A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [43]
During my BAW time, I met a guy named Billy Anderson who had the dubious distinction of being the 500th best wrestler in Pro Wrestling Illustrated’s annual top 500 wrestlers issue. I struck up a friendship with him and his girlfriend, exchanged contact numbers, and parted ways.
A few weeks after I returned to Calgary, I got a call from Billy’s girlfriend, Rebecca, who had gone through his phone book while he was in the shower and stolen my number. She said she was enamored with me and just had to call. The situation got even weirder a few weeks later when she called me at 4 A.M. and told me she was being chased by the Yakuza (the Japanese mafia, more on them later) and was terrified.
“I’m so scared...they’re after me,” she said. “I don’t know what to do!”
I sure as hell didn’t know what to do either, as I envisioned the Yakuza finding my number and coming after me too.
“Help me, please Chris help—” she said and then the line went dead.
Either she had hung up the phone and had a laugh at my expense OR the Yakuza had actually gotten her. I never found out because I never spoke with her again.
I did however, speak to the Great Gama, who was putting together a one-night-only Stampede Wrestling revival show at the Victoria Pavilion, the home of the promotion for forty years. When he told me I was booked against the 350-pound female Monster Ripper Rhonda Singh, I still did a Jeri-jig because I was finally going to get to wrestle for Stampede Freakin’ Wrestling!
I was in the dressing room getting ready for my match, when Mike Lozanski walked in with my long-lost brother Chris Benoit. I’d been a fan of Benoit’s from Stampede and had followed his career ever since. From Canada to Japan to Germany to Mexico, he’d built his reputation as one of the best wrestlers in the world. He was also an inspiration to me because he’d started in Calgary, wasn’t a giant, and had established himself as an internationally respected superstar. I wanted my career path to emulate his. I racked my brain to think of something to say that would show him how much I respected him. I walked up to him, stuck out my hand and said, “My name is Chris too.”
Benoit looked at me sideways and muttered hello. As he walked away, Lenny, who was sitting beside me, mimicked my voice and said, “My name’s Chris too...my name’s Chris too...” He broke into a gale of laughter and I told him to fuck off.
Lenny and I had grown quite close and we spent a lot of time together. We were both obsessed with This Is Spinal Tap and called ourselves the Lovely Lads, after David and Nigel’s first band. He played guitar and to kill time between gigs, we formed a band named Blackstone Menace. We used a drum machine in lieu of a drummer so for the band photos we had Lenny’s brother Ajax stand in as the skinsman. We sounded like a cross between the Ramones and Mötley Crüe and we spent weeks in Lenny’s basement recording our first demo, “My Brain Hurts.” When it was ready, we drew the cover, handwrote the lyrics, and produced 100 hand-laminated copies. We took them to a record store in Okotoks and sold them on consignment. The final sales at Big Rock Records had Blackstone Menace outselling Nirvana, Kiss, and Elton John, five copies to three copies.
We were huge rock stars.
We kept releasing different demos under the band names Mr. Filthy, Great Caesar’s Ghost, Love Weasel, or Jesus A Go-Go and sent them out all over Canada. If you were a fan of unsigned Canadian bands in the 1990s, look through those old boxes of cassette demos and maybe you’ll find one of ours.
Our musical peak arrived when a national music magazine named MEAT reviewed the Blackstone demo and said, quote, “This demo has very catchy songs and the band has an original sound to them; either that or the tape I got is fucked up.” What more could you ask for in a review?
While chasing our rock ’n’ roll dreams, Lenny and I were still wrestling in Calgary. The quality of workers was deteriorating because there wasn’t much work in town, so once again