A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [138]
Hall’s comments were indicative of the nWo’s overall attitude as they were being paid millions and had turned into massive prima donnas. One night in Tupelo, Mississippi, there was a problem with the arena sound system and the intro music wouldn’t play. Hall and Nash started complaining loudly that it was JoJo (their special term for something bush-league) and refused to go to the ring.
“In New York, there was always music. Isn’t this supposed to be the big time? This is JoJo. If there’s no music we’re not going to the ring.”
They were wrestling against Sting and Randy Savage and after a few minutes of nonstop, Warload-type bitching, Savage said, “Listen, I don’t give a shit if there’s music or not, I’m going to the ring.”
Sting agreed and they walked to the ring without another word. Savage was one of the biggest stars in WWF history and he didn’t think the lack of music was JoJo. Hall and Nash reluctantly followed, bitching and complaining all the way to the ring.
After the show Eddy, Chris, Dean, and I were driving out of town, having a few post-match beers in the car. Eddy had to take a leakus and when we pulled over, we were right next to the house Elvis Presley had grown up in. We knew because there was a big placard in the front yard advertising the fact. Eddy decided to piss in the bushes lining Elvis’s house as a tribute. We all started laughing when Eddy, in the midst of his stream of consciousness, looked up and said, “Fuck Elvis! Who did he ever beat?”
I guess the King didn’t play in El Paso.
CHAPTER 45
INDIAN CASTE SYSTEM
After floating around with no direction for the first few months of my tenure, Sullivan told me that I was finally going to be put into a story line.
“That’s tremendous,” I said with excitement. “Who’s it going to be with? Eddy Guererro? Ric Flair? Randy Savage?”
“Nick Patrick,” he replied.
Nick Patrick was a referee.
I’d worked all over the world to make it to the big time and my first angle was going to be against a referee. How low can you go?
It got worse when Sullivan told me that I was going to be managed in the feud by Teddy Long. Personally, Teddy was a great guy and a great performer but the problem was at the time Teddy’s protégés lost most of their matches. As soon as Sullivan aligned him with me, I knew I was screwed. I was battling a referee in a one-arm-tied-behind-my-back match with Typhoid Teddy as my mentor.
Shawn Michaels never had it so good.
Things fell apart during the big match, when the rope tying my arm behind my back came loose and I had to pretend it was still securely fastened. It didn’t matter anyway as the announcers hardly commented on the bout—they were too busy plugging the nWo.
The social aspects of WCW were equally as disheartening. The locker room was infested with politics and cliques (great title for a rap song), and the office gave special treatment to the powerful ones. Hogan and Savage had their own dressing rooms and didn’t really talk to anybody else. Hall and Nash were in their own little unit and acted above everyone. Other guys like Scott Steiner, DDP, Paul Wight, and Booker T later became my friends, but within the WCW environment they seemed uptight and defensive. Booker even balked at working with Dean, Eddy, and me, complaining, “I ain’t no cruiserweight,” as if he would get leprosy from touching us.
There wasn’t a lot of cross-pollination among the cliques. It was almost like regressing to high school, where you had to be careful about who you talked to and where you sat in the lunch room. Once I sat down in catering at Hogan’s table and he looked at me like I’d just whipped him in the face with my Jack Johnson. Maybe I should’ve; it would’ve given him no choice but to talk to me.
The booking of the matches worked the same way. The guys who made a certain amount of money worked almost exclusively with each other. There was a level that you were placed at and it was