A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [124]
I was sold.
There were always women involved in the wrestling business, but these knockouts were in a different league: Beulah, Francine, Woman, Miss Patricia, Lady Alexandria, Missy Hyatt; all of them drop-dead gorgeous.
I was blown away in particular by a tiny Asian girl named Kimona Wanaleia, who had one of the best bodies I’d ever seen. I couldn’t take my eyes off her to the point where I couldn’t concentrate on my work. It’s hard enough to put together a match as it is, never mind being in the middle of a Cinemax flick to boob...er boot.
It wasn’t just the girls who were distracting—the entire roster was a plethora of freaks and misfits. There were half a dozen guys walking around wearing tie-dye shirts and black-framed nerd glasses called the Dudleys. Their gimmick was that Mr. Dudley was a jobber (sorry Bubba) who’d spawned a whole brood of half-brothers with ricockculous names like Snot (my old SMF roommate Anthony), Spike, Bubba, Devon, Chubby, Big Dick, Sign Guy, and the Indian, Dances with Dudley.
There was an obese guy with a blue Mohawk, wearing a half shirt and short-shorts, named the Blue Meanie. While I appreciated the reference to the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, I thought it was the worst name for a wrestler ever. There was a fifty-year-old man with Captain Caveman hair and a Roman gladiator outfit named Salvatore Bellomo. Another guy called J. T. Smith had the gimmick of falling off the ropes and making mistakes in the ring, inciting the fans to chant, “You fucked up!”
The chant became J.T.’s legacy and you still hear it whenever a wrestler makes a mistake. I should know, as I’ve been the recipient of the dreaded chorus many times.
But the crowd loved a good chant and if they didn’t like what they were seeing, they would start up with “End this match!” If one of the girls did something dastardly, a rousing refrain of “She’s a crack whore” would sound throughout the building. If one of the heels did something evil, they would be greeted with “You suck dick!”
Fun for the whole family.
CHAPTER 41
CAN YOU DIG IT?
My victory over the Jericho Curse in ECW was short-lived when the bastard used Mapquest and found me during my second ECW match in Queens, New York. It was hard to believe that the New York City fans could be more brutal than the Pennsylvania brethren, but they were.
Paul booked me against RVD and wanted to use the match as our official TV debut. Rob and I had similar styles, similar size, and similar worldwide experience. He’d spent some time overseas and made a name for himself in Japan just as I had. But the match sucked worse than a toothless vampire. We were a step off on everything and there was no sign of the chemistry we’d had the night before. The fans turned on us, chanting “This match sucks,” “Please go home,” “End this match.” Even the dreaded “You fucked up” chant reared its ugly head when I screwed up a simple arm drag.
At the time neither of us realized how bad the match actually was. Paul claimed he couldn’t air it on TV because the tape in the camera was defective. It only took me five years to figure out that the tape was fine. It was the match that was defective.
A lot of the same fans from the Reading show were also in Queens and some of them had their own gimmicks. One guy brought his own signs and was one of the first fans to do so. Another wore the same straw hat and Hawaiian shirt at every show. Another dude with long black hair, beard, and black aviator shades looked exactly like Jim Martin the guitar player from Faith No More. All these guys sat in the exact same seat at every show.
The fans were a part of the ECW experience and they were proud to be a part of the revolution. The whole scene reminded me when I found the first Metallica record in Winnipeg in 1984 before they had any mainstream success.