A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [44]
The booker of the weekly Calgary show was Karl Moffat, who had wrestled in Stampede as the original Jason the Terrible. He was an arrogant prick and he didn’t like the fact that Lenny’s booking ideas were better than his. So he decided to put a bounty out on Lenny, which would be collected by the first guy who kicked the shit out of him in the ring for real. The stupid thing was that Moffat bragged about his plan to anyone who would listen and the word trickled back to us.
We knew that the ambush was going to happen that week courtesy of a big fat farm boy named Shane Croft, so we devised a plan of our own. Moffat had booked us in a tag match, and when it was over, I was supposed to fight to the back with our opponents, leaving Lenny in the ring. Croft was then going to hit the ring and give Lenny a brutal beatdown. But instead of fighting to the back, I was going to remain at ringside and if Croft was too much for Lenny to handle, I was going to perform an ambush of my own.
So we had the match and when it was over, I hustled back to the ring just as Croft arrived. He got in the ring and started lacing into Lenny and it was obvious that the shit was on. Lenny gave me the sign and I hit the ring ready to rock.
While I was envisioning a Three Ninjas attack, it ended up a Three Stooges bit. I got in the ring and started pulling Croft’s hair to get him off of Lenny. The more I pulled the less he moved, so I kept pulling and pulling until I heard Lenny yell, “Stop it man!” I looked at my hand and saw that I was pulling Lenny’s hair instead.
The comedy routine continued when Lenny aimed a punch a Croft’s moving head, but popped me in the jaw instead. At that point I’d had enough, so I reached down and grabbed his ballbag—Croft’s this time, not Lenny’s—and squeezed it as hard as I could. To my dismay, the guy didn’t flinch. Not even a little. That’s when I knew we were in trouble. He was still pummeling us with his massive hamhock farmer fists, so I rolled out of the ring and grabbed a chair. When I came back inside, I hit that bitch in the head from behind harder than I’ve ever hit anyone in my entire life. There was a sick crack and he grabbed the back of his head and said in the saddest voice, sounding just like Mongo from Blazing Saddles, “What did you do that for?”
Croft had had enough but Lenny sure hadn’t. He walked over to the gimmick (souvenir) table and picked up the stack of Shane Croft 8x10s. Since Croft hadn’t sold a damn one of them, I’m sure they were lonely and enjoyed the attention that Lenny gave them when he ripped each and every one of them in half. He threw the pile at Croft’s wife and yelled, “What are you going to do about it, you CUNT!” Them thar’s fighting words, cowpoke.
We went downstairs to the dressing room and grabbed the weapons we’d brought with us: my tire iron and Lenny’s hockey stick with nails driven through it that he had made just for the occasion.
We stormed into the booking office where Moffat was cowering and chewed him out like a beaver’s birthday cake. Then Croft walked in the room and Lenny said, “I just called your wife a cunt. What are you gonna do about it?” Both Croft and Moffat had apparently noticed something interesting on the tips of their shoes because they both refused to look up. “You guys got anything to say?” Lenny continued. When neither of them did, I said, “Well then get the fuck out of here.” And they did. We’d kicked them out of their own office. Lenny sat in Moffat’s chair, put his foot up on the desk, and said, “My scalp is killing me.”
Later that night an old Japanese wrestler named Mr. Hito was impressed enough with my wrestling skills...or my ballbag-grabbing skills...to ask me if I wanted to train with him the next week. He was looking for guys to work with his Japanese students and since I was constantly looking for ways to get a shot in Japan, it was a no-brainer. I could hardly contain my excitement when he said,