A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [9]
Then came the day when my life’s path became written in stone. I was watching my weekly dose of Stampede Wrestling when a music video of Bryan Adams’s “Hearts on Fire” began to air. But instead of featuring clips of a pockmarked, greasy-haired rock star, the video featured clips of a blond-haired, solidly built wrestler performing the most mind-blowing, acrobatic moves I had ever seen...and I was completely blown away. The video continued and I watched in total astonishment as this guy who couldn’t have been more than five years older than me executed moonsaults, back flips off the top rope, back flips off other wrestlers’ backs, and the grand finale where he grabbed a guy’s hand, leaped straight to the top rope, sat down on the top rope and flipped onto his feet, only to throw the other wrestler halfway across the ring! I was always more into the high-flying guys in the WWF like the British Bulldogs and Randy Savage, but they didn’t have anybody there who could do this type of stuff. When the video ended, the name that appeared on the screen was Owen Hart, and he instantly became my new hero. He was the youngest son of the promoter of Stampede, Stu Hart, and the brother of another one of my WWF faves, Bret “The Hitman” Hart. When I saw Owen do his thing, I was struck by a feeling of desire so strong that it might as well have been a bolt of lightning sent straight from the heavens above. I didn’t just want to be a wrestler... I had to be a wrestler.
Owen wasn’t 6 foot 8 and 300 pounds like most of the wrestlers in the WWF seemed to be. He was my height and had the kind of muscle that I could have if I trained hard and ate right. Plus, Calgary was in my universe. It was a city I’d been to and seen with my own eyes. It wasn’t like the faraway places where the WWF toured, places I couldn’t just get on a bus and visit. I decided that somehow, someway, I was going to go to Calgary and have Owen Hart teach me how to wrestle.
All my friends and I could think about was wrestling, and during class we drew pictures called Classic Wrestling Moments. I drew a picture of Owen and me holding the Stampede tag team championships and Wallass drew a picture of King Bundy dropping an elbow on the midget Little Beaver, during WrestleMania 3. Fellowes drew a picture of Roddy Piper destroying Adorable Adrian Adonis’s Flower Shop talk show set (Adonis had gone from being a tough biker to a sissy). I drew another picture of Andre the Giant pinning Hulk Hogan, while a corrupt referee counted to three, which was inspired by the craziest wrestling angle we’d ever seen.
It was one of the most important matches ever in wrestling: Hogan vs. Andre the Giant for the WWF title on prime-time TV. I had a job at a deli and that night I had to work so I was going to have to miss the show. I told Wallass with a tear in my eye, “I have to miss the Hulkster’s match, so as soon as it’s over, you have to come straight here, do not pass Go, do not collect $200 (Canadian), and tell me what happened!” A few hours later, Wallass staggered breathlessly into the deli. “Oh my God, man! Oh my God! There were two referees!” He stuttered and stammered, barely making any sense. “And one got plastic surgery to look like the other one . . . and he had money in his pocket . . . and Hogan lost the belt.”
I stopped him right there in disbelief and shook my head. “What did you say?”
“The Million Dollar Man paid off an evil look-alike referee to cheat,” Wallass continued, “…and…and…and…and Hogan lost the belt.”
I felt my stomach drop. Hogan had been the champ since I became a fan of the WWF four years earlier. He had been the victim of the ultimate