From the Long Island Press.
Interesting, sooo Monday perhaps Y2J saves us? or just him screwing with us more?
Your thoughts?
Jericho Puts Up Few Walls
A Candid Q&A With Soon-To-Return (We Guess) WWE Star
By Josh Stewart
For Long Island's own Mick Foley, it was Dude Love.
But for a young Chris Jericho in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, WWE fantasies originated in a baddie by the name of Eastern Crowbar, king of the Grotto Valley Death Match, the marquee measuring stick of the now-defunct (and to admit its existence is a stretch in the first place) Big Time Wrestling Federation.
Adolescent dreams, however, do pay bills from time to time, and in Foley and Jericho's case, the symmetry is uncanny. Their winding roads to WWE stardom led to countless tales, which Foley used to top The New York Times Bestseller List late in 1999 with Have a Nice Day.
Now it's Jericho's turn, and with recently released autobiography A Lion's Tale: Around the World in Spandex, the former "Lionheart" exhibits the same humor, wit, poignancy and vulnerability that endeared folks to Foley-even those who, in the words of the late Gorilla Monsoon, "wouldn't know a wristlock from a wristwatch."
In Jericho's case, the book release has ties to his return to WWE after a respite that began in 2005. Getting Jericho to say exactly when he'll reappear is a little like casually asking Dubya for a few launch codes.
But in a Q&A session with the Press, Jericho answered everything else, whether it be the results of a critique from Foley, the senseless tragedy that shoehorned in on the frivolity of his ring debut, how exactly he chronicled 1,877 matches and his take on regulating pro wrestling. (Hint: The company line ain't for him.)
Long Island Press: One great thing about the book near the beginning is talking about how many run-ins you had with people in the business before you were actually in the business, whether it be Sika, Tully Blanchard, etc. Can you talk about doing whatever you needed to do as a youngster to ingratiate yourself into the wrestling community?
Chris Jericho: One thing that's so cool about the book is having this idea and this thought process and this goal of becoming a wrestler from such a young age. Even when I was in my early teens, I obviously couldn't go to wrestling school, but I knew that I had to be around the wrestlers and that would help me to become a wrestler, by proxy. And that's why it was so fun to think back about the Sika story, Tully Blanchard, the Dynamite Kid story, talking to Shawn Michaels and Koko B. Ware in the gym and just trying to gain as much information as I could from them. Because I was almost able to see eye-to-eye with them, whereas the Warlord and the Ultimate Warrior, like, I wouldn't even dare talking to those guys. Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant, forget it. But in trying to be a part of the whole scene, I was one of those dream fans that the wrestling business wishes they had thousands and thousands of. I loved the babyfaces, I hated the heels, I bought as much merchandise as I could afford, I hung out at the hotels trying to get autographs. I'd drive the guys to and from the gym when I finally got my license. I was one of those guys who just wanted to be a part of the business no matter what, like someone who carries a guitar into the arena so they can be a part of the band in some way, shape or form.
LIP: So many people who are outside the wrestling business are trying to not be "marks." But you were very honest in the book about how, even in your teens, you didn't quite know what was real and what wasn't as it pertained to the champion, and were set straight by someone you met while you were just starting to really get involved. Why were you able to buy into the business like that?
CJ: Well, things were very different then. I kind of addressed that in the first chapter, how being a wrestling fan back in the '80s was more a magical...kind of a teen version of believing in Santa Claus, where you just didn't know for sure. Obviously, I wasn't stupid. I knew there was some stuff going on. I mean, we wrestled the whole BTWF booking matches and booking finishes, so we knew indirectly that's the way it was, or at least suspected. Or see somebody saying something in the ring, like, "Oh, he just said, 'Suplex,' and he gave him a suplex. See." But the thing is, to actually find out about it, just like when you're a kid and you believe in Santa Claus, and you kind of knew [the truth], but when your parents finally told you, you just felt so ripped off and so betrayed that it was just a big lie. It's the biggest lie that parents tell their kids for years. And the same thing with wrestling: When Catfish Charlie told me how the wrestling business was a work, I knew it, and it got to me, but not that much. But then, it's still, "The champion's the champion." And he told me that's a lie, too, the promoters decide who the champion is. So that one was really hard for me to kind of wrap my head around. It really came out of left field, because there was no Internet, there were no insider newsletters, and if there were, I sure didn't know about them. Now, I think you know when you're 8 or 9 years old what the story of wrestling is, maybe even before that. The fact was that even at that time, I still believed, and I think it was more of an innocence and more of a magical time than it is now.
LIP: In the credits, you talked about Mick Foley going through the book beforehand. How much easier is it to write a book like this and have it be taken seriously because Foley kind of started the trend, and No. 2, what is it like to get such nice compliments from a guy who has done so much in the literary world?
CJ: The thing of it is, I gave Mick the original manuscript just to get a quote from him. I thought it would be really cool to put a quote on the back cover of the book. And I thought he might understand it because it's one of the few books that kind of runs the gamut of these trials and tribulations and how much sacrifice there was in living this dream. He came back and not only did he give me a quote, but he went through it with me, and said, "I have a couple of ideas and a couple of bits of advice." What I didn't know was that he had about a six-hour conversation worth of advice. He literally went through the book chapter by chapter, line by line, and said, "I think 'but' would fit here better than 'and' would," and things along those lines. And at first I was like, "Man, this is just taking forever," and then I said, "Anytime a No. 1 bestselling author and the king of the genre wants to give me some advice, I'm going to sit here and listen to it. I'm going to appreciate every ounce of it." And Mick and I are friends, but for him to go above and beyond like that, I really, really appreciated it and felt like it was a special move by him. And even the quote he gave me on the back, "Oh, no. What if this book is better than mine?" I think Mick was a pioneer in that he took wrestling books to the masses. I think my story would've been able to do that, too, had I written it nine years ago when Mick wrote his. Our books are very, very unique in the fact that we've had so many years of experience. I bet Bret Hart's book might be the same. You can't just pick up a pen and write a book about this, when you're talking about some guys who have been in the business for five or six years that are writing books. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I just think the whole journey, and the fact that it's more of a follow-your-dream book than an actual wrestling book, per se. This is the dream I had at a young age, and having no idea how to accomplish this, what did I have to do to make it happen? And this is what I had to do.
LIP: But the heavy lifting isn't quite the same to promote the book because Mick Foley proved with Have a Nice Day that a wrestler can write that kind of a book, right?
CJ: Absolutely. Mick broke down a lot of boundaries for that. Because when his book first came out people were like, "Wrestling fans can't read. It'll be a waste of time." And then it's a No. 1 bestseller. And it transcended just wrestling fans, and that was important. And that's what I wanted to do with my book, as well, take it further. I knew wrestling fans would love it, I knew Jericho fans would love it, but I wanted to write it for people who might not know much about wrestling but just wanted to read a really interesting story about one kid's life.
LIP: This book tells a story of succeeding in the wrestling business and how difficult it can be. Wouldn't some say that things are better in this day and age, because some of what you endured, like being threatened by Yakuza in Japan, wasn't just difficult, but downright dangerous?
CJ: Oh, absolutely. Being held up at gunpoint, or being threatened with losing a finger, or having a guy charge the ring holding a gun, all of these things happened, and the fact that I didn't get killed is a miracle, in a lot of ways. And I think that makes for a better story. Does it mean it was a good experience? Hell, no! It was a horrible experience. But at least now I can kind of use that for something good, in some way, shape or fashion. And I don't know if that really has much to do with actually wrestling. I mean, on the streets you could probably go hitchhiking through Europe and have the same type of experience. So it's just one of those things that adds to the whole ambiance of the whole tale that there were a lot of life-threatening situations. It wasn't just, "Then I hip-tossed him, and the crowd went wild. And boy, was that fun?" This was the sacrifice that I went through to achieve this. I almost got killed on many different occasions that have nothing to do with actually being in a wrestling ring.
LIP: The quick transitions in the book are really noticeable. You're talking about wrestling, then just like that you're talking about your parents' divorce. You're talking about wrestling, then all of a sudden you're talking about your mother's accident that left her a quadriplegic. Did you realize that you were having transitions that really caused readers to change their emotions right on a dime?
CJ: That's a good question. That's very interesting that you saw it that way. And I think what I wanted to do, once again, I was telling the tale of my life and how things happened to me. And there's a lot of highs and a lot of lows. And I think a lot of times, it's like having a match or a good movie. Things happen, twists happen at the drop of a dime where you don't even see it coming. It's why Pulp Fiction is such a genius, classic of a movie, and so many others like it. Because things change where you're like, "Holy smoke, I never saw it coming." Million Dollar Baby, perfect example. Oscar-winning movie, great boxing movie, and suddenly, boom, she's hurt, she's in the hospital and that's the end. I never saw it coming. It doesn't mean it doesn't make it even more monumental. And I didn't write this book with any type of an agenda, thinking about that. It's just the organic way that it happened. So, what you're reading is what I actually went through. For your emotions to drop on a dime, times that by a thousand, which is what I had to go through, the awesomeness of finishing this hard, grueling wrestling camp, and getting my first match booked, and having all of these great things going on, and then something as crashing as my mom's accident, put everything back down to reality and just burst the bubble to such a huge degree. That's what I went though. And I'm actually, not glad, but kind of intrigued that you took it that way. Because that's exactly what I went through. So, for you to feel that tells me that I wrote the book the way I planned to.
LIP: You have chronicled all 1,877 of your matches. So many people regret that they didn't keep a diary for a certain time period, or their whole life, for that matter. How exactly did you keep up with it?
CJ: On white typewriter paper, and the first page is still the same one that I carried with me around the world for the first year, 39 matches. It's folded, it's creased, it's dog-eared. It's almost ripping up in parts, but it's still the exact same piece of paper I wrote it on. And I would just get white paper, every time one was filled up, I'd start up on another one. I'd always use blue pen, for some reason. I never wanted to use black or red, it's all written in blue pen. And it says the number of the match, the date, the opponent, the place, the finish, and I think I used to give it a star rating of how I thought the match was. I used to actually write the number of people in the crowd and how much I made for the match. After awhile, I dropped those two things.
LIP: Even the stuff that you didn't write down, couldn't you look back at that and see a match you had in 1992, and from that, say, remember what happened in the bar that same night?
CJ: It helped to jog my memory. I have a very good memory for details and stuff. But what I did was actually set a limit. Like, "I'm going to write 100 things that happened to me in Mexico that I think will be interesting to talk about." And I literally sat there with a notebook and started thinking. And the first 50 or 60 are just flowing, and flowing and flowing. And then it takes awhile to think, there's 10 more, and there's another one, and finally over the course of about a week you get 100 stories. And some of the deeper stuff that you don't remember off the top of your head was actually some of the best stuff. But that's kind of how I did it. And then when I hit a roadblock, I would go and read the time frame on these matches, and just start thinking, and it would help jog my memory, like you said. The experiences weren't written down, but the matches would help me put together thoughts and events that occurred.
LIP: What was it like to get to express your appreciation for Owen Hart in this book?
CJ: It's funny. I think that with all the stuff that has gone down over the years in wrestling that Owen is almost the forgotten man. He did die at a young age, but he didn't die from any substance abuse, or anything. He died from a horrible, tragic accident in the line of fire, like a fireman or a soldier or something along those lines. But to me, Owen Hart was the link between fantasy and reality for me. Actually, that's a great line. I should have written that in my book. He was the guy from watching wrestling for so many years, and then Stampede Wrestling came on. But actually seeing Owen Hart wrestling in Calgary, and I grew up in Winnipeg, that was the first time that I really put two and two together: A) I knew this guy wasn't a giant, neither was I; B) His style was something I had never seen before and never even thought about the things he was doing. So that really came to life to me as far as being an acrobat, doing all these ridiculously cool moves; and C) The fact that he was doing it in Calgary, a place that I had been as a kid. Anyone could get on a bus and 12 hours later would be there. This wasn't New York or Chicago or Los Angeles or Atlanta, places that even if I had been there I still didn't know how I could get there. It's was not in my universe. Moving to L.A. was not in my universe at 17 years old. Moving to Calgary to train, to be like Owen Hart, was something like, "I could actually do this." And that's where it became a real thing for me, a living, breathing dream, rather than just a pipe dream.
LIP: People could make the argument that your return to WWE is a little bit like Ron Simmons and Butch Reed wearing masks while in Doom. They eventually took them off, but everybody already knew. That being the case, are you ready to make any comments about your impending future in the business?
CJ: Well, I always said when I left the WWE that I wasn't retiring. I was just getting away, taking a break, working on some other stuff. I was just mentally fried, I had nothing left to give. If you're not 100 percent committed to anything, you should just get out, because it's just not going to be good for anybody. So, I knew when the time was right that I would come back and be better than ever, but it was on my own time. I was able to walk away on my own terms, and I was going to keep it that way. And I would go back on my own terms, not because I had to, because I wanted to. There's a big difference. Writing this book really helped me to get back to that place where I thought that I could really go back to wrestling and have a great time and enjoy myself and have some fun with it. So, I think the book helped me kind of quote-unquote find myself, and remember how much passion I had. And also how fortunate and rare it is for a kid to have his dream at such a young age and be able to achieve it, that's a pretty cool dream and I didn't want to take that for granted, either. So, when the time is right, I'll know it, and I'll come back and be better than ever. And until then, I'm just happy doing what I'm doing.
LIP: You have a book signing in Philadelphia on Monday the 29th, when RAW is in town. Then you have a book signing in Long Island on Monday the 30th, when SmackDown!/ECW is in town. Is this close to happening?
CJ: As for the book signings, yeah, they're very close to happening.
LIP: Okay. Walked into that one.
CJ: You know, I can honestly say that I don't know for sure when, but I will tell you as well that even if I did I'm a magician. I keep my secrets and my tricks to myself, and I like that. I think it's one of the things I've always enjoyed about wrestling. And once again, going back to the way I was when I was a fan, I don't think it's fair or good for fans to know everything. And as much as it's great to have technology and it's cool that people know [more], I think it's also cool when people don't know, and that's something I've worked very hard to make sure that...it's still good to be surprised. And I think that everyone will agree with me that in a day and age where people know things before they happen, I don't think that anyone is going to know my story until it happens. And I think people in a vacuum would rather have it that way.
LIP: That said, have you enjoyed the cryptic video messages and all the things that people have tried to spin into one thing or another?
CJ: I enjoy the fact that people keep bringing up my name, and they have since I first left the WWE. People have been like, "Are you going to show up in TNA, or are you going to show up here, or show up there?" And any time that people talk about me and when I'm going to come back, I love it. It's much better than people saying, "You suck. Don't ever come back. When are you going to go away?" I think it's very cool that I've been around for so many years and started at such a young age that a lot of people have grown up with me as I've grown up. And you kind of become part of people's lives in a positive way and become a little bit of an escapism for people. I know there are certain bands that I liked when I was a kid that were always like that for me. I mean, Metallica, I was a fan since I was 13, and they'll always be a big part of my life because I grew up with those guys, and they helped me through a lot of stuff. So I think it's good to know that people feel the same way about me, and when the time comes for me to come back, I think it's going to be a huge deal. It'll be The Police reunion of wrestling. And the fact that people have been waiting for it for so long, when it finally happened [with The Police] it blew the doors down. And I think that's a good position for me to be in.
LIP: As far as TNA Wrestling is concerned, you've said recently that when you do return, it'll be with WWE. How serious did any talks get with TNA Wrestling?
CJ: Well, I think the best thing for the business is that TNA is up and running and doing very well. They have a lot of issues booking-wise, but those things will be worked out in the wash. But, the way I look at it is they've done everything they set out to do. They started out as a pay-per-view company, then they got on national TV. Then they got on Spike TV, then they got a primetime spot, then they got a two-hour primetime spot, so they've been moving forward, doing everything that they said they were going to do, so I think that's better for everybody involved. And I wouldn't be a businessman if I didn't talk to both companies. My only factor is that I never had any issues or axes to grind with the WWE. I liked working for the WWE, I enjoyed my time there, enjoyed working for Vince, I like Vince, I like everybody that's there. So I mean, obviously they would have first dibs, so to speak, because when you're working the big leagues, working on top of the mountain, of course you're going to go back there. And keep in mind, I wrote a whole book about my whole life mission and dream of being a WWE Superstar, so unless I had I had some kind of a huge blowup, I don't see any reason why I wouldn't want to go back there again.
LIP: A couple of state athletic commissions have been talking about regulating pro wrestling, and the initial reaction from WWE has been resistance. Wouldn't it be better for WWE, TNA or whoever to embrace the idea of regulation, since it would take away a cloud of suspicion because an outside entity would be testing and keeping the business honest? In other words, are they fighting something that might really help them in the long term?
CJ: I think as a whole a lot of wrestling companies have a tendency to be very defensive. But I think if that was what was ruled, it would probably end up being best for the business. If that's the case, nobody does it. You know what, it's not going to make good wrestlers bad, it's not going to make bad wrestlers good, either way. The guys that are good will always be good, no matter what. And I think that's the most important thing. I think a lot of people kind of don't understand that steroids or drugs or anything like that doesn't make you a better performer. And I think if you just eliminate it completely, then it's just going to be exactly the same as it always was. It's just that guys might not be as big. They're still going to be big, because guys train very hard. So, if that's the case that's going to make people feel better and more importantly, going to help the business, then go for it, I'm all for it.
Interesting, sooo Monday perhaps Y2J saves us? or just him screwing with us more?
Your thoughts?