A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [161]
“I’ll go to the ring and call out Goldberg. Mean Gene can tell me that everyone knows he’s not in the building, including me. I’ll proceed to rip Bill a new asshole with insults. While I’m doing this, we’ll show Bill arriving at the arena on the ’Tron. I’ll be too wrapped up in my promo to notice him walking through the halls and into his dressing room, where he’ll see me on the monitor. I’ll finish my insults and leave the ring but when I’m walking down the aisle soaking up the adulation of the fans as if it’s for me, Bill walks out of the entrance and stands behind me. When I turn around, he spears the hell out of me halfway down the aisle. Then we wrestle at World War 3 and he destroys me in the most entertaining squash match of all time.”
Nobody said a thing and as the logic of my idea sank in both Bischoff and Hogan looked intrigued. But when Eric said he liked the idea, Hogan didn’t agree.
“I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of this, but if you think you can make it work, then try it and he can beat you at the PPV. But if it doesn’t work, Bill beats you next week and that’s the end of it.”
Everyone seemed happy until Goldberg said, “That’s all fine and dandy, but I’m supposed to have the next PPV off.”
Did anyone in this company give even a tiny squirt of a shit about the product?
With my plan approved, I went to the ring and buried Bill until Okerlund cut me off.
“Surely you don’t think you can beat Goldberg.”
“I do think I can beat Goldberg...and don’t call me Shirley.”
Airplane represent yo.
The crowd exploded when Goldberg showed up on the ’Tron. I left the ring waving and smiling like an idiot, only to turn around into the face of a pissed-off mountain of a man who’d had enough of the past two months of Jericho bullshit.
He fired up and speared the beBuddha out of me. On my twenty-eighth birthday no less.
I must’ve flown ten feet down the aisle and, to be honest, I deserved it. Goldberg had never dealt with someone so persistent and stubborn in the wrestling business before and I’m sure he was sick of looking at me. He took out his aggressions and completely annihilated me—and it was awesome.
Later in the night Hogan came looking for me in an area he usually dared not tread. The common locker room. It was the first time I’d seen him with the rest of us plebeians, but to his credit he came to give me props.
“Listen, brother, I just want to tell you that I was wrong and you were right. That was a great idea and it was great TV. I admire you for standing your ground.” I was pleasantly surprised; he didn’t have to say that. I’d spoken to him more in that one night than I had the prior two years combined and now he was apologizing to me. After that, we got along quite well. Told you I was friends with the Hulkster!
That week I came up with a plan for our squash match where I would wrestle in untied amateur shoes. When Goldberg speared me, I was going to kick them off and give people the illusion that he’d speared me clean out of my sneakers. Time for me to step off!
Of course when I showed up for TV the next week, the whole angle had been dropped and I started a one-week feud with Bobby Duncam Jr. I decided that day that my WCW career was officially over.
CHAPTER 51
NO TICKEE, NO LAUNDRY
I wanted out and I had less than a year left on my now signed contract. But there was a new problem because five months earlier I had verbally agreed to a new deal with Eric that was going to give me a substantial raise. Even though we verbally agreed to the deal and shook hands on it almost a half year earlier, I’d heard nothing about it since.
I knew that the deal was still on the table, but the lack of follow-up rubbed me the wrong way. If Hulk Hogan or Sting had agreed to a new deal, it would’ve been signed, sealed, and delivered before the day was done. It was initially a minor concern, but when the whole Goldberg situation went down I started second-guessing my decision.
The fact that I couldn’t even get a PPV squash with Goldberg showed me that WCW didn