Undisputed_ How to Become the World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps - Chris Jericho [79]
Granted, winning with interference was part of being a heel, but the fans weren’t buying me as the champion yet.
So far my big title win hadn’t made much of a splash with anyone—except airport security.
The first lesson I learned when I trained at Hart Brothers was to always carry your gear with you. You never want to check your bag on the way to a show, in case it got lost. As a result, I had to lug both championship belts through every airport I traveled through. They weighed about twenty-five pounds each and showed up on the TSA X-ray machines every time. Each morning without fail the airport security would ask, “Sir, may we check your bag?”
Then I’d have to stand there and watch as they unzipped my luggage like they were Vincent Vega opening Marsellus Wallace’s briefcase.
“Well, what do we have here?” the guard would proclaim as his face brightened with suspicious amusement. “What kind of a champion are you?”
“Wrestling.”
“Wrestling, huh? Well, you must be good.” Then he would feel compelled to inform his nearest coworker of the treasures just discovered. “Hey, Enos, look at this! We got ourselves a real-life wrestling champion here!!”
Enos (Census Author’s Note: 30 percent of all TSA employees are named Enos.) would leave his post looking for penis bombs and check out the merchandise for himself.
“Well, look at that!” Enos would declare as he took the titles out of the bag, inspected them, fondled them, and strapped them around his waist. Wanting to show off to his coworkers Edna, Ethel, and Elias, Enos would strike a few poses until Elvis rushed over from analyzing a bottle of Aquafina and joined him in dress-up time.
“Hey, look at me,” Elvis would crow as he snapped the gold around his waist, busting out in a Fabulous Fargo strut followed by a pictureperfect moonwalk.
Now, that may seem amusing to you, fair reader, but imagine dealing with that nonsense four days a week, every week and you can see how the novelty might wear off quickly.
One week into my glorious championship reign, I had a match on Raw against Rob Van Dam, and right before we went out we were given an extra five minutes. Normally this was not a big deal, but Rob was still getting comfortable with working the WWE style and I wasn’t in the groove either and found it difficult to fill the additional time. The match floundered a little, made worse by the fact that Vince was at ringside commentating. He rarely sat behind the announce table anymore and I wondered if he was out there to evaluate me. Did he want to see my work up close? Was he gauging my crowd reactions? I failed on both accounts if he was, as it wasn’t a good match and the crowd was flat throughout.
I was off to a terrible start as champion and everyone knew it, so much so that the next night at Smackdown! I starting hearing rumors that Vince was going to have me drop the title. I dismissed them at first, but when three different people informed me Vince was secondguessing his decision, I started to think there might be something to it.
Hearing the gossip really pissed me off. I’d only been the champion for a week, and after working my ass off for eleven years to get it I wasn’t going to give up that easily. I decided right then that I was going to go talk to Vince before it was too late.
I found him outside his office and let him have it. I had nothing to lose. If he had already made up his mind to take the title off me, then it didn’t matter. But if he was on the fence, maybe I could show him something about me he hadn’t seen before. It was time to go hard or go home.
“Listen, Vince, I’m the Undisputed Champion