A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [130]
“My brother-in-law?”
“Yes, Mr. Irvine. We were so sorry to hear about the passing of your brother-in-law.” I had neither a brother-in-law nor a sister.
Something was rotten in the state of Pennsylvania but I rolled with it, “Oh, yeah, yeah. I keep forgetting. I still can’t believe it.”
What I really couldn’t believe was Paul E. had flown me in on a bereavement fare and hadn’t told me.
The next weekend, I confronted him.
“Hey, the next time you’re going to fly me on a bereavement fare, can you at least tell me so I don’t blow my own cover and get arrested for fraud?”
Once again, Paul didn’t bat an eye as he pulled a doctor’s note pad out of his bag and said, “Did they hassle you? If they do, just give them this.”
Then he took a pen and wrote in his illegible chicken scratch:
To Whom It May Concern,
Thank you so much for your compassion during this horrible time. You have been so understanding and the Irvine family thanks you.
Sincerely,
Dr. Horowitz
Now he was adding medical fraud to his list of felonies.
I lost the title one month later in a four-way elimination match against Pitbull #2, Too Cold Scorpio, and Shane Douglas. Paul surprised the fans again by having the champion (yours rockingly) be the first guy eliminated.
It was another memorable night highlighted by my first ECW brawl through the crowd. The fans were famous for bringing their own weapons for the wrestlers to hit each other with and there was quite a selection. Nintendo consoles, cheese graters, muffin pans, pencil sharpeners, and even a fishing net. What kind of evil violence could I dish out with a fishing net? Was I expected to capture my opponent like a huge butterfly and put him into a giant jelly jar with holes cut into its massive lid?
My next weekend in ECW was my last and Paul had one last laugh when he booked bereavement fares for me and a Calgary wrestler named Johnny Smith. This time another brother-in-law had choked on a grape or something.
Just a tip, kids: Don’t ever think of marrying one of my sisters.
Johnny and I drove to the airport trying to figure out how we could have the same brother-in-law if we weren’t related. We surmised that we would have to be married to sisters whose brother had died.
After my last match in ECW against Too Cold Scorpio, the crowd in the Arena started chanting “Please don’t go.” I’d been spared the “You sold out,” chants because I think people were genuinely saddened at my departure. I know I was.
I had a tear in my eye as I grabbed the mike and cut an emotional promo praising the Arena, ECW, and all its fans. It was a genuinely bittersweet moment. If I could’ve stayed there forever and made good money in the process, I would’ve seriously considered it.
When I walked back through the curtain, Paul was standing there looking like he’d just lost his best friend. He gave me a hug like it was the end of an era...which it was.
I called Paul for advice many times afterward and he was always there for me—even though it took him forever to call me back.
A lot of people associate me with ECW and consider me an ECW guy. In reality, I only wrestled twenty-two matches for the company over the course of six months. But my connection to ECW isn’t solely based on the amount of time I spent there, but rather on the attitude that I exuded while I was with the company.
I was tailor-made for the fighting spirit that the company was built on and I had the true respect for the wrestling business that everybody in ECW shared. There was nobody in the company that had been drafted from another sport or was in the business to make a quick buck or to become famous. We were all there because we loved wrestling and believed in the company and in ourselves. That’s why it’s difficult to explain or to understand what ECW was all about