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Kevin Sullivan gave me the absolute worst finish that a debuting 1996 babyface could not have asked for. He wanted us to have a back-and-forth match, culminating with Alex jumping off the top rope at me on the floor. I would move out of the way and he would land on the barricade, leaving himself incapacitated. But instead of standing over my injured opponent screaming in victory, I was supposed to roll out of the ring and help him up.

The guy who once wrestled with a broken arm and beat a man with a punch to the face was going to make sure his opponent was okay.

The match would end with the both of us getting counted out because I refused to accept such a cheap win.

Bobby Heenan was on commentary and said, “What a stupid move Jericho just made. You’ve got to take the wins any way you can in the big leagues. Why didn’t he want the victory?” He wasn’t wrong.

Bischoff was also announcing, but he defended my decision.

“Chris Jericho is a stand-up human being. He plays by the rules and he wouldn’t dream of taking a victory that way. He’s a good kid.”

Sickening I know. Each one of his words buried me deeper.

Even Heenan realized how shamelessly Eric was putting me over.

“Did you co-sign a loan for this kid?”

The squeaky-clean babyface might’ve worked a decade earlier, but it was now the wrestling version of rat poison: sure to induce vomiting.

To make matters worse, I did an interview with Mean Gene Okerlund directly after the match to explain my actions.

“I didn’t want to win the match that way, Mean Gene. Hulk Hogan and the nWo would take a win like that, but not me.”

Instead of focusing on myself, I had to talk about how the nWo were a bunch of meanies. Another total self-burial. In eight minutes, I’d portrayed myself as a goody-two-shoes who would rather talk about Hulk Hogan than himself. Who in their right mind would get behind a loser like that?

Not the WCW office, that’s fer damn sure.

Despite the fact that Eric seemed to be high on me (Terry Taylor flat-out told me, “The boss digs you”), the rest of the booking team seemed to be digging me into a hole. My suspicions were confirmed when I had my first ever PPV match against Chris Benoit at Fall Brawl ’96.

I knew Chris and I could tear the house down like we had at the J Cup, but my bubble burst like a pimple when Sullivan told us that the match should be structured 80 percent for Benoit and 20 percent for me.

It made no sense to book any important match that way, never mind one featuring the debut of a guy “the boss digs.” Maybe Sullivan didn’t like the fact that he’d looked stupid by calling me for a tryout after I’d already been hired by the boss. Maybe it was because he was about to start an angle with Chris and wanted him to look strong. Either way, he killed my morale dead.

Chris and I ignored Sullivan’s order and had a good back-and-forth match anyway. Afterward, Sullivan said, “It was a good match, but you got in way too much offense.”

Was I supposed to be the next Shawn Michaels or the next Barry Horowitz?

Things continued to get worse on my first loop of house shows. I was booked against Jerry Lynn and with none of the time constraints imposed at the TV taping, we were having good matches. They must have been too good because I was approached by Scott Hall.

“Listen, you guys are going way too long and doing too much stuff during your matches. Nobody is paying a dime to see you, so you shouldn’t be out there for twenty minutes. Do a short match and hit the showers,” he said arrogantly and sauntered away.

I was furious. Was he Scott Mascaras? He didn’t like the fact that we were working hard and he had to follow us. Except his name value was a million times bigger than mine so he didn’t have to do much to get a reaction. But in my case, hard work was all I had because nobody knew who in the hell I was. The nWo could’ve cared less about match quality but that’s all I did care about and I wanted to slap him in the face for dissing me.

Benoit was as mad as I was. “It’s not his place to say that. He’s just pissed because he’s lazy and wants us