Undisputed_ How to Become the World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps - Chris Jericho [120]
“Is that you?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s me,” he said with a wistful smile. “I know that’s me because I remember buying that jacket. They brought jackets like that in from India. I used to hang out by the docks and wait for the ships to come in with those clothes. They always had such great stuff. I loved that jacket.”
Suddenly the crotchety old man who hated the Beatles had been replaced by a kid in his early twenties who had his whole life ahead of him.
“Will you sign it for me?”
“Absolutely,” he said, delighted. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
I ended up talking with a former member of the Beatles for the next twenty minutes. And he told us some great stories, but I’ll save those for Johnny’s book should he ever decide to write one.
When I got back to the bus, Ozzy was polishing the hubcaps for some reason and looked up, squinting behind his Coke-bottle lenses.
John, Paul, George, and Johnny? It was true for a while, as Hutch was one of only five people to drum for the Beatles. Can you name the other four? Maybe Mike or my scarf know the answer.
“So ya went to see the Beatles sights, didya? If you want the full experience, you have to take a ferry cross the Mersey, lad!”
Then he started doing a weird little jig as he warbled “Ferry Cross the Mersey” by Gerry and the Pacemakers. I could still hear him cackling to himself as I crawled into my bunk.
CHAPTER 33
Steel Enema
In September 2004 I won the Intercontinental title for the seventh time from Christian in a Ladder match in Portland, Oregon. At only thirty-three years old, I had been IC Champion more than any other performer in WWE history. Not too shabby, especially when you consider that my dream when I started wrestling was to only win it once.
Christian and I had been in a number of Ladder matches, and we wanted to try something different for the finish of this one. We came up with the idea that we’d be fighting for the title atop the ladder, and in the process I would swing the cable the belt was hanging from. In our mind’s eye the cable would swing past Christian’s head, barely missing him, and then careen back and crack him in the back of the noggin when he wasn’t looking, toppling him off the ladder.
Sounds good on paper, right?
Unfortunately, when I swung the cable, it missed his head the first time—and zipped straight past him the second time. Then its momentum stopped and the title dangled in midair like a deflated balloon.
We looked at each other for a few seconds before I bulldogged him off the ladder and climbed back up for the win. So much for creativity, but as W. C. Fields once said, “Never work with animals or children … or cables with titles on the end of them … or ladders for that matter.”
He was right, because the botched finish wasn’t even the lowlight of the match for me. That came when I fell off the ladder awkwardly and it bit me in the ass—or more specifically went straight up it.
That’s right, intrepid readers, I was the proud recipient of a steel enema. I’m not exaggerating, either. I literally felt the ladder’s edge penetrating my anal cavity. It was like getting raped by RoboCop.
After the match William Regal walked past me shaking his head. He said that my fall was one of the worst things he’d ever seen and I looked like a wishbone. Yikes—there’s a mental image I can live without. My ass hurt so bad I could hardly walk, and I had to sit on one cheek for the next month. When I went to see a doctor I was diagnosed with a cracked coccyx bone, the little tip of cartilage at the end of your tailbone. When I asked him what he could do to help me, he smirked and threw up his hands. “What do you want me to do? Put a cast on it?”
In an effort to stay ahead of the curve, the WWE came up with an interactive PPV called Taboo Tuesday. The idea behind the show was that the fans could vote online to decide what matches were on the show. For example, fans would vote