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I was nervous about my choice because choosing a name is like choosing the side of the bed in a relationship—once you pick one, you’re stuck for life. And the situation got more stressful when it came time to pronounce my new moniker to Lance, the great communicator.

So I took a deep breath and announced that my name was going to be Chris Jericho. Surprisingly, Ed and Lance smiled and said it had a nice ring to it. I was proud of my marketing genius and decided to give myself a hero cookie. Lance proclaimed that he would now be known as Lance T. Storm. Ed pointed out that the T. was his idea and stood for THUNDER...as if it could’ve stood for anything else. From the look on Ed’s face you would’ve thought he’d just discovered the cure for fucking cancer, but whatever.

However, Ed also had a name idea for me. He was going to call me Cowboy Chris Jericho from Casper, Wyoming. I kept a poker face as my throat swelled like an erection. I didn’t like country music, I didn’t like cowboys, and I sure as hell didn’t like Casper, Wyoming! (Now that I’ve been there, I’d like to say that Casper is a nice town filled with nice people.)

“You’re going to be Cowboy Chris Jericho. You’ll come to the ring with chaps and a cowboy hat.” What, no lasso?

I’d gone from Vince Neil to the Village People in the space of two minutes.

I was irate when I spoke to Bret Como, who I’d met at the Hart camp, and told him Ed’s idea. But he’d been around a bit and gave me some advice. “Just don’t do it,” he said.

Just don’t do it...words of wisdom! I didn’t realize that I had a choice.

So I told Ed, “I just don’t feel comfortable with it. It’s not me and I don’t want to do it.” His reaction proved that Ed really hadn’t been around the wrestling business much. If I was in charge with fifteen years experience under my belt and some punk kid with ZERO matches under his belt said no to one of my suggestions, I would’ve fired him on the spot. Or I would’ve turned him into the most ridiculous cowboy of all time; I’m talking Dumb and Dumber cowboy hat, assless chaps, the works. Instead, Ed respected my wishes.

Sort of.

Ed and Puppets had decided that for our first match Lance and I would work against each other and Victor wouldn’t wrestle, but would serve as Lee Barachie’s manager. Vic wanted to save the moneymaking Dr. Love gimmick for his wrestling debut and was stumped in trying to think of a manager’s name. I saw his driver’s license and noticed that his full given name was Victor Benson Cyril DeWilde. Just like Rick Fliehr and Rick Roode, Vic had been born with the ultimate wrestling name. So he got himself a suit and a neck brace (which he wore for no apparent reason) and became Lee Barachie’s stuck-up, snotty manager Benson Cyril.

Now that we had solved the name problem, the next order of business was to get actual wrestling boots, as simple tennis shoes wouldn’t suffice any longer. I was looking forward to getting a pair of the shiny, patent leather beauties that all of my favorites wore. Instead Ed took us to a cobbler friend who made us boots out of a flimsy soft leather that flipped and flopped all over the place. I had to put rolled-up magazines inside just to keep them standing straight up. I’d also made the controversial decision to order black boots instead of white, as my idea was to have a yellow and black costume like Stryper, who were famous for their yellow and black threads.

“You can’t have black boots,” Ed said, horrified. “You’re going to be a good guy, a babyface. If you walk to the ring wearing black boots, everyone is going to think you’re a bad guy and boo you.”

It was an old-time tradition that babyfaces wore white, but white didn’t fit my gimmick, man! Once again, I held my ground and told Ed that I was going with the black boots. I hadn’t even had my first match, but I was already a pain in the ass for my boss. This was a trend that would continue for most of my career.

After a short debate Ed eventually gave in again.