A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [131]
I’m proud to say I fought in ECW and serving my tour of duty there helped take me to the big time.
Unfortunately making it to the big leagues of WCW almost killed my love for the wrestling business, in the same way that working in the minor leagues of ECW had intensified it.
PART NINE ATLANTA
CHAPTER 43
DOOMED FROM THE START
After the Peace Festival, it didn’t take long to set up a meeting with Bischoff in Atlanta. There would be no Flair-style runaround this time.
WCW had recently taken the ratings lead over the WWF, so if things went well with Eric I would be working for the biggest wrestling company in the United States.
A few days after I’d received a plane ticket to Atlanta in the mail, I got a call from WCW booker Kevin Sullivan. He sounded almost annoyed, like he’d been forced to call me.
“Eric wants to fly you in for a tryout.”
Sullivan spoke in a thick Boston accent and came off like a total dick. He arrogantly told me that he wanted to book me for a tryout so he could take a look at what I could do. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was already flying to Atlanta in a few days to negotiate a long-term contract with the boss.
Tryout? I don’t need no stinking tryout.
In retrospect, Sullivan’s call was an early warning about how the communication between the people in charge of WCW worked. The left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing or what it was hiring.
WCW was owned by Ted Turner and its offices were housed in the CNN Center along with TBS’s and TNT’s offices. WCW didn’t arrange a ride from the airport, so I took the MARTA (subway) to my meeting with the multimillion-dollar corporation.
Eric wasn’t ready when I arrived, so I was told to wait with Paul Orndorff. Paul was working behind the scenes in WCW after being one of Hulk Hogan’s main WWF rivals in the 1980s as Mr. Wonderful.
He was friendly to me but I must’ve gotten him on a good day, because the rest of the office referred to him as Oscar the Grouch. He was full of advice and his first suggestion seemed of utmost importance to him: I had to get a flashy robe to wear to the ring for my matches. Apparently Paul was quite morose about the lack of flashy robes currently being worn in the business.
At least it was better than a loincloth.
When Eric finally arrived he was brash and arrogant; a tougher John Davidson, wearing jeans, cowboy boots, and a leather jacket. His outfit seemed far too casual an ensemble for the head of a multimillion-dollar company.
When we went to eat at a sports bar in the concourse of the towers, I started second-guessing my abilities. I was here to sign a contract and I’d never done any negotiating before—at least not at this level—so I wasn’t very confident about the process.
WCW was spending a lot of money to get the upper hand in its nasty ratings war with the WWF. Both companies aired live shows head-to-head on Monday nights and were pulling out all the stops to get the advantage. Bischoff had taken the lead by masterminding one of the greatest wrestling angles of all time (which he had lifted from Japan): the nWo invasion.
He’d convinced two of the WWF’s top stars, Diesel and Razor Ramon, to jump to WCW and threaten to take over the company. They became the first members of the nWo and were causing chaos (on screen and off) to a huge response from the fans and were on the verge of bringing in their new secret third member. During our lunch I asked him like a mark, “So, who’s the third member going to be?”
He looked at me with a smirk and said, “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
DOH! I was trying to get a job in the company and here I was asking questions like a twelve-year-old fan. I should’ve asked Eric for his autograph while I was at it. There went fifty grand in Jericho salary down the toilet.
I wanted to grab the words and shove them back down my throat, but I still couldn’t get off the topic.
“I’m sure that WWF owns the names Razor Ramon and Diesel. So what are you going to call them?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Eric said. “But if worse comes