A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [5]
A true conflict arose one month when a famous hypnotist known as the Man They Call Raveen came to town. I had to see Raveen...I needed to see Raveen...I begged my mom to take me to see Raveen! She finally agreed to take me to see damn Raveen but what I didn’t know was that Raveen had the audacity to schedule his show the same night as the AWA. At this point after all the begging and the pleading that I had laid onto my mom, I couldn’t back out. So my mom and I went to see the amazing mind controller hypnotist, and my dad and my aunts went to see the amazing mind controller wrestlers. As soon as I got to the Raveen show I realized I had made a huge mistake. After a few minutes of watching the Wolfman Jack look-alike in a velvet jacket making people bark like dogs, act like babies, and smell nonexisting farts, all I could think about was how Hogan was getting revenge on Bockwinkel only a few miles away at that very moment...and I was missing it!
The first thing I did after Raveen had restored everyone back to normal with a simple snap of his amazing fingers was to call my dad to find out what had happened at the Arena. I was pretty pissed off that I’d made the wrong decision and chosen something lame instead of the sure bet of wrestling. It never happened again.
Then one month when I went to the AWA show, I was surprised when the ring announcer welcomed us to the debut of a new wrestling league at the Winnipeg Arena. With no warning, the AWA had been replaced by the World Wrestling Federation. Vince McMahon, the head honcho of this new company, had muscled his way into taking over the Winnipeg wrestling scene, replacing Gagne’s show with his own. It didn’t take long to realize that the WWF show was all that the AWA was and a whole lot more. These guys had glitzier names—like Jake the Snake, Macho Man Savage, and Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat—and they were huge, massively built muscleheads who were the complete opposites of the skinny or beer-bellied athletes the AWA was offering. But the real kicker came when the WWF’s new champion walked through the curtain on his way to the ring: Hulk Hogan was back! If the Hulkster was down with the new boss, then so was I. I instantly turned traitor on the AWA and embraced my new favorite wrestling league.
When I entered my teens, I started to expand my wrestling fanaticism, as just going to the matches and watching them on TV wasn’t enough. Someone found out that all the wrestlers stayed at the Polo Park Inn, adjacent to the Winnipeg Arena, when they were in the Peg and worked out at the Gold’s Gym across the street. So when the matches came to town, I’d take the bus down to the Arena after school, watch the guys work out at the gym, then go hang out in the lobby of the Polo Park Inn hoping to catch another glimpse. When I got a little bit older, I started sneaking into the Polo Park Inn bar using a fake ID that my friend Warren and I made. Inside the bar, I stared as all the wrestlers hung around talking to girls and drinking Labatt’s Blue. I couldn’t believe the size of them, especially when I stood next to Andre The Giant. His hand was as big as my head. A few minutes later I saw the Hulkster himself, so I summoned all my courage and asked if I could shake his hand. Not only did he say yes but he asked me my name as well. I flipped out. The Hulkster knew my name! “We’re friends!” I thought as I began to skip and dance around like Ed Grimley after he met Pat Sajak.
I always felt more comfortable approaching the smaller guys. Shawn Michaels was a member of the Rockers, my favorite tag team, and wasn’t much taller than I was. After seeing him do a back flip off the top