A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [21]
Ed had rented a large room in the back of the center and when we walked inside the first thing I noticed was the honest to goodness real wrestling ring set up in the middle. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Deb (who’d just butchered her hair when she’d attempted to “cut the roots out” of her dyed blond lid) gasp in amazement. It was like seeing the Taj Majal up close...an amazing, legendary structure. The room itself was just a big empty space that smelled of stale coffee, like a church gymnasium after a bake sale, with a low roof and a few mats scattered on the floor. There were bathrooms on each side where you could change and that, my friends, was about it. But there was an actual ring and that’s all that mattered!
We were absorbing the surroundings when Keith Hart walked through the door. My heart began pounding because this was an actual Hart brother from the actual Hart wrestling dynasty and he was here to teach us how to wrestle! Even though we’d met the year before when I was a mere civilian, since I had officially started my career Keith and I were now on the same level. I wondered if he would remember how impressed he was with my awesome tryout twelve months earlier and invite me out for a beer after class to exchange stories of the road. Or maybe he would take me under his wing and make me into an honorary Hart brother...
I was zapped out of dreamyland when Keith’s first words were, “I’ll need to get everybody’s money before we go any further.”
Then he passed out contracts for us to sign that stated we had to pay 10 percent of all future pro wrestling earnings to Hart Brothers Pro Wtestling. Yeah, it said Wtestling. But if we didn’t sign them, Keith said we couldn’t continue on, so I signed the contract even though it was under duress. There was never another mention of the 10 percent, but it didn’t matter anyway because I would’ve signed away my unit for the chance to wrestle. Quite frankly, some girls I knew might have thought I already had.
I don’t remember much of Keith’s introductory spiel because I was so in awe of the whole situation, but it was along the lines of, “There are no guarantees that you’re going to make it, but if you work hard and train hard maybe you will,” blah, blah, blah, that type of thing. Then he asked us if we had any questions and the Chris tradition of asking stupid questions upon first meeting continued when I blurted out, “How many matches have you had?” Keith got an annoyed look on his face and said he had no idea. How could he not know? And there was no real way to find out. If I wanted to know how many games Wayne Gretzky played in the NHL I could look it up in a record book, but there were no such record books around for wrestling. I decided right then and there that I was going to keep a list of every match I ever had and from my first match on October 2, 1990, against Lance, until my one thousand eight hundred and seventy-seventh match on August 22, 2005, against John Cena, I did.
Then Keith said, “I want everyone to get into the ring and we’ll go over a couple things.” I couldn’t believe Keith’s invitation. I’d never been in a wrestling ring as a professional and I wasn’t sure I was worthy. I slowly pulled myself onto the ring apron, stepped through the ropes, and stood on the hallowed ground. The ring was solid and sturdy yet it bounced ever so slightly as each one of the students entered. Even though I hadn’t had one minute of training, the ring welcomed and embraced me like a new lover. It was where I belonged.
With all of us in the ring, Keith asked a couple of the guys to do a forward roll and showed another how to take a basic back bump to the mat. Then out of nowhere, he grabbed me and said, “Take a back drop, Gear Box.” I didn’t question him or his lame insult, but I was freakin’ out when he backed me to the ropes and pushed me off.
To just throw a novice off the ropes