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Oh how I hated that inglorious bastard.

No one else really cared that the bout was bad, especially not The Bossman. He was laughing the whole time and for him it was just another match that would be forgotten the next day. But for me it was my first match in the WWE, and instead of it ending up outstanding, it ended up in the outhouse.

But there were some positives to focus on. After I won the match for the fine people of Winnipeg, I told the fans to meet me at Wise Guys, a local night club. The bar owner was so excited by my free advertisement that he gave me free lifetime drinks— the fact that it closed down about a year later is irrelevant. It was a true homecoming, as all of my friends were there congratulating me and telling me how proud of me they were. They thought the match had been great and didn’t care about little details like prematurely ejaculating nightsticks. The place was packed, and as I looked around I saw a lot of the same friends who had been to see me at Georgie’s eight years earlier working in front of eighty people. It was nice to know they’d stuck with me long enough to see me working in front of eight thousand people at the Arena.

When I first started wrestling, there were four places I dreamed about working: the Winnipeg Arena, Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Arena Mexico in Mexico City, and Madison Square Garden in New York City. Within two months of joining the WWE, I finished achieving that dream when weeks after the disaster in the Peg I made my debut at the Garden. MSG is the world’s most famous arena and the place where my father, Ted Irvine, a.k.a. the Baby-Faced Assassin, enjoyed his glory years in the NHL playing for the New York Rangers. I still remember sitting in the stands at the Garden as a four-year-old kid, complaining about the noise and getting mad at my dad because he never looked at me while he was playing. I thought the least he could do when he was skating down the ice on a breakaway was smile and wave.

MSG is a barometer for stardom within the business, and as the old saying goes, “If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.” If the fans responded to a performer in MSG, it went a long way with the McMahon family in determining who would get pushed as a star. Vince’s father believed that and so did he. The shows at the Garden are still so important that Vince attends almost every one whether they are televised or not.

Once again I was scheduled to cut a promo about how I was going to save the WWE from its mediocre self. Vince wanted my opening line to be: “Welcome to Madison Square Jericho,” after which I would insult the fans of New York City and tell them how much better I was than them.

The reaction I received as I walked to the ring was the ying to the Winnipeg yang. People were booing and calling me names— Y2Gay was a favorite—and I was drawing some good heel heat. I marched to the center of the ring and surveyed the crowd with an arrogant glare.

“Welcome to Madison Square Jericho!” I proclaimed pompously into the mic as the crowd jeered.

“I am the savior of the W—E!” Huh? Halfway through my tagline, the mic cut out momentarily, muting the second W.

Undeterred, I continued with my scathing promo, preparing to infuriate the NYC faithful.

“My g—tss knows n—b—dries! I—” Now the mic was stuttering worse than ECW-era Bubba Ray Dudley, rendering my scathing promo useless.

“I’m gonna do—what—Mad—n—cho!”

Apparently, the Jericho Curse had diverted from its usual habits and had decided to take charge of the MSG soundboard that night. Due to the technical difficulties, my reaction went from boos to catcalls to silence to laughter. I felt like a complete fool and threw the mic down in frustration, which only served to intensify the guffaws of the New York brethren. To make matters worse, Vince was watching the whole debacle from the wings, shaking his head in disbelief.

My night didn’t get any better either. Later on, I was supposed to run in during a Steve Blackman– Ken Shamrock match, distract