No is a Four-Letter Word

by Chris Jericho

  If the “Bad Cow” comment wasn’t enough to hammer home the fact that my idea was dead in the water, the “What else ya got?” gibe was the final kick to my creative plums.

  “Well?” he said looking at me expectantly.

  “Yeah, I really don’t have anything else, Vince. That was pretty much all I had, and I put a lot of time into putting it together.”

  “Well damn it, Chris, you need to have multiple ideas when you come see me. Besides, I don’t think Shawn would be interested in this anyway.”

  I had one last hope. HHH and HBK were the oldest and best of friends. Maybe Paul would jump at the chance to bring his buddy back for another money-making run.

  “Yeah, I don’t think he’s even available,” H chimed in, bursting my bubbleski. I’d have happily punched him in his huge honker at that moment, considering the mood I was in. (Angry Author’s note: Not only was Shawn available, but he was booked to be in Los Angeles the morning of SummerSlam to do a Q&A at the WWE Axxess fan festival.)

  Of course it wasn’t HHH’s fault that Vince didn’t go for it and it wasn’t that Bad Cow’s fault. I even felt bad for the poor thing. After all, it had been groomed its whole life for the sole purpose of being a tasty meal for someone. And now, not only had it failed miserably in its life’s mission, but thanks to this book, it’s being insulted and vilified long after its bloody death in the abattoir.

  I’m sorry, Madam Bad Cow.

  It was really my fault for not choosing a better time to approach Vince to get his undivided attention. I didn’t take heed of my own words and previous experiences to create the best environment for success, and as a result I failed to get what I wanted. Listen to these words, Constant Reader, and please don’t let the same fate befall you. Don’t get BadCowed like I did.

  Can we at least get that phrase trending on Twitter?

  #BadCowed

  CHAPTER 7

  THE

  YODA

  PRINCIPLE

  THERE IS NO TRY . . .

  ONLY DO

  Day after day I get up and I say,

  I better do it again . . .

  —THE KINKS, “DO IT AGAIN”

  (Ray Davies)

  Growing up in the early ’80s, I was into a lot of things: the Beatles, comic books, GI Joe action figures, Cracked Magazine, and hockey cards, but there was one pop cultural, uh, force, that had more impact on me and my friends than anything else. A movie that shaped and molded us with the messages contained dealing with the power of good and evil and the ability of one person to make a difference. Plus, it had cool-looking aliens and Han fuckin’ Solo! Constant Reader, of course I’m talking about Star Wars and its sequels, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

  Out of all the wisdom in those movies, the most powerful lessons came from the diminutive Jedi master, Yoda. Despite his small stature, greenish hue, and a Broken Matt Hardy–style butchery of the English language, Yoda spouted off more inspirational one-liners than Confucius himself. While there are quite a few gems to choose from, the one that stayed with me the most was the simple yet effective statement of, “There is no try, only do.”

  (Surprised Editor’s note: After doing some research, I found out that the actual quote is “Do or do not. There is no try.” I had no idea I was misquoting Yoda all these years, but I’ve decided to keep it the way I remembered it because it’s my book. If you don’t like it, go read an Eckhart Tolle essay.)

  A better motto for our lives I cannot think, as it encapsulates the theme of this entire book. It’s a subtle yet important rule, but it requires a little bit of mental jujitsu. Let’s say there’s a goal you haven’t accomplished. Tell yourself you’re GOING to do it, and know it’s just a matter of time until you figure out when and how. That works a lot better than saying to yourself you’ll “try,” which introduces the possibility of failure right from jump street.

  To put it another way, if you think you can do something, adopt the Nike motto of “Just do it” and damn the torpedoes (and I ain’t talkin’ about Tom Petty) until it’s done. Saying you’ll try puts you in a weak place mentally and acknowledges you might not be ready to tackle the task at hand. You’re better off carefully considering the logistics of how to do something and then doing it, and leave trying out of the equation altogether.

  I consider myself a perfectionist. I want everything I do to be the best it can be, and if it’s not, I won’t be happy. At the same time, in order for me to do my best in the first place, I need to start somewhere, and that begins with putting myself out there at all times.

  Consider a friend of mine from Winnipeg that I’ve known since we were literally babies, who was already one of the best guitar players in town at the tender age of fifteen. He was a natural virtuoso who could play any song in any style, but refused to play live gigs because he perpetually felt he wasn’t ready. I personally think he didn’t want to play out because he was afraid of negative feedback, and to this day, he still hasn’t been in a steady full-time band because of those inhibitions. Even with all that natural talent, he won’t succeed because he doesn’t try . . . and therefore will never DO.

  But to me, the Yoda way is the best way to live; skip the “trying” and go straight to the “doing.” Yes, there will be mistakes, but those errors will eventually teach you to be your best. To do something half-assed, or even worse, being too afraid to do something in the first place, are the ultimate sins in my world. I’d rather do something and fail (look in the Shitty TV Show Dictionary under “Celebrity Duets” for an example) than sit on the sidelines because I was too afraid.

  When I finally decided to do Dancing with the Stars after turning down two previous invites, I remember thinking, Okay, I’m gonna give this a DO (see what I did there?), because I had no interest in just attempting it. If I was going be involved with this show, I was going to DO it to the best of my ability. I’d never danced before but I wasn’t going to use that as an excuse, because once I agreed to be on the show, my only option was success. In eliminating the concept of “trying,” I had trained myself over the years that I could do anything I set my mind to. And while I didn’t win DWTS, I lasted seven weeks and did a pretty damn solid job. Plus, I found out that I looked damn good in a Mexican matador outfit and made friends with Sugar Ray Leonard, so it was a definite win.

  When I was auditioning heavily in Los Angeles in 2006, my acting coach, Kirk Baltz, told me that the rule for answering inquiries from producers about any special skills I might have was to respond with a resounding YES.

  “Chris, can you sky dive?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you speak Swahili?”

  “Ndiyo.”

  “Can you tie your shmeckel into a tidy Christmas bow?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, it’s in a double fisherman’s now.”

  Say yes first and learn how second, because you don’t want to lose out on an opportunity to play Reg Dunlop in a Slap Shot remake because you can’t skate, or a part in Zoolander 2 because you’re not funny (that didn’t stop the actual movie). Your overall attitude should be “Yes I can!” (and I ain’t talkin’ about Sammy Davis Jr.), because you really can do anything you want; you just have to get off your tuchas and do it!

  In the summer of 2014, when I was working the program with Bray Wyatt, our first few PPV matches went okay, but I knew we had the potential to pull off something better. I really wanted our third encounter to stand out, so when I heard that the blow-off match was going to be in a cage on Raw, I decided I wanted to do a crossbody off the top of it.

  I hadn’t done this since 1993, twenty-one years earlier, but I knew I could still pull it off. Plus, it was a no-brainer that the death-defying maneuver would shock people and tear the house down if we put it in the right place at the right time. I pitched the idea to our match producer, Arn Anderson, and he brought up a really good question about the psychology behind the move. Why would I jump off the top of the cage, when I could just climb down to the floo
r instead and win the match? It was a valid point, so I told him that in my mind the rest of The Wyatt Family would be at the bottom of the cage slamming chairs against the side and blocking my escape, which would force me to have to soar down onto Bray. Arn liked it, and with his blessing I went to pitch it to Vince.

  Vince agreed with the idea, except he didn’t want the Wyatts to have chairs and had some hesitations as to whether the dive would be safe.

  “Maybe you should put the crash pads down and try it first before the show?” he asked sternly.

  “No, boss, I’d rather just get up there and do it,” I replied confidently.

  Even though it had been over two decades since I’d performed the risky move (and I wasn’t twenty-two years old anymore), I had faith that I could do it again without any problems.

  Before I got into the business, I used to hang around at a Gold’s Gym in Winnipeg and watch the WWE wrestlers working out when they were in town. I was a huge Shawn Michaels fan and was obsessed with the fact he could do a backflip from the top rope, so when I saw him training one afternoon before the show, I interrupted his workout and asked him how he did it.

  “You just gotta get up there and do it, brother,” he said.

  Later that night on Raw, I heard Shawn’s words echoing inside my head as I climbed to the top of the cage with Wyatt lying on the canvas some fifteen feet below me. When we’d discussed the spot earlier he seemed a little hesitant, and I don’t blame him. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to do it, but I’m sure the thought of catching a 210-pound man hurtling down from the sky at lightning speed was a daunting proposal, to say the least. But as I perched on top of the cage, I could see in his body language that he was ready to catch me . . . and by cracky I was ready to fly!

  Cage matches are always fun and easy, because all you have to do is utilize the gimmick and try to get out of the cage. Anytime you head towards the door or begin scaling the chain-link wall, the people “always go banana” (Pat PattersonTM), so you build the whole match around that. The crowd that night in Baltimore was no different, and as soon as I started climbing up the structure, they began to rumble. By the time I got to the top and swung my leg over the attached truss with Wyatt still prone on the mat below, the crowd was screaming like Rob Halford on the Screaming for Vengeance album. They were convinced that this was the finish, and I was going to win the match by scaling down to the ground below. Then just as planned, the evil Harper and Rowan made their way to my side of the cage and started beating on the structure like madmen.

  I took a look down, decided I didn’t want any piece of the fugly behemoths below, and swung my leg back over the truss. But instead of descending back into the ring, I crouched on the steel beam for a moment and then slowly rose to my full height, with the crowd rising behind me in disbelief. Nobody believed that I was crazy enough to actually jump.

  Earlier in the day, I had stood on top of the corner of the cage, holding on to the cable that raised and lowered the framework. I’m not afraid to tell you that I was pretty freaked out standing on that beam in the middle of a completely empty arena. But now the venue was packed with twelve thousand screaming Baltimoreans (is that a word?), and I wasn’t freaked out at all. As a matter of fact, I felt pretty BMF standing there with all eyes on me as I stared death in the face. One false move and I could get seriously hurt, or worse. But if this went as planned, it would add another feather into the well-stocked plumage of my Joey Belladonna–style WWE headdress, and that alone made it dangerous but worth the risk (and I ain’t talkin’ about Ratt).

  Years earlier, Vince had taught me to pause before (and after) an important high spot during a match, to give the crowd ample time to slap their friends sitting beside them on the shoulder and say, “Can you believe he’s going to do this?” With that advice in mind, I waited for an extra ten seconds as the crowd went wild with expectation. I was feeling a little hesitant, but before I jumped I noticed a tiny figure on each side of my head.

  “There is no try, only do,” Yoda said to me looking up from my left shoulder.

  “You’re fucking crazy,” Axl Rose bellowed up from my right.

  I decided to go with Yoda’s advice and flicked Axl off my shoulder. He screamed all the way back down to the jungle, where he exploded into a puff of dust and bones. Sorry, man, I still think about you.

  With all my doubts dispelled, I took a deep breath and prepared for take-off. But just before I launched myself, I thought of another pertinent Shawn Michaels moment. When he had his triumphant return match against HHH at SummerSlam 2002, the high point of the contest came when he was about to drop an elbow from the top of a ladder onto a table on the floor. But right before he made the leap of faith, he looked at the crowd, shrugged his shoulders as if to say “What are you gonna do?” and jumped into WWE history. If it was good enough for HBK, it was good enough for me, so I shrugged my shoulders in a “Wha’ happen?” homage to the master and dove into the air.

  The tagline on the poster for the original 1978 Christopher Reeve Superman movie was “You’ll believe a man can fly.” Well, you didn’t have to Netflix and chill to see a man flying in Baltimore that night, ’cause I was super, man!

  My descent felt like it took thirty seconds to complete, and I might as well have been skydiving out of a plane. I flew towards Wyatt in seeming half time, as he moved directly under me until he was in perfect position to make the catch. Then I collided directly with his 285-pound form and we went down hard. It was like one of those Instagram videos that starts in slow motion but speeds up at the end . . . and it was awesome.

  Even though Bray caught me perfectly and protected me from the potentially hazardous high spot, I still did a quick subconscious body check. After assessing that I had splashed down safely with no injuries, I gave myself a self–high five in honor of the DDP Yoga that had made the leap possible.

  When it was all said and done, I had taken a chance to entertain the fans and to prove something to myself and the world. I showed that even though I was in my forties, I could still do anything I damn well pleased in the ring, because I believed in myself and didn’t get hung up on wanting to “try” things.

  That’s because I was too busy doing them.

  CHAPTER 8

  THE

  PAUL

  STANLEY

  PRINCIPLE

  ELIMINATE NEGATIVITY

  I’m never gonna run,

  I’m never gonna tell myself a lie . . .

  —KISS, “MY WAY”

  (Paul Stanley, Bob Ezrin)

  Since you’re reading this book, you probably know I’m a massive KISS fan, and Paul Stanley was one of my biggest influences both as a performer and a motivator when I was growing up. Much like me, he totally believed in himself and always went the extra mile to entertain. Throughout my career, I’ve borrowed little tricks from Paul as an entertainer, but it was his attitude towards life that influenced me the most. To the point that the words I heard him say almost thirty years ago stuck with me and helped shape me into the person I am today.

  During the 1988 documentary The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years,” Paul is being interviewed while lying in bed surrounded by a gaggle of half-naked gorgeous chicks (as you do). When director ( and Talk Is Jericho alumna) Penelope Spheeris asks him if he has any advice for kids trying to make it in show biz, he replies, “The only people that are ever gonna tell ya you can’t accomplish something are the ones who failed. I’m not here to tell you that you can’t do something, ’cause I did it . . . you can do it.”

  For the record, I didn’t have to rewatch the movie or google that quote when I wrote it down right now. I know it by heart and have since I first heard it in ’88. Actually, I’ve used that quote so many times in my own interviews that people think I said it first. Well, I must confess for the record that I didn’t coin the phrase, and I guess I owe the Starchild some royalties for that one.

  Now, for a thought experiment. I ask you, Constant R
eader, to imagine how a seventeen-year-old Chris Irvine with big dreams and no clue how to achieve them must’ve felt when he first heard this quote. They were powerful words with a powerful message that was tailor-made for a kid like me, who was being laughed at by almost everyone who heard about my life plans. After hearing Paul’s wisdom, I had a strong defense against anybody who told me I couldn’t accomplish what I wanted. One of the biggest rock stars in history was giving me permission to stick my middle finger into the faces of any Abner Devereaux’s who weren’t on my side. From that point on, I mentally gave the finger to my detractors like I was Stone Cold Steve Austin in 1998, and I’ve never stopped since. As a matter of fact, if you’re reading this book wondering why Chris Jericho of all people is writing a selfhelp book, well, I’m giving you a belletristic bird right now!

  Hopefully, if you’re hearing Paul’s words for the first time, you’re experiencing the same thing I did back in ’88. Maybe you will also experience the sense of empowerment you need to ignore all your doubters and haters. Let’s face it, we all only have so much mental energy to spend, so why waste it worrying about the people who doubt you? Who gives a shit what they think?

  Forget them, eliminate their negativity, and put that mental energy to better use, like achieving your goals and making your dreams a reality.

  Paul’s quote meant more to me than every one of Jack Handey’s “Deep Thoughts” and was more powerful than three (maybe four) of the Ten Commandments. As a matter of fact, they might as well have been written on tablets and given to me by Moses on the mount . . . if Moses was about to mount a gaggle of scantily clad stable maids that surrounded him on a bed of hay.

  Armed with Paul’s verbal ammo, I threw myself into everything I did with passion and effort, knowing that the biggest obstacle to reaching a seemingly unattainable goal was a lack of self-confidence. And the biggest roadblocks to that self-confidence are the people who doubt you. Therefore, if you want to succeed, you have to eliminate negative influences in your life before they drag you down.