A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [37]
“Ha! You just drank a Penis Colada,” Rudy said as Cluck guffawed with the rest of the gang. “We got you! We got you with the Penis Colada!” I would have gone postal and kicked the crap out of everyone and their coladas, but this guy just laughed and said with a sheepish grin, “The Penis Colada...oh you got me again!”
Again?
AGAIN?
When a commercial aired for the upcoming big show, the whole room hushed up as everyone watched intently. When it ended, the room exploded out of their chairs jumping up and down like the clock had just struck twelve on New Year’s Eve. Then they lined up to give Christopher Love a high-five, laughing and screaming to each other while he stood there with a proud knowing look on his face.
I was sitting on the couch trying to make sense of the ridiculosity, when I felt a pair of hands in my hair. I turned around to see that the hands belonged to Christopher Love. When I asked him what the hell he was doing, he told me, “I’m just playing with your hair.”
I bit my tongue and suggested in no uncertain terms that it would probably be better if he stopped. His whole demeanor changed and he waddled (awesome word) off in a huff.
The next day, Zebra called us at our hotel to say that there were too many guys on the show and since Christopher thought I was too green, I was the first one eliminated. Just like Celebrity Duets. We all agreed that I was cut because I balked at Love’s hair fondling. But the three of us had come down together with the promise of a booking and that’s what the three of us expected to get. We’d arrived as a team and we decided to cut our losses and get the hell out of Dodge (or should I say Wichita) as a team.
We stuck together when the chips were down, which was a unique situation in itself. Wrestling isn’t known as a business where you make a lot of trustworthy true friends. But I made two that day.
My dad still points to that experience as a big reason why I always fought for what I believed in during my career.
CHAPTER 12
A HOT DOG AND A GLASS OF ORANGE JUICE
When we returned from Love Land, Mike got me a shot with the CNWA, the company that had formed from the ashes of Stampede Wrestling. They had two major pluses, in nationwide TV on TSN (the ESPN of Canada) and the announcing talents of the famous commentator Ed Whalen. Ed’s broadcasts were fairly corny but he was the voice of Stampede Wrestling and it was one of my major goals to have him announce one of my matches.
I made my TSN/CNWA debut with another ten-minute draw against Como. We had a decent match despite the white underwear that also made its debut on TSN by continually sticking out of the back of my yellow and black Stryper tights. The best part was watching the tape and hearing Ed Whalen call the match using his ricockulous catchphrases like, “There’s a malfunction at the junction” and “It’s a ring a ding dong dandy!” I don’t know what they mean either, but it was cool to hear Ed say them about me.
It was also a thrill when after the match, Ed looked directly into the camera and said, “I like this Jericho kid.” Since the match was shown across Canada, my friends and family got to see me wrestle for the first time and Ed’s endorsement not only gave me instant credibility, but also gave people the idea that my name was the Jericho Kid.
Backstage, it was the first time I’d ever dealt with an actual booker and a TV run sheet that listed the down-to-the-minute details. The booker was Bulldog Bob Brown, who’d wrestled for Stampede for years and was the biggest star I’d met so far. He didn’t look like much with his crew cut, big gut, chicken legs, and jug handle ears, but I’d watched him for years on Stampede so he was okay in my book—at that point anyway.
I did well enough that I was invited back the next week and a few weeks after that I brought Lance in to work with me as Sudden Impact. In our first week we had to do our first televised interview