Undisputed_ How to Become the World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps - Chris Jericho [4]
After each promo I didn’t get any feedback from Russo (or anybody else), so I figured that meant everything was good. I was intimidated by the aura of Vince McMahon and I never asked him what he thought I should do, even though in retrospect that would have been a good idea. Wrestling is like a giant high school clique, and if you’re the new guy who comes in looking different and acting different, you’re going to get blasted for it—mostly behind your back. With zero allies in my new company, I had nobody to stand up for me when my back was turned. Even worse, because I didn’t really ask Vince or any of the boys for advice, I came across as an arrogant prick who thought he knew it all. Unbeknownst to me, I was stockpiling massive amounts of nuclear heat in the process.
After a few weeks in the company, I was in a difficult spot. On one hand, insulting everybody else was a great way to come in and make a name for myself, sharing screen time with the company’s biggest stars and showcasing my promo skills. On the other hand, the more I verbally buried the big names, the more trouble I amassed for myself. To them I’m sure I was this little peon who’d been feuding in WCW with Prince Iaukea and was now getting this big push without the know-how to back it up.
When I first signed with the WWE, I asked Vince, “What do you want me to do?” He said, “Don’t worry, I’m going to be watching you like a hawk. I’ll tell you what I want you to do and what I don’t want you to do. If I don’t like something, I’ll let you know. You are going to be one of my pet projects.”
He had spent a lot of money to get me; a guaranteed contract of $450,000 was a very big deal at the time. He had heard great things about me, and seen a couple sparks that convinced him I might be the real deal; but he wasn’t exactly on the Jericho Ho Train yet. I didn’t suspect that something might be wrong, because if there was I figured Vince would tell me.
But he didn’t and there was.
My second night in the company was at a Raw taping in Milwaukee. The plan was for me to interrupt The Undertaker, the most respected wrestler in the locker room and one of the biggest stars in the company. He was calling himself the Personification of Evil at the time, so I began my promo by calling him the personification of boring and proceeded to tell the crowd how bland and mediocre he was.
Maybe this wouldn’t have been such a problem if Taker hadn’t just cut a fifteen-minute promo about how he and Big Show were riding their motorcycles in the desert and they ran out of gas and Big Show picked up a scorpion and ate it or something … a promo that really was incredibly boring.
He knew it was boring, the crowd knew it was boring, Vince knew it was boring, Funaki knew it was boring. So when I came out and called him on it, I made things even worse because I was kicking him when he was down.
Taker responded to my claims by saying that he had more shower time than I had ring time. At first I thought he was bragging about his personal hygiene (maybe he was a clean and freshly scrubbed Deadman), until I figured out that he was really saying I was wet behind the ears and should know my role and shut the fuck up. Backstage afterwards, I walked past Shawn Michaels, who glared at me incredulously and offered the following advice: “The next time you cut a promo, maybe you want to avoid calling the biggest star in the company and the leader of the locker room boring.” It was a friendly warning from HBK to watch my mouth.
I’d told Taker before the promo that I was gonna stick it to him and he’d told me to go for it. However, I crossed the line and insulted him by saying what I said. I can’t believe the