time that someone has been owed money and beaten himself up.
After the match, I was admiring my pumped-up post-match physique in the mirror when the Warlord walked behind me. He was so huge that he made me look like Nicole Richie in comparison.
I said to myself, “Why bother,” and grabbed a donut.
The Warload was obsessed with eating an exact amount of carbs, calories, and proteins per day. The more he came to Japan, the harder it was for him to adapt to the schedule and the available cuisine. Most of WAR’s shows ended by 9 P.M. and in the smaller towns everything closed at eight. We’d have to eat Bento boxes (boxed lunches) or stop at convenience stores. It was an acquired skill, but I’d learned how to get a decent meal at Lawson’s Station. Each night I enjoyed a hearty dinner of boiled eggs, giant pear apples, bottled water, and cookies.
But the Warload would have none of it and demanded steak every night. Unfortunately it was almost impossible to get a steak at that time. As the bus drove down the darkened roads in the middle of the night, he never stopped grumbling, “I want a fucking steak. I need a steak. I’m a big guy, I’m supposed to eat a steak. This is inhumane treatment.” It didn’t take long for the humor of watching such a big man acting like a such a baby to get old. We turned up the volume of the Kim Duk movie and ignored him.
The next morning he’d get on the bus bragging, “Well, I had a taxi drive me all over the city until five A.M. and even though I had to spend 100 bucks, I got my steak.” He’d look around proudly like we were going to be jealous of his lucky break.
The Load was always bragging about how much he could eat. When they let us into the Shabu-Shabu buffets (most buffet restaurants in Japan had signs saying “No Sumo or Wrestlers”) the Loadster would lose control and eat for an hour. One night I mentioned that I could eat more plates of food than he could, which to him was akin to calling his mother a whore.
I could sense he was outraged, so I made it official and challenged him. We started dipping the Shabu-Shabu meat into the boiling