Undisputed_ How to Become the World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps - Chris Jericho [102]
Our angle was based around the classic kung-fu movie plot, where the student feels he’s better than the teacher and now wants to destroy him. We illustrated how much Shawn had influenced my early career by showing side-by-side photos of the two of us, with me copying Shawn’s hair and tights. Then we showed a great split-screen video of Shawn doing a highspot in a match from 1991 on one side and me ripping it off move for move in a match from 1992 on the other.
The angle pretty much wrote itself, and by the time Mania came around we were ready to go. We were fifth on the card, and even though it was the first time we ever worked with each other, we had instant chemistry.
We went twenty-seven minutes and it was the best of Jericho vs. the best of Michaels. We constructed an amazing match (with most of my ideas coming a week earlier while shopping for Speedo undertights at Dick’s Sporting Goods) filled with so many twists and turns that the crowd in Seattle was on the edge of their seats the whole time. False finish after false finish unfolded until finally Shawn rolled me up with a move I’d seen Owen Hart use fifteen years earlier. Afterwards, the crowd gave us a standing ovation. In the middle of the applause, we shook hands and embraced in a classic WrestleMania moment—until I kneed him in the plums. He collapsed and looked up at me with his puppy-dog eyes, asking, “How could you?”
How could I? Well, I wasn’t going to let a great match stop me from being a complete dick, now was I?
The general consensus was that our match stole the show which was a huge compliment. Only eighteen other matches in the history of the business could make that claim, and to do so was the goal of every single performer who’d ever been on a Mania. Personally winning the Undisputed Championship was an amazing moment, but stealing the show at WrestleMania XIX topped it. In a lot of ways it was the greatest night of my career.
I thank Shawn for that, but I also take pride in the fact that he thanks me for the match as well. After WrestleMania, HBK was back, and I had helped him get there.
(Quick Author’s Aside: When we walked backstage afterwards, we were told that our match had gone too long. Shawn wiped the sweat off his face and said with a smirk, “When you have a match as good as that, you can go as long as you want.” Yup, HBK was definitely back.)
CHAPTER 28
The Big Fight
Goldberg was coming to the WWE.
The announcement jackhammered through my stomach the moment I heard it. Rocky had befriended him and had brokered the deal between Vince and Bill to bring him in. Goldberg had been a huge star in WCW and was the prototype of what Vince liked in his superstars: tall, muscular, handsome, and looked like he could tear you apart. Problem was, I don’t think Goldberg really wanted to come to the WWE, but Rocky lobbied and convinced him until Bill finally relented.
I wasn’t too keen on him coming to the WWE either, since the last time I’d worked with him in WCW was a complete disaster. But I had no choice and decided to make the best of it. On his first day, he came up behind me and slapped me on the back as hard as he could.
“Hey Chris!” he said loudly and sarcastically, like he was Biff and I was McFly. I could tell he was still miffed about how things had gone with us in WCW. I was willing to let the past stay there, but I made a promise to myself that I wasn’t going to let this guy throw his weight around in the WWE the way he did in WCW.
Coincidentally, a few minutes later Vince asked me for a strange favor.
“We’ve got Bill Goldberg coming in and I want you to welcome him and help him out as much as you can.”
I don’t know if Vince knew about my past with Goldberg—he’d never asked me to help anybody else before. But I told him I’d be happy to do