A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [157]
That’s why I turned down Eric’s offer to join. After all of my bitching about not getting a fair shake it was crazy to say NO to the nWo, but bear with me, constant reader.
I was booked to win the WCW Television Title in Rapid City, South Dakota, which was a big deal for me on many levels. Winning the TV title would give me my ticket to ride out of cruiserweight purgatory and into big boy land.
But the decision for me to get the big win over champion Steve Ray was made a scant twenty minutes before Nitro went live to air.
Eric told me that the Giant was going to assist me with my victory and I would then join the nWo.
But the dilution of the nWo meant that the majority of the members never had anything to do. When they came to the ring for their weekly endless opening promo, there wasn’t enough room for all of them in the ring. They stood around laughing amongst themselves, knowing that they were rarely on camera because there were too many of them to be in one shot.
At that point, I was doing just fine on my own. I got interview time and segments that revolved around me. I was over despite the nWo’s dominance and I would only get less over and lost in the shuffle if I joined them. So I thought about it and respectfully told Eric my thoughts on his invitation.
“I think it would be cool, but I’ve got a good thing going and I don’t want to give that up by joining the nWo. I don’t want to ride on your coattails and I don’t want you guys to ride on mine.”
It was a brash statement, but Eric didn’t seem to care and he said, “If you don’t want to be in the nWo, that’s fine. But I still want the Giant to help you win the TV title so let’s keep the same finish. We’ll figure out why he helped you later.”
They never did. Hope that answers your question.
CHAPTER 50
DWARFBERG
My next program started as a joke and ended up sealing my fate in the company.
Bill Goldberg was an ex-NFL player who’d stumbled into WCW. But with unmatched charisma and presence, he quickly became one the biggest stars of the 1990s. WCW booked him perfectly when he entered on a tear and went on a huge winning streak. The Streak became more famous than the Ray Stevens song (dated reference number three) and the fans followed it with bated breath.
However, Goldberg would have to have been wrestling a Mexico City ten-match-a-week schedule to even come close to the number of matches they were claiming he’d won. One week he’d be 42-0 and seven days later he’d be 58-0. Did stepping on bugs count?
Despite that, he was totally believable as a destroyer and his gimmick of tearing his opponents apart and spitting them out in less than three minutes had the fans eating him up with a spoon. When he beat Hulk Hogan in front of 50,000 fans at the Georgia Dome to become the new WCW champion, he became the biggest star in the business.
That’s why I was surprised when I arrived at the Fall Brawl ’98 PPV show and Terry told me I was going to be wrestling Goldberg. I was the TV champion and I thought it was strange that they would feed me to Goldberg in a three-minute throwaway match.
But Terry explained that I wasn’t going to be facing the real Goldberg, but a midget version of him instead. I asked him why and he said, “No reason. I just thought you’d have some fun with it.”
So I challenged Goldberg to a title vs. title match in my typical over-the-top Paragon of Virtue (that should’ve been another T-shirt) fashion and out came a dwarf. He looked like a Goldberg who’d spent the night in a trash compactor, right down to the famous tribal tattoo. I beat Dwarfberg in three minutes to a chorus of boos and that was the end of it.
Except it was only the beginning.
The next day I showed up in Greenville, South Carolina, and saw Goldberg in the backstage area. He came up to me with fire in his eyes and a defiant grin and said,