A Lion's Tale_ Around the World in Spandex - Chris Jericho [99]
Turns out it was the girls’ job to hang out and flirt with the customers, while pouring as much whiskey as possible. They got a commission on each $250 bottle that we drank. For that type of cash, they could’ve at least given us Caviar.
In the BTWF days, Wallass and I had read a list of Japanese wrestlers in a magazine and had seen the name Tarzan Goto. How could you be Japanese and have the name Tarzan? From then on the mere mention of the mighty Tarzan elicited gales of laughter. Lo and behold when I arrived in FMW, who was the number two man behind Onita? Tarzan Muthafuckin Goto!
He was a short, fat, stocky beast with no front teeth and a face only your mum could love. He also had no problem beating up fans if the opportunity presented itself—like when someone clapped him on the back as he walked to the ring.
When a foolhardy fan did just that, Tarzan promptly punched the sorry bastard in the face. Then Goto chased the guy through the stands, grabbed him, and threw him out of the building. In the States if you even look in a fan’s general direction, you can be sued. In Japan to be attacked and beaten by your favorite wrestler was a badge of honor, something to brag about to your friends.
But I’m sure to be decked by a guy named Tarzan Goto was a lot more credible than getting the crap kicked out of you by el Pandita. That’s right, I said el Pandita. That’s Spanish for Little Panda and English for Worst Gimmick Ever.
Asian people are fascinated with pandas and the Pandita gimmick was intended to exploit that obsession to the fullest. This clown’s ring costume was a full-body Panda suit; lovable cotton ball tail included. He would skip to the ring, handing out candy to the fans before jumping into the ring and holding his arms out as if to say, “I’m cute and lovable!” During the match, you would have to sell Pandita’s terrible-looking offense unless you could grab his tail. That would cause the lovable creature to run around in circles chasing it.
It got worse and his crowd-pleasing big move belongs in the Shit Hall of Fame. Pandita would knock his opponent out of the ring and hit the opposite ropes like he was going to do a dive through the ropes onto the floor. Instead of flying through the ropes, he would jump up and land horizontally in a Playgirl pose with his legs spread open and his chin on his fist like a cute little panda bear. The crowd would go “OOOOOOHHHHH!” and I would wonder what the hell was going on. Guys would butcher each other with barbed-wire baseball bats and in the next match out came the Dom DeLuise of wrestling.
FMW was a smaller company with a will-work-for-food mentality and a lot of the shows were held in outdoor parking lots with makeshift fences erected around them. There were no dressing rooms for us, which meant we had to change on the bus. It also meant that there were no bathrooms or showers and after the matches we’d have to endure a three-hour bus ride covered in dirt, sweat, and blood. It looked like the Spirit of ’76 when the crew checked into the hotel and more than once I saw the desk clerk run into the back room to hide from us.
Even though we had separate hotel rooms, Lance and I spent so much time together that we started to get on each other’s nerves over the smallest of things.
“You smack your lips when you eat.”
“You walk funny.”
“Your white boots are pissing me off.”
The tension culminated in a dressing room scuffle in Aichi that led to us rolling around on the floor like a couple of eight-year-olds. But when it was time to make the donuts and get the job done, we always worked hard together in the ring. We’d been through so much since training in the bowling alley that we had become like brothers.