A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [78]
He took us to a fancy riverside restaurant and began the hard sell about how good it would be for our careers to work with SMW. Jimmy unveiled his plan to build us up by introducing the Thrillseekers to his fans with television vignettes.
We filmed the first one in the Smoky Mountains at Pigeon Forge, the home of Dollywood (me likey Dolly). We wandered around the tourist attractions while Jim filmed us performing such death-defying thrill-seeking activities as ice skating, horseback riding, go-cart driving, video game playing, and the extreme coup de grâce of jumping onto a Velcro wall whilst wearing a Velcro suit. Another wacky scene showed Lance throwing treats into a bear pit only to pan down and reveal that it was really me jeeting the treats. HILARIOUS!
The whole concept of the vignette was goofy to begin with (now I know why Jim’s nickname was Corny) but I made it worse with my horribly cheesy overacting. I was bopping along to Danger Danger’s “Rock America” (Corny couldn’t have picked a worse hair metal entrance song for us if he tried) once again trying to be David Lee Roth and once again ending up as Screech. If you didn’t know me you might’ve thought, “This guy’s an idiot.” (Then again, you might think that even if you do.)
Then he wanted to end the clip with the two of us banging our fists together, which would cause a lightning bolt (to be added in post) to shoot out of our hands.
“Wonder twin powers activate! Form of Dweeb.”
The next (and worst) one was set to “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” by Bon Jovi, and began with me rousing Lance out of bed at 8 P.M. to go party. Apparently, one half of this hot young tag team had to be in bed before sundown. This was to show that Lance was the straitlaced guy and I was the rock ’n’ roll animal.
The video continued with me and my reluctant party partner in the bar drinking mugs of milk and winking to each other about it like we were too smart to be seen drinking beer on camera. Later when I propositioned a pretty Southern belle, she promptly slapped me in the face. I guess this was to show that the Thrillseekers were so cool, girls would rather slap us in the face than speak to us. At the end of the video, Lance knocked on the door of my room at eight in the morning and I’m passed out drunk with the goofiest generic drunk face. You might as well have drawn X X over my eyes.
Beer bottles were lying all over the room and I was wearing the same clothes that I wore the night before. Then again so was Lance, who apparently went home, got a good night’s sleep, and put on the same clothes to come wake me up. This folks, is your new babyface tag team.
The last vignette showed us working out in the gym wearing the shortest of short-shorts and string tank tops, close-ups of our butts in slow motion, the works. It was almost as if the territory was based in San Francisco not Knoxville. Then we return to our hotel room and find two girls waiting for us. When I saw them I begged Jimmy to give me two minutes to go to a strip club, a Hooters, a mall, a nunnery, anywhere, so I could find two different girls. Hell, I could’ve thrown a dart into a crowded street and hit a hotter chick. But he insisted upon using these girls and we were forced to act excited that we were going to get lucky; high-fives and all.
The hot young babyface tag team had just picked up a couple of skeezers and had it captured on tape, killing our sex appeal and our cool factor in one fell swoop.
With the vignettes in the can (in the toilet would have been more appropriate) we attended SMW’s “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” at the Knoxville Coliseum.
Three or four times a year Jimmy would blow off (wrestling speak for the end of a feud) the hot angles of the company with a big show at the Coliseum. He had a lot of credibility and a good name throughout the business and was able to book some legendary names for his big shows. Earlier in the night I got to meet Terry and Dory Funk, two of the biggest stars in wrestling history. I was agog when Terry busted out a moonsault during his match with