Shane Helms On Why He Hates WWE Composer Jim Johnston, The Rock Intentionally Flubbing His Lines
As noted, on episode 262 of Talk Is Jericho, WWE Superstar and Fozzy lead singer Chris Jericho spoke with professional wrestling veteran Shane Helms. 'Hurricane' discussed his hatred for WWE composer Jim Johnston, and The Rock intentionally flubbing a pretaped segment on WWE Monday Night RAW.
Interestingly, the longest reigning WWE Cruiserweight Champion of all time still holds a grudge over WWE composer Jim Johnston refusing to give him a songwriting credit for the Kung Fu Naki theme song, as he came up with the lyrics for the song and came up with the idea for the gimmick as well.
"I was riding with Adam [Copeland]. The Canadians all adopted me for whatever reason. It was either I was riding with [Jericho] or Adam and [Christian] mainly and Lance [Storm]. Adam and [Christian]. Both of those guys. And so, Adam's driving and Funaki and maybe it was Taka [Michinoku]. I don't know, but it's [Edge] driving and some other people and I look over there and I just Mitch Hedberg style, like I do, 'what if Funaki's first name was Kung?' and Adam about ran off the road laughing at that s–t, 'Kung Funaki?'. And then I break out into that song, 'everybody love Kung Fu Naki/that b—h be drinking saki/his body is short and stocky/he drives a Kawasaki' and that was the whole song."
Helms continued, "so anyway, when they did the song, I emailed Jim Johnston and said, 'hey, I don't know it you know this, but I actually wrote that song'. Yeah, it's based on [the 1970s Kung Fu Fighting song], but the words, they still used my lyrics. Yeah, I wrote the lyrics, not the notes. And I was like, 'I don't want any money'. I mean, I don't know how much money that song would have made anyway, but I just wanted to have that on the résumé, a little songwriting credit just for my own personal benefit that'll be cool. He refused to do it. [Johnston] refused to acknowledge me: wouldn't email me back, wouldn't return my calls. And I'm talking about several calls and several emails. Especially in the music industry, as [Jericho] well knows, that's a big no-no. If somebody writes the lyrics to the song, they get credit for that s–t. You can't just decide not to give it to them. And I know it might seem minuscule to people listening, but I made that gimmick up. That was my s–t. My idea. And he completely refused to do it and I hate that motherf–ker to this day."
During the podcast, Helms talked about his feud with The Rock in 2003. Helms remembered a time when The Rock kept messing up his lines for a pretape and realized that The Rock was doing it on purpose so that their segment would be live instead of pretaped.
"Rock did something on that pretape that was interesting to me and I never forgot. He kept blowing the pretape, like he kept flubbing his lines and s–t. And I was just going, 'huh?' and then one time, he kind of flubbed one and then he turned at me and gave me a slight wink. He kept breaking it on purpose, so we would have to do it live and now we don't have to go 90 seconds. Now we can go as long as we want. But he can go as long as he wants. I'm the sidekick here! I remember that little wink like it was yesterday."
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Source: Talk Is Jericho