A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [140]
He constantly trumpeted to anybody who would listen that Hogan and the nWo were the sole reason why WCW had pulled ahead of WWF in the ratings war. He never stopped to think that another reason may have been the hard work of the leprosy-afflicted cruiserweights.
Nobody in the mainstream audience had ever seen the style of matches that we were delivering on a consistent basis (sometimes for twenty minutes or more) on live TV. We were carrying the load and giving the fans tremendous performances while Hogan and the boys were stinking out the joint with theirs. In their arrogance, they’ll tell you that the people paid to see only them, and in my arrogance, I’ll tell you that the people walked away from the shows happier because of our hard work.
The overall bad attitude and lack of attention toward 80 percent of the roster was leading to mutiny. I saw it firsthand at a World Wide taping before a match I had with Mike Rotunda.
Alex Wright and a jobber named Hardbody Harrison were standing face-to-face. Hardbody had one of those Mr. T. bendable pump-up bars and was brandishing it like a weapon.
“I wanna be the heel,” he said in his Ebonics accent.
“No, I vant to be ze heel,” Alex said in his German accent.
They were arguing over who got to be the bad guy, like a couple of eight-year-old kids who both wanted to be Darth Vader. The argument escalated to a pushing match and was broken up by referee Peewee Anderson.
“Stup it! Who’s sposed ta bae the hee-ell?” Peewee said in his hick Georgia accent.
The scene had turned into a bad Dana Carvey routine, as the German, Ebonics, and bumpkin accents all blended into one. The comedy show continued when Alex wrenched the Mr. T. bar out of Hardbody’s hand and conked him over the head with it. Hardbody pitied the fool and jumped on Alex. The two of them rolled around on the floor engaged in the worst fight ever. Meanwhile, my ring music was playing and I had to tear myself away from the catfight to go have my stupid match. It was far less entertaining than the match that was already taking place backstage.
It wasn’t surprising that Hardbody had attacked Alex; he was in his own world anyway. He was constantly submitting weird angles and stories to the office, trying to get himself a push.
First he came up with the idea of painting his face and becoming Sting’s black nemesis, Stang. Then he came up with another beauty that had Diamond Dallas Page (DDP) bringing a special magic diamond crystal to the ring. Hardbody would attack him, steal the crystal, and drop it into a tank of piranhas. This chicanery would force DDP to jump into the piranha tank to retrieve the magic crystal, live on PPV. I would’ve paid to see that one.
Maybe I should’ve hired Hardbody to write an angle for me too, as I was grasping at straws to get noticed.
I tried to jazz up my ring entrance by throwing my back up against the guardrail, goading the fans to pat me on the back and get their faces on TV. I was sick of seeing babyfaces (like Lex Luger) slapping the fans’ hands and looking like they would rather be dipping their balls in hot pitch. Unfortunately for me, most of the fans who lined the barricades were guys, so when I vigorously threw myself at the rail it looked like I was trying to get groped by a bunch of dudes. Mission accomplished.
I also had another mission to accomplish by moving out of Canada. After avoiding it for a year it was time to leave Calgary as the flights were too long, the taxes were too steep, and Bischoff had been pressuring me to follow through on his original request.
I didn’t have to worry about getting a work visa in the U.S., because I was born in New York when my dad was playing with the Rangers.
But I did have to worry about finding a place to live and because of my hectic schedule I had no time to look for a place in Atlanta. I was able to convince Eric to let me move to Orlando (like he cared) and I