Jericho’s Lions Roar Just Loud Enough

Chris Jericho’s autobiography “A Lion’s Tale,” co-written with Peter Thomas Fornatale misses the mark at times not because of what is said during the course of the book, but what it doesn’t.

Leaving a “lion’s” share of pivotal emotional details out, Jericho aka Chris Irvine, doesn’t take us as far into his world as we would have liked. Sure, it’s full of great stories from his travels and life, but considering the book ends in 1999 upon his arrival in the WWF, you can’t help want more and feel a little jipped.

The main instances of Irvine holding back are when he mentions the regrets he has that are due to a life in wrestling, such as spending time with his family. A little more of an inside look at the man would have been great here and made the book something special. Irvine also does an excellent job of bypassing through his childhood, mentioning only the love of wrestling he had and his parents’ rocky relationship. Again, a bit more here could have gone a long way in showing us the person behind the yellow and black tights and awesome hair.

In spite of that, the insight Irvine provides to the business is a must-read, even if you’re not a fan of professional wrestling. Traveling all over the world in your 20s with barely a dime in your pocket is no easy task, but Irvine does it. Feeling like a pro wrasslin’ tribute to the road stories of Jack Kerouac, Irvine is charming, inspiring and fun throughout.

If you are a fan of Jericho’s work however, this book is a fast and fun read. One of the last superstars to experience the old territories, Jericho has been all over the world, wrestling for a myriad of personalities and sharing ring time with dozens of legends. Listening to him discuss his time in every company is hilarious and intriguing, as here we get the kind of details the fans deserve. While you’ve without a doubt heard stories about people the likes of Eric Bischoff and Scott Hall, hearing Jericho tell stories about them is classic. For these parts of the book alone, this book is a must have.

There’s more here however than Jericho just talking about people in the sport. His story is about fighting tooth and nail, with possibly a small dose of self-preservation, to make your dreams come true. Making mistakes along the way, Jericho admits he isn’t perfect and does a great job of making himself comfortable and relatable to the reader. For that, the book is an undeniably success.

The reason why he omitted 99.9 percent of his tenure from the WWE is more political than anything and while it hurts the flow of the book, it’s understandable. You can’t burn your bridges in that business and by writing this book, Jericho tries to satisfy his urge to tell his story without pissing off the people he needs in order to make a living.

The popular cliche says you can’t have your cake and eat it too, but in the end, Irvine gets pretty damn close.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14262 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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