Undisputed_ How to Become the World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps - Chris Jericho [101]
“What do I do?” he asked groggily.
“Climb the ladder!” I hissed.
“How do I do that?” he inquired, as if I had just told him to pull Excalibur out of the stone.
“Just put one foot on the bottom rung and lift the other foot to the next rung. Then just keep doing it!”
Keep in mind that 10,000 people were watching in the arena and millions more were viewing at home, not a one of them realizing I was literally giving Bubba step-by-step directions on how to step up a ladder.
Kane ended up winning the match, but quite frankly in a TLC match everybody loses in one way or another. Bubba was still completely on dream street afterwards, so much so that he was looking for his mother who had passed away the year before. It was heartbreaking to have to tell him she wasn’t there and see the look on his face as he insisted that she was supposed to meet him after the show.
Vince came into the trainer’s room to personally thank all of us for the great performance, and I don’t mind saying that we deserved it. The match was voted the best in Raw history at the Raw ten-year anniversary awards show. I accepted the Slammy on behalf of the other seven guys and ended up keeping it. It’s in my office right now, so if any of you other guys are reading this and want your turn with it, just let me know.
Since Shawn Michaels returned at SummerSlam and won the title at the Elimination Chamber he was a changed man. I’d only met him a few times before and he was always in some state of confusion, à la the Doink debate I’d had with him in Cleveland. With what I’d seen of him, combined with the horrible reputation he’d earned from his behavior in the ’90s, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when he came back to the WWE.
But I needn’t have worried. He had accepted Christ and his whole attitude had changed. He was happy to be back, and although a little tentative, he was excited to get back in the ring. This was sweet chin music to my ears. As I’ve mentioned, Shawn was among my biggest inspirations to get into the business, and I was hoping he and I would get the opportunity to work together at some point.
Little did I know he would end up being one of the greatest opponents in my career.
Our first meeting was almost a throwaway segment. I would confront him about being a relic from the past, he would superkick me, and that would be the end of it. But there was a certain electricity when Shawn and I stood nose to nose in the ring and everyone from the fans to the boys to Vince himself felt it.
When Shawn and I walked back through the curtain, Vince approached us and said, “We’ve got money here.”
I agreed, and since it was December, I immediately began thinking WrestleMania. But when I approached Shawn about it, he was hesitant.
“I don’t know if I’ll be around that long,” he said, and I really think he meant it. He was a little gun-shy about returning to the ring fulltime, as he’d just been out five years with a back injury. But the more he thought about it and the more we talked, he decided that he was ready to return to WrestleMania and he wanted to return against me.
I was gob-smacked by his decision. When I first started wrestling, I was essentially a Shawn Michaels clone. I had similar tights, similar canary yellow hair, and did the same highspots as him. But things had changed—I wasn’t a clone anymore. It was pro vs. pro and I was looking forward to seeing if I could live up to the standards of a Shawn Michaels big event match.
They didn’t call him Mr. WrestleMania for nothing.
We did a three-month storyline that began when Shawn was the first entrant into the Royal Rumble and I was to be the second. Except my lackey Christian (yeah, Jay, I said it) came