Book Review: Chris Jericho’s “A Lion’s Tale: Around The World In Spandex”

Jericho, Chris. A Lion’s Tale: Around the World in Spandex. Lebanon, IN: Grand Central Publishing, 2007.

A Lion’s Tale: Around the World in Spandex is a great book. Divided into fifty-five chapters, it tells the story of Jericho’s career wrestling in several countries, including Japan, Canada, Germany, Mexico, and various wresting promotions in the United States, such as WWE/F, WCW, ECW, and Smokey Mountain Wrestling. I’m not going to go into great detail here, because I think it would really spoil a fabulous book, but here are some of the highlights:

In the author’s note, Jericho says that this book was written before the Chris Benoit Tragedy, and that it is only about his life before the year 2000. As such, it only reflects on the Benoit that Jericho knew up to that point. If you want to know his thoughts on the Benoit tragedy, you have to buy the sequel. (Way to sell a book you haven’t written yet. I’m impressed.)

We start with his childhood in Manitoba, Canada, and get a feeling of how he became obsessed with wresting. Then it’s off to the Dungeon (The Hart Brothers’ Wrestling Camp) to learn to be one of the best in the business. Jericho has good and bad things to say about his time in the Dungeon, but does make it clear that he’s who he is today because of it. He also expressed disappointment that the Hart Brothers weren’t really there. Keith Hart made an appearance the first day and gave the students a speech, but other than that, Jericho never saw any of them while he was there. He says he was later able to get Stu Hart as an instructor, but his first experience in wrestling school was really no different than it would have been anywhere else.

We’re off to Mexico, where Jericho wrestled as “Corozon de Leon” or “Lion Heart” in Spanish. He quickly became friends with two other guys in the promotion, Los Gringos Locos – Art Barr and Eddy Guerrero. Jericho relates the first time he met Eddy in a hotel room. Eddy was drunk off his ass and was being rude to Jericho, and making fun of him. He asked him who he was. Jericho replied, “Corozon de Leon. It means ‘Lion Heart’ in Spanish.” Eddy yelled, “I’m Mexican! I know what it means!” Jericho has a tendency to say stupid things whenever he meets wrestlers more famous than himself, apparently. (Don’t work, Y2J, I’m sure I’d say something way more stupid than that.)

Jericho then relates his time in Germany. He met Fit Finlay while working there. Finlay was working for a competing company. He came up to Jericho, and introduced himself and then asked Jericho to deliver a message for him. He wanted Jericho to go back to his own company and tell them they were a “bunch of cunts”.

He covers Japan next. I don’t even know how to tell you about this part without ruining the book. Just go out and read it. This section is great stuff.

There isn’t a whole lot on ECW. Jericho seems to have really loved his time there, but it was a short amount of time, so there isn’t a whole lot to say. His tales of Heyman’s amazing ability to lie to peoples faces are hilarious.

WCW is next. This is probably the most interesting section to me, because it is where I was truly introduced to Jericho, so it’s what I remember most clearly. He’ll tell you all about the backstage crap, especially his real life feud with Goldberg. But my absolute favorite part is his section on going to Vince McMahon’s mansion for contract negotiations to jump ship to the WWE.

And just like that, the countdown to the Y2J problem began. Too bad we have to wait for part two to read about it!

This book is fabulous. It’s filled with hilarious stories. It’s also got some tearful parts – The deaths of Owen Hart and Art Barr, even how his mother was paralyzed. However, this is a highly energetic, fun read that I literally could not put down.

I also really liked the fact that he didn’t throw a lot of personal shots out there. He had problems with guys like Goldberg and Bischoff, but he was able to still compliment them on what he thought they had done right. I was impressed to learn that his arch-nemesis is Vampiro, who apparently tried to sabotage Jericho’s career at several points in time. Vampiro is about the only person Jericho is truly rude to in this book.

OVERALL RATING: 10/10. It simply doesn’t get much better than this book. Only the sequel might compete. I’ll be here to review it as soon as it’s out.

Tags: wwe, WWF, Wrestling, Jericho, WCW, Y2J, ECW, Goldberg, Benoit, Japan, McMahon, Lion's Tale, Book Review, Spandex, book, hart, canada, manitoba, corozon de leon, los gringos locos, art barr, fit finlay, cunt, heyman, hilarious, countdown, bischoff, vampiro, sequel, smw, germany, mexico, guerrero