A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [134]
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
It’s the Jericho Curse bitch!
The match went over like a dump in church. It was a horrible, red reels debut and everyone knew it. Except me.
The chastising began the moment I walked through the curtain where Paul Orndorff was waiting for me. “Dammit boy, you need a fancy ring robe with gems and sequins sewn on it!”
Then I saw Terry Taylor, who was famous for being blunt, maybe too much so. “Wow did that ever suck. Was that your first match ever? It was terrible. What were you trying to accomplish?”
“Since I was winning the match, I wanted to make J.L. look good in the process,” I said defensively.
“That match wasn’t for him. It was for you to show what you can do and from the looks of things, you can’t do much. I don’t even know if we can even show it on TV.”
Ouch!
Terry was furious and I’d fumbled the ball badly. In my defense, the booking committee knew it was my first match in the company and that I’d been working Japanese-style, but they still sent me out to sink or swim on my own with no tips or advice.
It was typical of a larger problem that existed in WCW—nobody was on the same page. Terry Taylor was one booker, Kevin Sullivan was another, and others like Hulk Hogan (who ended up being the mystery third member of the nWo), Hall, and Nash did whatever they wanted to do no matter what the bookers said. Bischoff was supposed to be in charge of it all, but he was a marionette that did whatever Hogan and his lackeys puppeteered him to do. It was hard to tell who the boss really was.
The disorganization continued when Terry decided that he wanted me to go to Orlando the next day for the TV tapings the company did at Universal Studios. I’d flown from Winnipeg to Dalton for one day, so I only had one change of clothes and one pair of tights. Since the Orlando tapings lasted for two weeks, I was unprepared for such a long stay.
Terry decided it was best for me to fly back to Winnipeg, grab my stuff, and come back to Florida. But the comedy of errors continued when I told him that I didn’t live in Winnipeg and my stuff was actually in Calgary.
So I flew from Atlanta to Winnipeg, arriving at twelve noon, kissed my mom goodbye, drove fourteen hours back to Calgary, arriving at 3 A.M., turned down the only official booty call I’ve ever been offered, grabbed my stuff, and got back on a plane to Orlando at 7 A.M. All because they decided they needed me in Orlando with one day’s notice, even though I’d been with the company for a month and they could have booked me weeks in advance.
YaskY.
CHAPTER 44
BASKETBALL HIGHLIGHTS #12
The tapings in Orlando were for the syndicated World Wide Wrestling program that ran in smaller markets around the world. The show was at the bottom of the totem pole for the company and was devoid of all the top stars.
But WCW boasted a huge roster so there were still over 100 contracted wrestlers hanging around the backstage area of the Universal Studios lot. It looked like a casting call for One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest 2—Electric Boogaloo.
There were a lot of familiar faces in the mass of misfits, including Tonga/Haku (who had now become Meng), Eddy Guerrero, Horace Boulder, and Chris Benoit. When I saw Benoit I could tell he wasn’t happy. He pulled me into a corner and said, “What the fuck happened in Dalton? Terry told me that you stunk the joint out. The word is already going around that you aren’t any good.”
I didn’t think my performance was that bad and I was surprised to hear such a harsh opinion had developed after only one match. I thought I’d be given the chance to acclimate to the new style, but WCW employed far too many wrestlers to spoon-feed a nonheadliner like