A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [62]
The next day, I showed up and we jammed on “Paranoid,” “Roadhouse Blues,” “Domino,” “Love Gun,” classic songs we all knew and loved. Even though we came from different worlds and had never played together before, we threw down like seasoned vets. They announced that I was Corazón de León from Arena México and the crowd got larger as people came to check out the wrestler ruling the bass. At the end of the set the whole promenade was packed and we had to pass the hat around about a dozen times because it filled up so fast. My share of the earnings was a solid forty pesos and I’ve never been prouder of a payoff.
They gave me a videotape of our jam and if you watch it, you’ll never see a guy with a bigger smile on his face than the one I had when we were playing. The power of music transcends everything: language, country, race.
CHAPTER 20
WHEN YOU LOSE A BROTHER
I was walking back to the hotel after experiencing maximum rockicity when I ran into Magic. He had moved into a downtown apartment and invited me over to his place to check out a new show that the WWF had on the USA Network called Raw. Watching the show while trapped in Mexico made me remember how much I wanted to wrestle there. Mexico was a great living and a great experience, but to me the brass ring was still the WWF. With the stardom I’d achieved in Mexico, I felt like I was on the path toward my ultimate goal of working there, but I didn’t have the contacts to get in and I still didn’t think I was ready yet. Yeah, my in-ring work was improving and I had learned how to work as both a heel and a babyface, but I hadn’t developed my own character and I hadn’t done any promo work since I left Canada. Even though my Spanish was good by this point, lucha wasn’t based around interviews like in American wrestling. But seeing the Raw broadcast from the Manhattan Center in New York City reminded me what my final goal was.
As for Raw itself, it was edgier, slicker, and better than anything I’d seen from the WWF before. The company was putting more emphasis on smaller guys like Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels. When I saw the 1-2-3 Kid (a scrawny dude who didn’t even look like he worked out) beat Razor Ramon, one of the top stars in the company, I was psyched. At that moment, I knew that the size hurdle was less of an obstacle to making it to the WWF than ever before.
It was fun going to Magic’s to watch the show, except for the fact that Vampiro (the guy who suggested I wear a loincloth) was also there. The more time I spent in Mexico, the less I wanted to be around Vamp. Ever since I’d arrived in CMLL, I’d gotten a big push from the company and he didn’t like it. The two of us were the main foreign babyfaces in the company, but I was no threat to him. His position as the company’s biggest star hadn’t changed. Even though we were both from Canada and into music, Vamp’s actions showed me that he had no interest in being my bud.
• When I first got to Mexico City, he gave me his phone number and told me to call him if I ever wanted to hang out or if I needed any help. When I called, the number he’d given me belonged to an old lady named Rosa who’d never heard of any Vampiro.
• EMLL referee Roberto Rangel told me that Paco wanted to create a Canadian trio consisting of Vamp, Wild Pegasus (Benoit), and me. When Vamp heard about the idea, he threatened to quit if Paco paired him with me.
• Marcos, the head of payroll, informed me that Vamp quizzed him weekly about how much money I was making.
• Paco called me into his office for a meeting one day and was very concerned. He asked if everything was okay and when I assured him that I loved working in Mexico, Paco confessed that Vamp had told him that I hated Mexico. He said I didn’t like Mexican people, I didn’t like the food, I wanted more money and a bigger push, and I was planning to walk out of the company. I informed Paco that it wasn’t the case and he said, “Well that’s just Vamp being Vamp.”
When Vampiro wasn’t trying to bury me, he was burying himself