A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [126]
He might as well have finished up with, “Can You Dig It?”
I looked around and saw that this ragtag bunch of misfits were ready to kill for Paul E. at that point—and I was one of them.
Paul was Jim Jones disguised as a wrestling promoter and he had just served us a Big Gulp full of Kool-Aid. I drank it down like a fine wine and was more fired up for that match than any other in my life. I was determined to make Reverend Paul E. proud of my performance.
I took it to Taz with my Japanese stiff offense and when the big moment arrived, I suplexed the War Machine right off his feet. The crowd erupted with astonishment and surprise. They knew it was no coincidence that both Taz and ECW had allowed me to do that. Then, at the apex of my domination, Taz got behind me and returned the favor by suplexing me literally right on the top of head. He followed up by putting me in his katahajime submission finish (a judo choke hold), guaranteeing his victory.
But my subtle push continued when I didn’t tap out. The story was that the suplex was so vicious, it had knocked me out cold. But I’d shown incredible fighting spirit in taking Taz to the limit and the fans accepted me as a member of the family. Paul’s plan had worked.
Taz continued to apply his submission until the locker room emptied to try to save me. He murdered a few job guys, until Brian Pillman, a huge star who’d been one of my Stampede heroes, ran into the ring. Pillman distracted Taz long enough for me to get rolled onto a stretcher.
As I was being carted down the aisle, a fan leaned over the rail and said, “Hey Jericho ya faggot, why doncha go work in New York!” I guess not everyone in the Arena was ready to bake me a hero cookie.
The comment reminded me of a story my dad told me from when he was playing with the Rangers in the old Chicago Stadium. The arena had a staircase leading from the dressing room up to the ice and as he was climbing the steps a fan yelled, “Hey Irvine ya faggot, why doncha go back to New York!”
Same asshole, different Irvine.
As the stretcher took me through the curtain (where I was greeted by an ecstatic Paul E.) I saw Pillman rebuke Taz’s challenge and jump over the rail into the arms of Philadelphia Eagle lineman Harry Boatswain. It fit Pillman’s character to play the unorthodox chickenshit coward because it seemed like he’d gone completely insane in real life...or had he?
He was working in ECW after leaving WCW, where Pillman had convinced everyone in WCW that he’d gone crazy, to the point of conning WCW boss Eric Bischoff into firing him and legally letting him out of his contract. But he still kept showing up in the crowd at WCW events, causing disturbances on live TV and leading the fans and everyone in the company to think he’d lost his marbles. But it wasn’t just for the shows—he was playing crazy all the time.
He’d shown up in ECW to continue the elaborate work and perfect his loony act. He was also doing an excellent job of convincing everyone that he’d lost it. He’d shown up at the Arena that day with his pants falling down from not having a belt. He went around to everyone in the dressing room asking them if they had an extra belt (who doesn’t?) and ended up settling on a piece of twine.
Then out in the ring, the Sandman hit a jobber with his trademark kendo stick, knocking the guy loopy. The guy was obviously going to be fine, but that didn’t stop Pillman from running around the dressing room, jumping up and down and screaming like a crack-addicted monkey in his gravelly voice, “Call 911! Call 911! For the love of Christ somebody please call 911!”
He was completely overreacting as if the guy had been beheaded. But he wouldn’t stop and was making everyone in the room very uncomfortable, when right in the middle of his tirade with nobody looking, he gave me a wink.
I thought, “That guy is a genius. He’s working everybody.