Undisputed_ How to Become the World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps - Chris Jericho [40]
An audience of one indeed.
My ape performance once again put me on Vince’s good side and suddenly he wanted to use me in every situation. I was sitting in the dressing room in GM Place in Vancouver after my match, cooling down and contemplating a shower. Kid Rock was about to play on Raw and I was looking forward to checking him out, as we hadn’t seen each other since our all-nighter in Cancun years earlier (story in A Lion’s Tale, available online now). Back then we were still climbing the ladder to success, and now only a short three years later both of us had made it to the big time.
So I was chillin’ like a villain on Thanksgivin’ (shameless rapper pandering) when Road Dogg ran into the dressing room at full speed.
“Vince wants you in the Gorilla position right now!”
“Why?”
“You’ve got to introduce Kid Rock!”
“What? Why?”
“ ’Cause I was supposed to do it but I’m a heel and Vince just decided he wants you to do it instead! He’s on in two minutes! You have to go now!”
I thought he was ribbing me. There’s a famous nightmare that a lot of wrestlers have where your music is playing and you don’t have your boots or your tights on and you’re running around like a lunatic trying to get ready.
This was that nightmare come true. I threw on some pants and sprinted as fast as I could from the dressing room to the stage. As I barreled past Kid Rock and rounded the corner I heard him say, “Don’t fuck this up, Chris!”
I took the stairs two at a time and plowed into Gorilla just as a roadie put a mic in my hand.
“What do you want me to say, Vince?”
“Whatever you want, you’re the rock star. Just get out there and do it now!”
I ran onstage with the microphone and said in my best David Lee Roth voice, “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, straight from Detroit, Michigan, the Early Mornin’ Stoned Pimp:
“Kid Rockkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk!”
My head exploded Scanners style.
After I finished being Kid’s hype man, his band came out and I was trapped. I couldn’t stay on the stage, I couldn’t run down to the ring, and I couldn’t go back into Gorilla because his band members were filing out and the song was about to start. Plus a bunch of pyro was supposed to go off, but I didn’t know where it was coming from and didn’t want to get Hetfielded. So I was scrambling around trying to find a place to hide when I noticed a hole between the stage and the back area and jumped into the seven-foot drop. I was safe from the pyro and out of everybody’s way, but then realized that I had a whole new problem: there was no way out of the hole. I was too short to pull myself out and I was surrounded by crates and wires, so there was no way to weasel my way out from underneath the stage.
When Kid Rock finished playing “American Badass” and walked offstage to massive applause, I was still stuck in my rock and roll foxhole. Finally a stagehand popped his head over the edge and helped pull me out. As I climbed out of the hole I saw 15,000 people pointing their fingers at me and laughing. I gave them a golf wave and sheepishly walked back through Gorilla.
Vince was shaking his head in bemusement. Court Jester Jericho had struck again.
As much as Vince loved my Kid Rock intro and ape promo, he absolutely hated my all-time favorite Stephanie Insultapalooza.
Raw was in Chicago (which has the loudest fans in the United States by far), and the idea was for The Rock and me to trade insults on Stephanie and her minions Rhyno and Booker T. Stephanie had just gotten a boob job, which was a comedic gold mine, and I started off by showing before-and-after pictures of her on the Tron.