At TV the week before, Terry Taylor told me, ‘Lodi, you’ve got Benoit Monday at Nitro.’ So, I had a couple of days to think about it, but I’d never had a match on Nitro. Obviously, Benoit is going to put the match together, right? That’s not going to be up to me. The green kid doesn’t call the match.
My tag team partner Toad, who was my roommate at the time, said, ‘Hey, I know you’re not going to get to call the match. But if you get asked for any input. You come over the rail, how great would it be if when you get on the apron he just hits you from behind and you take a big nasty bump on the rail. Then he comes on right out of the ring and chops you five-six-seven times.
You know, then get in the ring and you cut him off or whatever and get your heat.’ Benoit, at the time, was using three finishes. He would do the headbutt, he would do the crossface, and he would also do the superplex for a finisher at times. And my roommate, he said, ‘One thing I haven’t seen him do, and I don’t know you can really ask for this, but what if he did all three?’ So in our minds we had laid this whole match out.
I get to TV at 2 o’clock and I’m very excited, we get to catering and I see Chris immediately and I’m like, ‘Hey Chris, I just wanted to say we’re working. Whenever you’re ready to get together just let me know and I’ll be there.’ He goes, ‘I’ll grab you later.’ 4 o’clock rolls around and we’re back at catering. I probably see Benoit around 4:30 or 5 PM and say, ‘Hey Chris, do you want to go over the match?’ And every time he looks at his watch and says, ‘Eh, we’ll do it later.’
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