Chris Jericho Book Review - February 4, 2008

I finished reading Chris Jericho's book recently entitled "A Lion's Tale: Around The World In Spandex. I thought I'd share some thoughts on it. First, this is a book that you need to pick up. If you like reading wrestling autobiographies, you'll like this one. This is definitely one of the best wrestling books that I've ever read. I'd put it in the top three easily. There are times when I'll be reading one of these wrestling books and don't enjoy reading the stuff about their early careers as I'm waiting to get to the stuff that I know more about. Well, that didn't happen in the Jericho book. I did not find one bit of this book to be boring. Every bit of it was interesting and he tells great stories about his career. There is a lot of humor in it with the style of writing of the book. The book begins and ends with his Raw debut in 1999. So, it definitely leaves the door open for another book covering his WWE career later on. The book starts with him as a fan and telling lots of great stories including his strategy of getting pictures with wrestlers at hotels which consisted of him and his friend yelling "hey (insert name)" and when they turn around, take the picture. He tells several stories about meeting various people and his tradition of saying something really dumb to open the conversation such as meeting Chris Benoit and saying "my name is Chris too". He told a lot of great being a fan stories. He and Lance Storm were together basically from the beginning of their wrestling careers including them training together. He goes on to cover working in Canada, Mexico, Japan, and eventually the big leagues. His time in ECW was one that helped him a lot. He said that he loved working there and that Paul Heyman had this amazing way of giving everyone a pep talk where you felt like you were going to war as a group. It is very interesting to read his thoughts on his run with WCW which he said almost killed his desire to be in wrestling. He really was just pounding on a glass ceiling there and really had to fight to keep his storyline with Goldberg going. Actually, he tells of how he really was doing that storyline on his own. Goldberg was furious with Jericho making fun of him and Jericho couldn't seem to get it in his head that it was building heat to the fans wanting them to see Goldberg destroy him. He was promised a big match with Goldberg but never got it. He also talks about a meeting with Goldberg, Bischoff, and Hogan where he had to defend himself against Goldberg's claims of Jericho trying to ruin his run. Jericho made his case and won over Hogan. Jericho said that it was really the only time that he had talked to Hogan in his WCW career. Later, Hogan would ask Jericho at Owen Hart's funeral if the rumors of Jericho going to the WWF were true. Jericho had been laying low with talking to WWF which he goes into in his book and also compares of how different talking to WWF and WCW were. When Jericho told Hogan that he was leaving, Hogan replied, "can you take me with you?" That tells me there about how miserable Hogan was in WCW at that point as well. Jericho really puts over WWF huge with how they met with him and came across so professional especially with how unprofessional WCW was. Several other things that you'll learn in this book is his consistency of starting for a promotion to always have a bad match. He calls it the Jericho curse. The book covers many topics including Art Barr and Owen Hart's deaths, meeting Rey Mysterio, traveling with the Guerreros, meeting wrestlers as a kid and the fight that ensued with his friend at the time over the bad picture of Jericho and the Honky Tonk Man together, The Hart Brothers Camp, Ralphus and how his attitude got way out of control, his run ins with Bischoff, his pet peeves of dealing with refs, wrestling in different promotions in Japan, and so many, many more. I can't even remotely count how many great stories that he has to tell in this book. Jericho has always been a great storyteller and I knew he'd do well writing a book. Getting those stories put into book form was great and this book delivered, it delivered huge. Like I said, get this book!! You will not be disappointed. One of my favorite autobiographies that I've read.