Eric however had had enough of me and felt that it was best for Chris Jericho to just disappear from WCW. My name was never mentioned and I was never seen on Nitro Nitro again. It was probably the right decision, as no matter what form of burial he might've thought of, I just would've taken it and got more over in the long run anyway. WCW had taught me the valuable lesson of taking any scrap of TV time given to you and using it to make an impression. again. It was probably the right decision, as no matter what form of burial he might've thought of, I just would've taken it and got more over in the long run anyway. WCW had taught me the valuable lesson of taking any scrap of TV time given to you and using it to make an impression.

That lesson would benefit me for years to come.

I also used the time off to work on another one of my dreams.

One of the greatest feelings in the world is hooking up with other musicians and playing music. It's the ultimate form of both individuality and teamwork and a total creative rush. I'd never stopped playing, but since I'd moved away from Lenny in Calgary, I hadn't found anybody to jam with. I missed being in a band and now that I had the time to rock, I picked up the phone and called a guitar player in Atlanta named Rich Ward.

Rich was the backbone of the pioneer rap-metal band Stuck Mojo, and had been touring the world for years like I had. I'd seen Mojo in concert a few years earlier and I was impressed by their energy, their music, and their allegiance to wrestling.

They had wrestling dolls lined up on the amps, wore championship belts while playing, and threw out wrestling-influenced catchphrases like "To be the band, you got to beat the band" and "That's the bottom line 'cause Mojo said so."

Mojo had filmed a video starring DDP for their song "Rising" and our paths crossed when Rich came backstage at a WCW show in San Antonio during a Mojo night off. Rich and I were kindred spirits right from the start. We had the same sense of humor and liked a lot of the same bands, including Stryper. I was amazed because even though Stryper had been a huge influence on the early part of my career, it was rare to find somebody else who would admit digging them.

When I mentioned that I'd been playing bass and singing in bands for years, he threw out a curious offer. "I have a cover band called Fozzy Osbourne. Whoever is in town comes down and we jam on our favorite cover tunes. You should come sing with us sometime, it's a blast."

I loved the idea, but I never had enough spare time to make it happen. However, I kept in touch with Rich and when I hurt my ankle, he was the first guy I called. We booked a few shows, put together a loose set list, and I flew to Atlanta to rock.

Our first gig was at a club called the Hangar in Marietta, Georgia. About 300 Jerichoholics and members of the Stuck Mojo Dojo showed up. I was freaking out, because ever since I'd seen my first concert (the Police/Synchronicity Tour '83) I'd always dreamed of playing a full gig of my own. Now we weren't exactly Van Halen in 1978 as far as quality, but we were good enough for Rich and me to feel a spark. There was something special about the chemistry of his guitar riffs and my vocals right off the bat. We played again the next night in Spartanburg, South Carolina, in front of about twelve people and that was supposed to be the end of it.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the Casbah. Both Stuck Mojo and Chris Jericho were popular within our respective realms and due to the strange supergroup lineup of the band, a buzz started to build. Mojo's manager started fielding offers from record companies who were interested in signing us sight unseen and sound unheard.

(Interactive Portion of the Book: Download "Dream Weaver" by Gary Wright and press play now.) We were in the middle of a bidding war after playing only two gigs and my dream of being a rock star was starting to come true.

CHAPTER 54.

ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG.

My dream of becoming a WWF superstar was about to come true and I began scouting my new company. To familiarize myself with the story lines and performers I studied every WWF television show, more specifically Monday Night Raw Monday Night Raw and the monthly PPVs. and the monthly PPVs.

On May 23, 1999, I was watching the Over the Edge Over the Edge PPV from Kansas City. I had just made Jess and myself dinner and as I sat down to eat, I saw Owen Hart on the TV doing an interview about his upcoming match. Now there were many reasons why I wanted to sign with the WWF, some of them major, some of them minor. One of them was that being in the WWF would give me the opportunity to finally work with Owen Hart. PPV from Kansas City. I had just made Jess and myself dinner and as I sat down to eat, I saw Owen Hart on the TV doing an interview about his upcoming match. Now there were many reasons why I wanted to sign with the WWF, some of them major, some of them minor. One of them was that being in the WWF would give me the opportunity to finally work with Owen Hart.

Ever since I first saw him in Stampede thirteen years earlier, he was one of the reasons I'd decided to become a wrestler in the first place. Even though we'd worked for many of the same companies worldwide, except for that one plane ride from Calgary to Los Angeles, we'd never crossed paths. He'd become a big star in the WWF and was currently playing the masked Blue Blazer, a superhero who was decidedly un-super due to his squeaky-clean, goody-two-shoes antics. When I sat down on the couch to watch his always entertaining match, I noticed that the camera was panning the crowd. After a few minutes of the increasingly long and awkward crowd shots, I said to Jess, "Something is wrong here."

At that moment the cameras switched over to Jim Ross and his sidekick, Jerry Lawler, sitting at the announcer desk, their faces pale and ashen.

JR said something like, "Owen Hart has suffered a serious accident. He's had a serious fall."

My stomach plummeted and I thought, "He fell? What is he talking about? What do you mean he fell?"

I knew it wasn't a gimmick because both announcers were crying real tears and soon after, so was I. Owen had fallen fifty feet from the rafters into the ring when an apparatus that was supposed to lower him snapped. He died pretty much on impact.

I was overwhelmed with feelings of desperation and helplessness much the same way I was when Magic told me that Art had died. I ran out of my apartment and called Benoit to tell him. There was no answer and I left a message ending with the same question I'd asked Magic: "What are we going to do?"

I hardly knew Owen, but his journey through the business mirrored mine and I considered myself to be a surrogate member of the Hart family. He was an inspiration...almost a hero...to me and I couldn't comprehend what had happened. I've often had this fantasy that on the day of the accident I have a premonition that something bad is going to happen to Owen, so I call the Kemper Arena and manage to warn him just in time, saving his life.

But I didn't have any such premonition.

The next Monday I went to my first funeral for a friend (I've been to too many of them since) and all of the respect and sympathy shown toward Owen and his family was overwhelming. The entire WWF roster was there and the streets of Calgary were lined with thousands of people sharing in the massive grief. The Hart family was the royalty of Calgary and Owen was the crown prince. He was one of those guys that nobody ever said a bad word about and you could tell how much he was loved from the number of people paying tribute to him.

He was planning on getting out of wrestling in a few short years to spend more time with his wife and two young children. They were scheduled to move into their new dream house the very next week. It's an overwhelmingly dismal story and it still hurts to think about it.

Only the good die young, all the evil seem to live forever.

At the funeral home, Owen rested in an open casket. I leaned over and hugged him as the tears flowed down my face and I asked him the question I had been thinking all day: "What happened, man? We were supposed to be tag team champions someday."

I kissed his cheek and said goodbye to the nicest guy I hardly ever met.

There was a first-class list of wrestlers paying tribute to Owen that day. I have a picture of Stu Hart, Bret Hart, Hulk Hogan, Chris Benoit, Terry Funk, Dory Funk Jr., Shane Douglas, Davey Boy Smith, and me standing together at Stu's house after the funeral, all of us world champions at one point.

While the reason for the summit was terrible, the experience itself was actually a good one and it provided a small bit of closure. It was also a riot listening to Stu tell all of his stories while some of the greatest wrestlers of all time gathered in awe, hanging on to his every word. At eighty-four years old, he was still feisty. He even coerced a reluctant B. Brian Blair into allowing him to apply a shoot hold.

"This one can turn a man's eyes completely bloodshot," Stu said frankly as he applied pressure and then thankfully let go on his own. If he hadn't, I'm not sure that any of us could've made him let go, nor did we want to get close enough to try.

I saw Keith Hart for the first time since he tried to snap my teeth in half almost nine years earlier. I went and shook his hand, then we both stood there awkwardly. A fly landed on his face and when I went to shoo it away, he went into a fighting stance like he expected me to attack him.

Maybe he thought I wanted revenge...or a refund.

As I was leaving Stu's house, I saw the Hulkster. He was the only guy from WCW to show up at the funeral (besides Benoit) and I thought it was a very classy gesture on his part. I talked to him for a few minutes until he came flat-out and asked me, "Are you going to go work for Vince?"

I was still keeping my plans of defection on the down low, but on that day I didn't care too much about keeping secrets.

"Yeah, I think I'm going to give the WWF a shot."

He looked me in the eye and said, "Can you take me with you?"

CHAPTER 55.

THE CLOCK HITS ZERO TONIGHT.

I didn't take Hogan with me, but I was officially WWF-bound. My signing was announced on the WWE Web site a full month before my contract with WCW was up. I thought for sure that Eric would run me through the wringer on TV as a result. But he must've considered me damaged goods because he still didn't do a thing. didn't take Hogan with me, but I was officially WWF-bound. My signing was announced on the WWE Web site a full month before my contract with WCW was up. I thought for sure that Eric would run me through the wringer on TV as a result. But he must've considered me damaged goods because he still didn't do a thing.

On the day my deal expired, I sent Eric a fax thanking him for the opportunity he'd given me. Even with all the animosity and bad feelings between us, he still gave me a chance with the company and paid me a huge amount of money to wrestle on national TV. At the very least I owed him a thank-you for that.

Now that I was an official WWF superstar, I was on the phone with Russo constantly, discussing ideas and scenarios. He seemed to be as excited about me coming in as I was because my arrival into the WWF was going to be a huge deal and the company was already thinking of ideas for my debut. So was I.

I was dropping off some mail at the post office when I saw a clock on the wall counting backward. Underneath the clock it said, "Countdown to the New Millennium." It was six months before the year 2000 and the clock was keeping track of the time until New Year's Eve: 176 days, 17 hours, 8 minutes, 12 seconds, 11 seconds...

I thought, "That would be a cool way for someone to come into the-wait, that's a cool way for me me to come into the WWF!" The WWF was famous for airing vignettes weeks before a new character's arrival to build anticipation and excitement. I'd just discovered my vignette. I called Russo and he promised to run my idea past Vince that day. to come into the WWF!" The WWF was famous for airing vignettes weeks before a new character's arrival to build anticipation and excitement. I'd just discovered my vignette. I called Russo and he promised to run my idea past Vince that day.

The Millennium Clock idea was...ahem...timely, because I'd been trying to think of a replacement for the Lion Heart name for a while. I'd been using it for years and I wanted to come into my new company with a new look, a new name, and a new nose. Well two out of three ain't bad.

So it was goodbye Lion Heart, hello Millennium Man. I would enter the WWF promising to be the the performer to take the company into the year 2000 and beyond. performer to take the company into the year 2000 and beyond.

Russo called me back a day later and said that not only did Vince love the idea, but he was going to calibrate the clock to start a month before my debut. This way, it would hit zero right at the exact moment of my first WWF appearance on the August 9, 1999, edition of Monday Night Raw. Monday Night Raw.

A month beforehand, I flew to the WWF offices in Stamford, Connecticut, to nail down the details of my debut. I met with Jim Johnston, who wrote the music for all of the superstars. We spent an hour talking about who I was and what my character's attitude was, so he could get a feel for what my entrance music should sound like. Instead of recycled TBS basketball music, I was getting a custom-made fancy-pants song written just for me.

I met with Kevin Dunn, the producer of Raw Raw, to talk about my entrance video and his plan of using a double blast of pyro to give my arrival extra impact. As I took promo shots and went over merchandise ideas, again I felt like I had stepped into Oz. Except Oz was now spelled WWF and Dorothy was bigger, sexier, and sporting a topknot. Come to think of it, I looked more like the Cowardly Lion.

I went in for a meeting with the Boss himself. His office had a view of the Stamford skyline and was decorated with WWF memorabilia. I sat down in a plush chair that was worth more than my apartment and he pulled a script out of his desk for the movie Toxic Avenger IV Toxic Avenger IV, which included a part written specifically for me.

"You've been here a day and you're already a movie star," he grumbled.

My star-making role as Toxie's new sidekick was never mentioned again, but it was a nice dangled carrot anyway.

Then Vince hit me with a bombshell. His idea was to have the Countdown to the New Millennium clock reach zero right smack-dab in the middle of a promo by The Rock. I was floored because interrupting The Rock took me to the highest level right off the bat. It was a great example of VKM's genius, as he'd taken my already good idea and increased it a thousandfold. We were a good team already.

Then Vince asked me what my finishing maneuver was and I explained it was a submission similar to the Boston Crab. He was reluctant to have me use a submission, feeling that I was more of an explosive pin fall type of guy. I would've used a sweaty sock as a finish if he'd wanted me to and I wasn't going to disagree. But I told him whether I was using a pin fall or a submission, I wanted to call my finish the Y2J Problem. Y2J was a take-off on the much ballyhooed Y2K problem that was apparently going to destroy us all at midnight on January 1, 2000. It didn't, although I personally was destroyed on that night.

He smelled what I was cooking straight away and said, "That's not going to be the name of your finish. That's going to be your name period."

"The Y2J Problem?

"No, just Y2J."

The rest is Jeric-History.

I was a nervous wreck the night the clock was supposed to first appear on Raw Raw. I'd been in the business long enough to know never to count on anything until it happened. I still didn't quite believe that I could actually be going to the WWF.

Sure enough midway through the show, the screen went to a neon blue graphic that said "Countdown to the Millennium" while the numbers clicked backward. 28 days, 1 hour, 4 minutes, and 11 seconds...10 seconds...9 seconds, each click accompanied by an awesome whooshing sound effect.

It was definitely happening.

I spent that week writing my debut promo. In WCW I'd done a lot of my promos improv, but with this one I wanted to get everything just right beforehand. This was a different world and there would be no Onta Gleeben Glouten Globens allowed here. I had a few ideas about what I wanted to say and when I put pen to paper, the whole thing flowed out of me within ten minutes.

I was going to talk about how complacent the WWF had become and how they were in need of a new savior to carry them into the next millennium. That savior was their role model. That savior was the Ayatollah of Rock N Rolla. That savior was Chris Jericho.

I flew into Detroit the night before my debut in Chicago to observe the WWF behemoth at work. They were filming the Sunday Night Heat Sunday Night Heat show for MTV and I watched the whole production from the Gorilla Position (named after WWF legend Gorilla Monsoon), the brain center of the operation where Vince and his crew called the shots. show for MTV and I watched the whole production from the Gorilla Position (named after WWF legend Gorilla Monsoon), the brain center of the operation where Vince and his crew called the shots.

It was such a change from WCW where there was no Gorilla Position, no Giraffe Position, no nothing. Just an empty hallway and a curtain. But Vince was hands-on running everything, just like the Wizard manipulating everything from behind the black curtain.

The only thing that bothered me about joining the WWF was some of the provocative angles the company was doing, like when the World's Strongest Man Mark Henry received oral pleasure from a transvestite. I thought that stuff had no place in wrestling and I tried to get veto power in my contract if I was ever asked to participate in an angle I felt to be questionable.

Vince gave me his word that if I was ever asked to do something I felt awkward about, all I had to do was say no. I remembered his words when I watched the Heat Heat show that night. show that night.

A character named Meat had his drink spiked with Viagra, which forced him to wrestle with a huge boner. This effect was subtly achieved by stuffing a dildo down Meat's Calvin Klein underwear-looking trunks.

The finish of the match saw his opponent the Big Bossman take his nightstick and whack poor Meat in the cock.

I watched all of this in amazement thinking, "What have I gotten myself into?"

The next morning when I arrived at the Allstate Arena in Chicago, I suited up in my new Y2J costume of a pair of Harley-Davidson leather pants and a silver rave shirt that I bought from a hip-hop shop.

I was taking Jimmy Hart's darling advice of wearing color to the max. Besides, I had a lot to live up to if I was going to dub myself "the most charismatic showman to ever enter your living room via a television screen." I put my hair into the Gene Simmons topknot, combed the billy goat beard I'd grown for the occasion, looked in the mirror, and gave myself a Billy Idol sneer.

Y2J had arrived, muthatruckers.

My costume complete, I walked out of the dressing room as cocky as a male porn star, acting like I owned the place. I ran into Vince, who was getting a cup of coffee in catering. He looked me up and down, his eyes settling on my ricockulous hairstyle.

"It's cheap heat, Vince."

"Indeed." He nodded with a weird look on his face and strutted away.

I went over my promo with Russo and he didn't have any major concerns or changes. The Rock joined us, we rehearsed the whole thing once in catering, and that was it. Rocky and I were both trained professionals and we knew what to do. As the heel, I had some choice insults for him and as the babyface he had some tremendous comebacks for me. If everything went the way it was supposed to, it was going to be a classic moment.

I rehearsed my ring entrance in the empty arena and when I saw my new entrance video and heard my new music, I was in awe. The video was a montage of lights and cars speeding down the city street at night combined into a sleek and sexy package. Just like me.

My music was even better, with the opening tagline of "Break the Walls Down" setting the tone as a heavy, grooving guitar riff kicked in. The tune made me feel like walking up to the Pope and kicking him right in the rosaries.

In a moment that brought everything full circle, I ran into Jesse "The Body" Ventura backstage. Except he was now Jesse "The Governor" Ventura, the head of the state of Minnesota, and he was promoting his one-time-only return to the WWF for the upcoming SummerSlam SummerSlam PPV. PPV.

I went up to him and said, "Jesse, I don't know if you remember me, but I met you in Winnipeg at a hockey tournament you played in with my dad. I told you that I wanted to be a wrestler and you gave me some great advice that helped me get here today."

I don't know if I expected him to jump up and down, pat me on the back, and give me the keys to Brooklyn Park, but he really didn't give much of a reaction at all. He actually kind of jobbed me out saying, "Good for you kid. Another Jesse success story," before walking away with a cigar clenched between his teeth. My grandma was right!

The day changed to night and before I knew it it was show time. Monday Night Raw Monday Night Raw started with a hailstorm of bombs and fireworks, as the whole crew gathered around the backstage monitor to watch Jim Ross hard-selling that night's show. started with a hailstorm of bombs and fireworks, as the whole crew gathered around the backstage monitor to watch Jim Ross hard-selling that night's show.

"The clock hits zero tonight. What could this mean?" JR screamed with excitement.

A lot of the Chicago fans already knew what the clock signified. Some of them had brought Role Model signs and others were chanting "Je-ri-cho," but all of them were ripe with anticipation about what the clock was going to reveal.

Like a Viking warrior, I was ready for battle when I was called to Gorilla Position to get ready for my cue. The Rock's music began and the two of us hit knuckles as he stepped through the curtain to a thunderous reception.

I said a quick prayer thanking God for the opportunity and asking for his help in making it a success. Midway through The Rock's promo the Countdown Clock appeared and the crowd exploded. The Rock turned his steely stare toward the gigantic 'Tron displaying the graphic.

15. . . 14. . . 13. . .

This was it. After nine years of backbreaking physical and mental challenges, I was finally here.

12. . . 11. . . 10. . .

The crowd worked themselves into a frenzy as the numbers spiraled backward toward zero.

9. . . 8. . . 7. . .