A Lion's Tale: Around the World in Spandex (21 page)

Art’s death is still a mystery. There are lots of conflicting theories and reports as to what happened but I have a theory of my own. Art took a lot of pills during his everyday life. I believe that as a result of taking so many his body became confused about when to wake up and when to go to sleep and as a result it simply stopped working.

When I finished writing Art’s requiem, I went back into his room to do a cleanup operation. I didn’t know what I’d find, but I knew that his death would be a huge story and I didn’t want the police to discover anything that would cause his family any further pain. There wasn’t all that much to hide but I cleaned up what I thought should be cleaned up, out of respect for my friend and his family. I took one more look around the room and was about to turn the lights out and leave when I saw a photo hanging on the wall. It was a picture of Art dressed in a nice suit with a classic Love Machine devil-may-care look on his face, taken at a Christmas party the year before. I had no right to take it off the wall and keep it, but I did. It was something of his that I could hold on to and remember my brother by.

A few short weeks after Art’s death, the Mexican peso crashed hard. Suddenly I was making a third of what I’d been making as the exchange on 1,000 pesos went from $340 to about $125 in one day. The peso crash was the icing on the cake anyway, because after Art died the fun of wrestling in Mexico was gone. The whole vibe had changed and it was too painful to stay at the Plaza with all of the Art memories surrounding me. God was telling me that it was time to move on and it was no coincidence when a few days later I received an offer from the perfect place to continue my quest.

PART FIVE GERMANY

CHAPTER 21

THE TRIANGLE OF DECADENCE

E
ven though I was a main-event performer all across Mexico, a heartthrob, a match-of-the-year participant, a champion, and a fairly well off twenty-four-year-old, I still felt like I was at square one when it came to breaking into the big time in North America. I didn’t think that I had enough experience or was good enough to go to New York (wrestling slang for the WWF), but as I said I didn’t want to stay in Mexico.

Once again I felt complacent as a performer and I was getting tired of living in what was basically a Third World country. I’d gotten everything I could out of lucha libre, so I set my sights on getting booked elsewhere. Since Japan wasn’t knocking on my door, I started thinking about Europe. The style there was based more on technical wrestling (something I wanted to get better at) and less on masks and fancy ball-boasting costumes. Lance had built a name for himself working in Germany and Austria, with the same company Chris Benoit had worked for a few years before. I respected both guys, so I started to investigate.

I’d met another American wrestler staying at the Plaza named Solomon Grundy who’d spent the previous fall working in Hamburg. I asked him for the address of the promoter so I could try and get myself booked. I figured that the Beatles got their big break in Hamburg, so why not me? Solomon gave me the address, and the next day I wrote promoter Rene Lasartesse a letter...how archaic!

A few weeks later I received his reply. He explained that the promotion ran a tournament out of the same building six nights a week for six weeks. I’d sent him a beefcake picture of myself wearing only a pair of ripped jeans and he said that his daughter was in love with that picture and she had insisted he invite me.

I was surprised at how easily I’d been accepted, but I guess I shouldn’t have underestimated my sexocity. I wrote him back to find out how much my guarantee would be, where I would get my work visa from, where I would stay, and how I would get my plane ticket. He responded that I wouldn’t be getting a visa or a plane ticket but I would get 150 deutsche marks a night. He also agreed to pick me up from the airport and make a reservation for me at the hotel where all the boys stayed. It wasn’t the best of deals but I was stoked to go to Europe so I didn’t mind the pay cut. I was intrigued by the idea of working in the same venue in front of the same fans every night. In that scenario, there would be no complacency or shortcuts allowed. I would have to challenge myself to do something different every night. It would be a great way to sharpen my skills and keep me mentally and physically in shape...like Pilates.

In Germany, wrestling is known as Catch. The name referred to the catch-as-catch-can style of wrestling, which doesn’t make much sense. Then again neither does gesundheit and that’s a German word too.

So I paid for my own plane ticket to Hamburg, thrilled to add another country to the expanding list of destinations my career was taking me to. When I got off the plane, I looked for the customs area and was surprised not to find one. I could’ve walked off the plane with two hockey equipment bags full of pure Denver crack and nobody would’ve known.

I did have two hockey bags, but regretfully they were filled with clothes not crack. The tour was six weeks long so I’d packed accordingly. I brought exactly three weeks of clothes...twenty-one pairs of socks, twenty-one pairs of gonch, etc., so I’d only have to do the washing once. Genius, huh? I also brought a slew of cassettes (remember those?) and a four-speaker ghetto blaster. There was no way I was going to let anything stop me from rocking for six whole weeks.

I lugged my bags into the bright sunshine looking for the friendly face of Lasartesse. I had no idea what he looked like, which wasn’t a problem because nobody was there.

Nobody.

I was by myself in Germany, didn’t speak the language, and didn’t have any contact numbers or for that matter any contacts. All I had was the address to the Hotel Domschanke, the place where Rene had booked me.

I found what appeared to be the only taxi driver in Hamburg lounging in the coffee shop and gave him the address. We drove for twenty minutes until he dropped me off at what looked like a large house, not the fancy joint with picture windows and revolving doors that I was expecting. I lugged my overstuffed bags up a flight of stairs and walked into what I thought was the lobby.

It was actually a pub and it was just like the bar scene in
Animal House
: Everyone stopped talking and turned to stare at me. The smile crawled off my face as the beer steins clinked down on the tables and everyone took a good look. I put my bags down with a double thud and asked the big-boned woman behind the bar, “Excuse me, where’s the front desk?”

She said nothing and a few of the patrons snickered at my question.

Awkward...

“Dis EES de front desk,” she said with a scowl in a thick German accent.

I told her that I had a reservation at the hotel.

“No you don’t, ve’re full.”

“I’m sure I do. Renee Lasartesse made it for me.”

“I’m sure you DON’T, ve’re full,” she insisted.

So Rene hadn’t picked me up from the airport or made me a reservation, but I wasn’t surprised. This was wrestling, after all.

I decided to let it go and I asked her if she knew where the Catch tournament was. She pointed out the window, to a thumbnail of a tent in the middle of a huge park.

“Right over dere,” she said and gave me my Welcome to Germany present of a basket of puppies. Actually, she stared at me as if I’d murdered David Hasselhoff, and motioned toward the door.

I headed through the park toward the tent as if I was Dorothy walking to the Emerald City. I cursed Lasartesse as each step seemed to add another brick to my hockey bags. Hot, wet, and dripping with sweat, I finally reached the venue, which seemed better suited for Oktoberfest than for wrestling. It was a big circus tent with a wooden floor and various flags hanging from the ceiling. Parked on the outside was a line of motor home trailers. When I knocked on the first trailer hoping to find Lasartesse, I was astonished when Davey Boy Smith opened the door.

It took me two seconds to realize that the guy wasn’t as big or as handsome as Davey, but he was damn close. He didn’t look happy to be disturbed and growled in a strong English accent, “What the fuck do you want?”

When I told him I was looking for Rene, he lightened up and invited me inside.

His name was Boston Blackie and the trailer, or caravan, was his. Most of the wrestlers from the U.K. lived in caravans for the six weeks of the tournament and were able to save a lot of money as a result.

We shot the breeze for a bit until he asked me, “Are you a villain or a blue-eye?”

It took me a minute to figure out that blue-eye meant babyface. Blackie was a blue-eye, which was exemplified by the stack of Davey Boy Smith (one of the most popular English wrestlers ever) pictures on his table that were signed “Boston Blackie.”

Blackie wasn’t the only Englishman that was copying a famous WWF gimmick, as soon afterward a droopy dog of a man named Johnny South came into the caravan. Johnny looked vaguely like Hawk from the Road Warriors but instead of being known as the Legion of Doom, he was the Legend of Doom (they have the Big Mac, we have the Big Mic). He sported the same makeup, mohawk, and spiked shoulder pads as Hawk, but there was one major discrepancy. Johnny was about a foot shorter and fifty pounds lighter. He also had a nasty divot across his bald head.

My curiosity got the best of me and I asked, “Where did that dent come from?”

“I got chopped in the head with an ax,” he said matter-of-factly. “It was stuck in me fookin’ scalp.”

Fair enough.

Blackie told me that Lasartesse was inside so I walked into the tent and encountered a huge, white-haired man, sitting at a desk counting money.

“Are you Rene?”

“Yes. Who are you?” He was from Switzerland and spoke in a hybrid French/English accent that made him sound like Andre the Giant.

“I’m Chris Jericho.”

He gave me the once over. “Wow, you looked better in the picture.”

He continued to bolster my ego when he explained that he simply forgot to pick me up and hadn’t got around to booking me at the Domschanke.

He offered to make up for his forgetfulness by giving me a ride to the nearby Reeperbahn where I could find a place to stay. We got into his two-seater Trans Am that was so small I had to sit with one of the clunky hockey bags on my lap. We drove to a street bathed in the neon light of signs, advertising all things porno from strip clubs to S/M shops to XXX theaters to live sex shows. The Reeperbahn is one of the most famous red-light districts in the world. And for the next six weeks I would be living there.

I price-checked a few hotels but they were all too expensive for my limited budget. I was only making 150 DM a night (about 175 bucks) and these places were 100 to 120 DM a night. Throw in the two grand I’d forked over for the plane ticket and it was paramount for me to be as frugal as possible. The further we traveled up the Reeperbahn the cheaper the hotels got, both in price and quality.

I finally settled on the illustrious Hotel Rheinland for a cool 75 DM a night. Anything cheaper and I’d be sleeping on the back of a cockroach. At the Rheinland, I just roomed with them.

The good thing about the Hotel Rheinland was its proximity to what I called the Triangle of Decadence™. To the right was a strip club called the Cat Meow, to the left a McDonald’s, and across the street a heavy metal club called the Docks. I believe that covers all three of the major-party food groups and I knew I was in for an adventurous six weeks.