That was definitely the most unique compliment I'd ever received.

It was then that I saw Paul E.'s greatest strength: He was an exceptional motivator. He made his crew feel like a million bucks even though he was only paying them a couple hundred. Paul waited for every single wrestler to come through the curtain so he could congratulate them personally for their contribution to the show.

His encouragement meant more to his crew than money. I'm sure there were guys in the WWF who would've given a week's pay to get that kind of acknowledgment from Vince McMahon. Paul's currency was compliments and he spent it freely.

He was a master of accentuating the strengths and hiding the weaknesses of his roster. This was apparent when acts like Public Enemy and the Sandman went to the big leagues and were exposed as average performers when they weren't protected in the same way. Paul hid Sandman's weaknesses in the ring by turning him into a beer-drinking, hard-hitting son of a bitch (sound familiar?), and Public Enemy went from a stock tag team to a pair of hot-stepping table-breaking wiggers, who became the most popular act in the company.

With his limited financial resources, Paul had to use whoever was available to the greatest of their abilities. The fans truly loved or hated every performer on the roster and if they didn't, that wrestler wouldn't last long.

There was a family-type atmosphere in the locker room and I didn't sense the jealousy that usually existed toward a new performer in the fold. I felt welcome right off the bat. In that same locker room there was also a platoon of beautiful, scantily clad women roaming around like wildlife. Paul had stocked his company full of gorgeous girls on the theory that sex sells.

I was sold.

There were always women involved in the wrestling business, but these knockouts were in a different league: Beulah, Francine, Woman, Miss Patricia, Lady Alexandria, Missy Hyatt; all of them drop-dead gorgeous.

I was blown away in particular by a tiny Asian girl named Kimona Wanaleia, who had one of the best bodies I'd ever seen. I couldn't take my eyes off her to the point where I couldn't concentrate on my work. It's hard enough to put together a match as it is, never mind being in the middle of a Cinemax flick to boob...er boot.

It wasn't just the girls who were distracting-the entire roster was a plethora of freaks and misfits. There were half a dozen guys walking around wearing tie-dye shirts and black-framed nerd glasses called the Dudleys. Their gimmick was that Mr. Dudley was a jobber (sorry Bubba) who'd spawned a whole brood of half-brothers with ricockculous names like Snot (my old SMF roommate Anthony), Spike, Bubba, Devon, Chubby, Big Dick, Sign Guy, and the Indian, Dances with Dudley.

There was an obese guy with a blue Mohawk, wearing a half shirt and short-shorts, named the Blue Meanie. While I appreciated the reference to the Beatles' Yellow Submarine Yellow Submarine, I thought it was the worst name for a wrestler ever. There was a fifty-year-old man with Captain Caveman hair and a Roman gladiator outfit named Salvatore Bellomo. Another guy called J. T. Smith had the gimmick of falling off the ropes and making mistakes in the ring, inciting the fans to chant, "You fucked up!"

The chant became J.T.'s legacy and you still hear it whenever a wrestler makes a mistake. I should know, as I've been the recipient of the dreaded chorus many times.

But the crowd loved a good chant and if they didn't like what they were seeing, they would start up with "End this match!" If one of the girls did something dastardly, a rousing refrain of "She's a crack whore" would sound throughout the building. If one of the heels did something evil, they would be greeted with "You suck dick!"

Fun for the whole family.

CHAPTER 41.

CAN YOU DIG IT?.

My victory over the Jericho Curse in ECW was short-lived when the bastard used Mapquest and found me during my second ECW match in Queens, New York. It was hard to believe that the New York City fans could be more brutal than the Pennsylvania brethren, but they were.

Paul booked me against RVD and wanted to use the match as our official TV debut. Rob and I had similar styles, similar size, and similar worldwide experience. He'd spent some time overseas and made a name for himself in Japan just as I had. But the match sucked worse than a toothless vampire. We were a step off on everything and there was no sign of the chemistry we'd had the night before. The fans turned on us, chanting "This match sucks," "Please go home," "End this match." Even the dreaded "You fucked up" chant reared its ugly head when I screwed up a simple arm drag.

At the time neither of us realized how bad the match actually was. Paul claimed he couldn't air it on TV because the tape in the camera was defective. It only took me five years to figure out that the tape was fine. It was the match that was defective.

A lot of the same fans from the Reading show were also in Queens and some of them had their own gimmicks. One guy brought his own signs and was one of the first fans to do so. Another wore the same straw hat and Hawaiian shirt at every show. Another dude with long black hair, beard, and black aviator shades looked exactly like Jim Martin the guitar player from Faith No More. All these guys sat in the exact same seat at every show.

The fans were a part of the ECW experience and they were proud to be a part of the revolution. The whole scene reminded me when I found the first Metallica record in Winnipeg in 1984 before they had any mainstream success. I got jealous when they started becoming more popular.

They were my my band and nobody else could have them, dammit! band and nobody else could have them, dammit!

The hardcore ECW fans felt the same way. Whenever a wrestler left to go to bigger and more lucrative pastures, they were often greeted with chants of "You sold out," as if they were personally turning their backs on each one of the people in attendance.

I sure wasn't working in ECW for the money-I wasn't expecting to make a whole lot of cash. But I knew that being a regular there would increase my visibility and value overnight. I hadn't discussed a specific money guarantee with Paul and I was curious to see what he would give me for the weekend.

When I received my check, it looked like a doctor's prescription-practically illegible. I had to study it for a few minutes to figure out that Paul had ended up giving me 150 bucks for the Reading show and 250 bucks for the Queens show. He also tacked on a $25 bonus.

Even though Paul couldn't pay a king's ransom, that $25 bonus might as well have been $5,000. It was a motivational tool that boosted my morale and made me proud to be a part of the company. Paul was notorious for bouncing checks, but I can honestly say that I never had a single problem cashing a check from Paul E. I also had a stack of pictures of him fornicating with a walrus, but that's a different story.

I went back a few weeks later for my debut at the famed ECW Arena. The Arena had developed a life of its own and was becoming as legendary as Korakuen Hall. Yet it wasn't an arena at all, but a bingo hall that had been converted into one. But after wrestling in bowling alleys, a bingo hall was actually a step up.

It seemed like the whole place was under construction. The backstage area was dirty and full of trash, with a grungy bathroom and a shower that was so filthy, a Mexican toilet wash would have been better.

Paul wanted my first Arena appearance to be a big deal, so he booked me against the Human Suplex Machine, Taz. Taz was the biggest star in the company and was known for destroying everybody he wrestled. He was another perfect example of Paul's adeptness at accentuating strengths, as the fans really believed he was the biggest badass in the company...even though he was smaller in comparison to some of the other wrestlers.

In the dressing room before the match, I heard a few people mention the name Alfonso while talking to Taz. Since we were working together that night, I decided to address him on a first-name basis.

"What do you want to do out there tonight, Alfonso?"

He stared at me sternly, "What?"

"Ummm, your name is Alfonso, right?"

I thought he was going to choke me out when he told me that Alfonso was his manager's name. It seemed that Mr. Taz wasn't too fond of Mr. Alfonso either. Instead of breaking the ice, Taz almost broke my face.

Because Paul had built Taz into such a destroyer, the fans were convinced that I was going to be his pupu platter for the evening. In reality, the match was designed to make me into an instant star. The story was for me to hold my own against Taz, until finally maneuvering behind him and giving him a German suplex. It would be a huge deal because Taz rarely left his feet during a match and he'd never been suplexed before.

By giving Taz a taste of his own suplex medicine, the fans would know that ECW was taking me seriously as a contender, which would make them take me seriously.

It wasn't hard to see that the company took itself quite seriously as well. Before the show started, Paul addressed the entire crew from the top of a staircase and delivered a motivational speech that would've put Knute Rockne to shame. It was like Cyrus addressing the gangs in The Warriors The Warriors.

"You are some of the most talented people in the entire wrestling business and nobody wants you. WWF has cast you out. WCW won't return your calls. They won't hire you because they are afraid you will outshine and embarrass every single one of their so-called wrestlers. And they're right. They don't want you, they won't take you, but I am honored to have you as a part of this company. I thank you for putting your bodies on the line to entertain these fans and give them the show that they deserve; a show that no other organization on this planet can give them. I sincerely thank you."

He might as well have finished up with, "Can You Dig It?"

I looked around and saw that this ragtag bunch of misfits were ready to kill for Paul E. at that point-and I was one of them.

Paul was Jim Jones disguised as a wrestling promoter and he had just served us a Big Gulp full of Kool-Aid. I drank it down like a fine wine and was more fired up for that match than any other in my life. I was determined to make Reverend Paul E. proud of my performance.

I took it to Taz with my Japanese stiff offense and when the big moment arrived, I suplexed the War Machine right off his feet. The crowd erupted with astonishment and surprise. They knew it was no coincidence that both Taz and ECW had allowed me to do that. Then, at the apex of my domination, Taz got behind me and returned the favor by suplexing me literally right on the top of head. He followed up by putting me in his katahajime submission finish (a judo choke hold), guaranteeing his victory.

But my subtle push continued when I didn't tap out. The story was that the suplex was so vicious, it had knocked me out cold. But I'd shown incredible fighting spirit in taking Taz to the limit and the fans accepted me as a member of the family. Paul's plan had worked.

Taz continued to apply his submission until the locker room emptied to try to save me. He murdered a few job guys, until Brian Pillman, a huge star who'd been one of my Stampede heroes, ran into the ring. Pillman distracted Taz long enough for me to get rolled onto a stretcher.

As I was being carted down the aisle, a fan leaned over the rail and said, "Hey Jericho ya faggot, why doncha go work in New York!" I guess not everyone in the Arena was ready to bake me a hero cookie.

The comment reminded me of a story my dad told me from when he was playing with the Rangers in the old Chicago Stadium. The arena had a staircase leading from the dressing room up to the ice and as he was climbing the steps a fan yelled, "Hey Irvine ya faggot, why doncha go back to New York!"

Same asshole, different Irvine.

As the stretcher took me through the curtain (where I was greeted by an ecstatic Paul E.) I saw Pillman rebuke Taz's challenge and jump over the rail into the arms of Philadelphia Eagle lineman Harry Boatswain. It fit Pillman's character to play the unorthodox chickenshit coward because it seemed like he'd gone completely insane in real life...or had he?

He was working in ECW after leaving WCW, where Pillman had convinced everyone in WCW that he'd gone crazy, to the point of conning WCW boss Eric Bischoff into firing him and legally letting him out of his contract. But he still kept showing up in the crowd at WCW events, causing disturbances on live TV and leading the fans and everyone in the company to think he'd lost his marbles. But it wasn't just for the shows-he was playing crazy all the time.

He'd shown up in ECW to continue the elaborate work and perfect his loony act. He was also doing an excellent job of convincing everyone that he'd lost it. He'd shown up at the Arena that day with his pants falling down from not having a belt. He went around to everyone in the dressing room asking them if they had an extra belt (who doesn't?) and ended up settling on a piece of twine.

Then out in the ring, the Sandman hit a jobber with his trademark kendo stick, knocking the guy loopy. The guy was obviously going to be fine, but that didn't stop Pillman from running around the dressing room, jumping up and down and screaming like a crack-addicted monkey in his gravelly voice, "Call 911! Call 911! For the love of Christ somebody please call 911!"

He was completely overreacting as if the guy had been beheaded. But he wouldn't stop and was making everyone in the room very uncomfortable, when right in the middle of his tirade with nobody looking, he gave me a wink.

I thought, "That guy is a genius. He's working everybody."

I was a big fan of Pillman's work, but I'd only met him for the first time that evening and I was confused as to why he chose to let me in on his elaborate ruse. Why did he trust me not to blow the whistle?

I'm sure it was because of our Calgary connection. He'd started in Stampede and still had great respect for the territory and all it had taught him. He also was a fan of wrestling and kept close tabs on what was going on within the business worldwide. Maybe he'd heard something about me and my history or how I'd gotten into the business the same way he had. Being trained in the Dungeon was like being part of a fraternity, so in a way we were frat brothers.

It was the only time we crossed paths in ECW, but we spent a lot of time together that weekend and he gave me some brilliant advice.

"If you really want to make it in wrestling, you have to do something that's never been done before."

I took Brian's advice to heart and followed it throughout the rest of my career. The success of all my future work was always based upon that rule.

Brian was doing the crazy gimmick to build interest for his return to the big leagues. He wanted to end up in the WWF, but had an idea he'd been pitching to WCW in case he returned there. Pillman wanted to form a younger version of the Four Horsemen to feud with Ric Flair's legendary team. His idea was to call the team the Horsemen of the Apocalypse or the Generation X Horsemen. While the original team held up four fingers to signify the Four Horsemen, this team would cross their forearms and give a double four finger sign in the form of an X. Pillman's idea was to have Benoit and Eddy in the group and asked me if I'd be interested in being the fourth member.

Was I interested? Gee, let me check my calendar...

To get the chance to work with those guys would have been the biggest opportunity of my career. But Pillman ended up signing with the WWF and the idea never materialized. However, I never forgot his advice and it influenced my career greatly. Thanks Brian.

Pillman wasn't the only influential person that I crossed paths with in ECW, as my first weekend in the company was Mick Foley's last. He was going to the WWF and his second to last match in ECW was against me, the guy who he'd been instrumental in getting into the company in the first place. Our first ever match was a good one and I'd like to add that I won that hard-fought contest.

I would also like to add that Mick Foley has been a three-time world champion and a New York Times New York Times bestselling author, but the one thing he hasn't done is beat Lion Heart Chris Jericho in a wrestling match. bestselling author, but the one thing he hasn't done is beat Lion Heart Chris Jericho in a wrestling match.

Not that I'm keeping track or anything.

CHAPTER 42.

THE GOLDEN TICKET.

While my match with Mick was one of my ECW highlight moments, my absolute hands-down favorite moment didn't even involve me. When I first started in the company, Kiss was in the middle of their huge reunion tour. The Blue Meanie was in a tag team with his partner, Stevie Richards, and their gimmick was to parody other wrestlers. One night in the Arena they came to the ring with two other guys dressed as Kiss and began lip-synching and strutting around to "Rock and Roll All Nite."

The crowd went bonkers for the Kiss tribute and everyone was having a great time watching these idiots make fools of themselves.

Just as the revelry reached its peak, "Enter Sandman" by Metallica cut Kiss off like road rage and the Sandman made his way to the ring drinking a can of beer. He took his kendo stick and caned the shit out of the Starchild and the Catman, spit beer into the face of the Space Ace, and kicked the Demon right in his Deuce.

It was hilarious and it made the Sandman my favorite wrestler...for one night only.

After the Arena shows, Paul E. put us up at a run-down Travellodge in the middle of a Philly crack neighborhood and all the fans knew exactly where we stayed. There were hundreds of fans in the bar and the lobby of the hotel after the show partying all night long. They weren't the annoying type of fans, but respectful and knowledgeable so it was cool to get to know them a little. Hanging with the fans also helped pass the time while we were waiting until 5 A.M A.M. for Paul E. to tape the promos for the TV show.

He applied the same last-minute fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants routine for most aspects of the promotion. I'd see him scribbling matches on a napkin for a show that was already in progress. All of the wrestlers would be dressed and on call to go on whenever he called our names.

Once as the first match of the show was already taking place, he said, "Chris, you're on in the third match against Mikey Whipwreck."

"Paul, Mikey's wrestling in the ring right now."

"How 'bout Too Cold Scorpio? Is he out there? If not, you guys are on third," Paul replied without blinking an eye.

I used my ongoing WAR tours to develop a foolproof way to impress the girls. I simply called them from Japan and just like Frank Costanza stopping short, it was my best move. It worked every time.

"How are you doing? I'm just hanging out in Tokyo and I thought of you." You could practically hear the helpless female melting on the other end of the line.

I used my best move on the lovely Kimona and it dazzled her so much, I started dating her. She became my ECW girlfriend, which was a better bonus than the twenty-five bucks Paul was giving me.

She made me a proud boyfriend indeed at the Arena one night when she saved the show after the ring broke.

Somehow during one of the matches, the ring just fell apart. There was a long delay while the crew tried to figure out how to repair it and the sold-out crowd was getting restless. Paul could sense a mutiny in the air so he told Kimona (who shockingly was a stripper) to go onto the balcony above the ring and perform a striptease. It took some convincing, but Paul poured a keg full of Kool-Aid over her and she finally agreed.

The lovely Kimona proceeded to calm the unruly mob with one of the sexiest erotic dances I've ever seen. I was watching her performance with Terry Gordy, who was one of the best big-man wrestlers of all time until a drug overdose left him with permanent brain damage. He stood next to me watching Kimona's display of artistic expression with a huge wad of tobacco in his mouth and said, "I ain't never seen nothing like this at no wrestling match."

Neither had I, but Paul made sure to give everyone the opportunity to see it by peddling the tape on the ECW TV show for the next five years.

A friend of mine in Los Angeles called me the next day to ask me about Kimona's famous dance. During the conversation, he mentioned an upcoming wrestling show that piqued my interest. Antonio Inoki, the boss of New Japan, was promoting the World Peace Festival, which featured wrestlers from Japan, Mexico, and the United States. WCW had a working relationship with New Japan and was planning to send some wrestlers from the company, including Benoit. I had a gut feeling that it would be in my best interest to be on that show, so I made a few calls to some of the local L.A. promoters I'd worked for and weaseled my way onto the card.

I was hoping to use the show as a tryout for New Japan, but it ended up leading me into an entirely different direction.

I met up with Chris at a party held the night before the festival and he insisted on introducing me to Eric Bischoff. Chris and I had worn suits to the party and even though we stood out like sore thumbs among the other guys, I was dressed for success when I met Eric.

Benoit had passed my Dragn match tape around the WCW higher-ups and Eric had seen it. Two sentences into our conversation, he cut me off and said, "Benoit has been recommending you like crazy and that's enough for me. Do you want to come work for me in WCW?"

And that was it.

After years of toiling away in foreign countries, high school gyms, bowling alleys, and bingo halls, I'd finally been given the golden ticket to work in the United States.

"Here's my number, call my secretary. We'll arrange a meeting and make a deal."

I couldn't believe how quickly it had transpired. Granted, Bischoff was signing anybody with potential to prevent them from going to the WWF. He was in the middle of a nasty wrestling war and he wanted to lock up as much talent as he could.

I'm not saying that Eric didn't know who I was, but I don't think he'd seen any of my work besides the Dragon match. I know damn well that he didn't see my work at the Peace Festival, because he left before the show started. I thought that it was strange that he didn't stick around to check out his new prospect, but in hindsight it was a typical WCW move.

A few days later I called Paul E. to tell him about Eric's offer and, to my surprise, he already knew. At that point, Paul had a huge influence on the business and had spies everywhere who told him everything. I think he still appreciated my honesty in telling him myself.