Undisputed_ How to Become the World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps - Chris Jericho [30]
Even though I won a championship, my first WrestleMania was not a great experience. The crowd was dead, the match was mediocre, and I was still reeling from the realization that I had been kicked out of the main event.
How did that happen, you ask?
Well, nobody ever officially came out and told me that, but it didn’t take Robert Downey Jr. to deduce that something rotten had occurred in Stamford.
Here is the evidence. First, the original poster for the show featured four faces: The Rock, HHH, Big Show, and your fearless scribe.
When it was released I was so excited, I did the WrestleMania Dance (not to be confused with the Nitro Dance).
Here it was, my first WrestleMania, and my gorgeous mug was already plastered on the poster! The plan for the main event of Wrestle-Mania 2000 was a four-way match featuring a McMahon in every corner, each one representing a different wrestler. The problem was that all four of the faces on the original poster were in that match except for me. Then a few weeks before the show, my face was replaced in all of the promo material with Mick Foley’s (0 wins vs. Jericho), who was in the main event. So it’s not too far off to assume that at some point, I must have been slotted to be in that match, but because I wasn’t delivering the goods I was replaced by Mick ( 0– 5 against CJ).
It was a bitter pill to swallow.
Hanging with the Sebastian Bach band (including David Letterman drummer Anton Fig in the sweater) at the House of Blues on Sunset, a scant six hours before the call time for WrestleMania 2000 in Anaheim. Love my jean shorts.
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In case you haven’t figured it out, I’m a weird cat. I need to feel challenged creatively and professionally in order to really deliver in the ring and on camera. Since I felt slighted with my Mania match, instead of getting a good night’s sleep before the big show, I went to see a Sebastian Bach concert at the House of Blues in L.A. and stayed up drinking until 4:30 in the morning. As I was going back to Anaheim, I passed a giant WrestleMania billboard on Sunset featuring the original Jericho-friendly artwork. That made me want to dive even further down a bottle of Crown Royal.
My match was well received by fans and critics, but I didn’t care for it at all. I felt the crowd response was lukewarm, and the three of us didn’t quite gel. It was a letdown, and for me, my first WrestleMania was a BombaMania.
After the show there were a bunch of random celebrities hanging around backstage making the scene. Jaleel White, a.k.a. Urkel, was hovering around telling anyone who would listen that his career was on the upswing and he had more work than he could shake a stick at. A very short stick, I assume. Also in attendance was Rob Reiner (who graciously accepted my Fozzy DVD, although I’m sure it met the same fate as the Schwarzenegger storyline I gave to Vince in Baltimore), Robert Sweet from Stryper (who gave me a framed collage of him playing drums, which was ironic since I once waited for hours to get a picture with him when I was seventeen), Wayne Brady, Dennis Miller, Dennis Hopper, Dennis Rodman, Dennis DeYoung, Dennis the Menace, Dennis Stratton, and, most important, DENNIS HASKINS.
Now, if you’re asking (a) why there were so many famous people named Dennis backstage at Mania or (b) who in the hell Dennis Haskins is, then keep reading, sport.
Dennis Haskins was the guy who played Mr. Belding, the principal from Saved by the Bell. He was also a huge WWE fan, albeit a strange one. Most people would say hi, shake hands, and move along, but Belding followed us around everywhere. In the arena, backstage, catering, crunking, what have you, Belding was there. I felt like Zach Morris trying to cheat in social studies with the amount of attention he was giving me. It seemed like Belding followed the WWE around like a Deadhead. We would show up in Nashville and bingo, there was Belding! I’d walk into