A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [128]
He applied the same last-minute fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants routine for most aspects of the promotion. I’d see him scribbling matches on a napkin for a show that was already in progress. All of the wrestlers would be dressed and on call to go on whenever he called our names.
Once as the first match of the show was already taking place, he said, “Chris, you’re on in the third match against Mikey Whipwreck.”
“Paul, Mikey’s wrestling in the ring right now.”
“How ’bout Too Cold Scorpio? Is he out there? If not, you guys are on third,” Paul replied without blinking an eye.
I used my ongoing WAR tours to develop a foolproof way to impress the girls. I simply called them from Japan and just like Frank Costanza stopping short, it was my best move. It worked every time.
“How are you doing? I’m just hanging out in Tokyo and I thought of you.” You could practically hear the helpless female melting on the other end of the line.
I used my best move on the lovely Kimona and it dazzled her so much, I started dating her. She became my ECW girlfriend, which was a better bonus than the twenty-five bucks Paul was giving me.
She made me a proud boyfriend indeed at the Arena one night when she saved the show after the ring broke.
Somehow during one of the matches, the ring just fell apart. There was a long delay while the crew tried to figure out how to repair it and the sold-out crowd was getting restless. Paul could sense a mutiny in the air so he told Kimona (who shockingly was a stripper) to go onto the balcony above the ring and perform a striptease. It took some convincing, but Paul poured a keg full of Kool-Aid over her and she finally agreed.
The lovely Kimona proceeded to calm the unruly mob with one of the sexiest erotic dances I’ve ever seen. I was watching her performance with Terry Gordy, who was one of the best big-man wrestlers of all time until a drug overdose left him with permanent brain damage. He stood next to me watching Kimona’s display of artistic expression with a huge wad of tobacco in his mouth and said, “I ain’t never seen nothing like this at no wrestling match.”
Neither had I, but Paul made sure to give everyone the opportunity to see it by peddling the tape on the ECW TV show for the next five years.
A friend of mine in Los Angeles called me the next day to ask me about Kimona’s famous dance. During the conversation, he mentioned an upcoming wrestling show that piqued my interest. Antonio Inoki, the boss of New Japan, was promoting the World Peace Festival, which featured wrestlers from Japan, Mexico, and the United States. WCW had a working relationship with New Japan and was planning to send some wrestlers from the company, including Benoit. I had a gut feeling that it would be in my best interest to be on that show, so I made a few calls to some of the local L.A. promoters I’d worked for and weaseled my way onto the card.
I was hoping to use the show as a tryout for New Japan, but it ended up leading me into an entirely different direction.
I met up with Chris at a party held the night before the festival and he insisted on introducing me to Eric Bischoff. Chris and I had worn suits to the party and even though we stood out like sore thumbs among the other guys, I was dressed for success when I met Eric.
Benoit had passed my Dragón match tape around the WCW higher-ups and Eric had seen it. Two sentences into our conversation, he cut me off and said, “Benoit has been recommending you like crazy and that’s enough for me. Do you want to come work for me in WCW?”
And that was it.
After years of toiling away in foreign countries, high school gyms, bowling alleys, and bingo halls, I’d finally been given the golden ticket to work in the United States.
“Here’s my number, call my secretary. We’ll arrange a meeting and make a deal.”
I couldn’t believe how quickly it had transpired. Granted, Bischoff was signing anybody with potential to prevent