15 Years: The Best of Jericho
On August 9th, 1999, Chris Jericho debuted in the WWF. That was 15 years ago.
So I’ll take this opportunity to go back and highlight the most memorable aspects of his WWF/E career. So let’s not waste a second:
The Millennium Man
In the spring of 1999, Jericho called it quits in WCW and jumped ship to WWF.
World Championship Wrestling was the prototypical inmates-running-the-asylum promotion, with very few opportunities for the Jerichos and Eddies of the world to progress solidly in their career, as they would consistently play second-fiddle to the ratings-grabbing nWo act.
After signing with WWF, a short segment began airing on WWF TV, featuring the “Countdown To The Millennium”, a clock that wounded on August 9th, 1999… while The Rock was in the ring, putting the verbal boots to the Big Show.
If you’ve never seen this segment, I’ll simply leave it here, as no hype is necessary:
Feud with Shawn Michaels
In 2003, a heel Ayatollah of Rock ’n’ Rolla crossed paths with a returning Shawn Michaels, after the latter was sidelined with a believed-to-be career-ending back injury in 1998.
Chris Jericho was in his perennial upper mid card deluxe spot and had a great opportunity to work a reinvigorated HBK, who was coming off the end of his short-lived World Heavyweight Title reign. That’s right, in 2003, even best friend Shawn bowed down to the… bowed down to the King!
Their feud saw its first major incident at the 2004 Royal Rumble. Michaels would start the match in the #1 spot he won the Rumble from 9 years earlier, making his already ballyhooed participation even more anticipated.
Well… Jericho took care of that. Entering at #2, he had ally Christian (you probably know him best as Christian Cage from TNA) enter through the curtain in his stead. With the Smile Loser distracted, Jericho ambushes and eliminates him. All the uberface hype and excitement of seeing Shawn in the Rumble went up in smoke, courtesy of Jericho’s heel antics. The fight was on and it was best for business.
With Jeff Hardy and Christian also involved as the Player Two to Michaels and Jericho’s Player One, the feud hit several noteworthy midpoints until it made the awesomely-stacked Wrestlemania XIX card.
It was arguably one of the most powerful lineups of Mania. Austin vs. Rock III, Hogan vs. McMahon, Angle vs. Brock, a somewhat-downplayed Taker Streak on the line… it was easy for any match to get lost in the shuffle, even a promising match like Michaels/Jericho, which was able to marry the rare qualities of being a feud between two of the top guys, who had the popularity, the technique and the dramatic and mic skills to keep it all engaging.
The match ended up being a resounding highlight of the night, even as Austin and Rock put together another epic display and Brock’s title win over Kurt Angle was equal parts quality and health scare.
Michaels’s return to the Showcase Of The Immortals could not have gone any better and Jericho deserves at least half of the credit as the dance partner.
The feud’s impending personal drama appeared to dissipate after HBK’s sudden rolling cradle pin of Jericho. Jericho and Michaels embrace, leaving behind Jericho’s jealousy toward the man whom he emulated as an aspiring headliner. The crowd pops for the hug.
But, alas, Jericho had other plans. Catching the soon-to-be-dubbed Mr. Wrestlemania at his most vulnerable, The Man of 1,004 holds finds a low blow in his vast repertoire and delivers it right on HBK’s hickenbottoms. The feud would go on, but this was where it hit its highest mark.
Re-inventions
Arguably, Jericho’s legacy will lie greatly on his ability to reinvent himself.
While his first debut sticks out as one of the most memorable in history, Y2J has managed to rattle off 3 big debuts in 1999, 2007 and 2012, all with distinctive takes on his wrestling persona.
In 1999, over-the-top obnoxious Jericho interrupted The Rock, who at the time was #2 only to Stone Cold, as seen above, announcing he’d come to save the WWF. The fact that he interrupted the main eveners with harsh put-downs of their status, combined with his original entrance, made for a solid entrance into the WWF world.
In 2007, Jericho re-entered the fray, once again through cryptic video messages that carried a text code, by interrupting then-WWE Champion Randy Orton’s “passing of the torch” ceremony, which coincided with Jericho’s unveiling of his “The Code Is The Answer… The Answer Is The Code” teaser. It was the second coming of Jericho, embodied in the code “SAVE_US.Y2J”.
Still very hungry to make waves, he decreed his focus would be on Orton. But as his WWE tenure continued, it became clear that the overall reaction to his character still wasn’t enough to put him over as a main event mainstay.
This prompted the genesis of the bitter, cynical but understated Jericho, as he reinvented himself as a heel, starting with the aforementioned 2008 feud with Shawn Michaels. It soon became evident this Jericho made a lot of sense as a main event guy. He later revealed these adjustments to his character were inspired by No Country For Old Men’s Anton Chigurh.
He put together a total of 3 World Championship runs, including a Wrestlemania 26 victory over Edge; an imposing tag team run with The Big Show and also had a Wrestlemania confrontation with Mickey Rourke, at the height of Rourke’s “The Wrestler” resurgence.
In 2012, he once again returned after an almost one and a half year absence. Once again, his approach was new and memorable. The now-famous light jacket entrance got the crowd on its feet as it was revealed Jericho was the one behind the “End Of The World” mysterious vignettes.
As the crowd relished in his return, it slowly became obvious Jericho was up to something. He kept playing to the crowd, and playing to the crowd. And playing to crowd.
And then he left. The cheers turns to boos. For 3 weeks in a row, Jericho called for more and more cheers and then stood the crowd up. No promo, no physical involvement in anything. He epitomized the heel blueprint: dangle what the fans want right in front of them… and then snag it away and step on it.
In a creative world where, more often than not, the thing to do seems to be to book it and book it until it gets over, Jericho’s character has shown great agility in making adjustments, to withstand time. And wrestling crowds.
More after this short commercial break. So short, Rusev won’t be able to beat Sin Cara before it’s over:
Told you it was short. Just click the image of this link if you’re into the whole heel shirt thing. Now… Where were we?
Defeating Austin & Rock in the Same Night
In the aftermath of the lukewarm Invasion angle, a pressing matter was the unification of the WWF and the WCW titles. A tournament was held with the 2 champions, The Rock and Stone Cold, and the 2 front-running contenders, Angle and Jericho.
What no one expected at the time was for Jericho to defeat both Rock and Austin, much less in the same night, regardless of how much cheating and interfering went into the matches. To this day, as you may have noticed, Jericho makes it his personal mission in life to remind everyone of this feat.
Match-wise, it was arguably Jericho’s biggest accomplishment, as the two biggest stars of the Attitude Era relinquished their titles to the man who was the tournament’s biggest underdog.
Unfortunately, booking-wise, what came next for Jericho wasn’t as generous, as he played Stephanie’s quasi-lackey in her feud with Triple H. After rematching Austin and Rock and holding on to the Undisputed Title, Jericho fell to The Game at Wrestlemania 18, and so fell whatever major historical significance his wins over Austin and Rock could have had in the advancement of Jericho in the pecking order.
Feud with Shawn Michaels: Part Two
In 2008, the feud with Shawn Michaels re-ignited. A guest appearance from HBK on Jericho’s in-ring talk-show segment The Highlight Reel turned into a bloody and devastating attack, for which the ever-lasting image is Jericho brutally driving Shawn head-first into the Jeri-Tron TV monitor.
Jericho’s transformation toward the aforementioned new 2008 version of his heel persona had begun. The funny, cocky and obnoxious Highlight Of The Night was dismantled to give way to a bitter, disdainful, more violent Jericho, who spited the fans and their heroes in a fresh and never before delivered way.
Chris Jericho became not only a heel, but also a heel with the kind of heat that was no longer reasonably attainable in the late 2000s. Everyone was on to the whole “pre-determined” rasslin thing, so legit heat came around less often than a clean Cena loss. But Jericho’s hypocrite-neophyte-sycophant approach got him there.
He was despicable beyond what was normally (and abnormally) expected from the audience, which gave the second instalment of his feud with Shawn Michaels a whole different dimension.
Their 2003 rivalry had been personal. This one was motherf%&#!$ personal.
Jericho pretty much “ends” HBK’s career with an eye injury sustained in his initial Highlight Reel onslaught – and sadistically exploited in their Great American Bash square-off – only for HBK to declare his comeback after Jericho punches Michaels’s wife in the face (her agility < HBK’s agility, as the latter dodged Y2J’s punch). Jericho became the World Heavyweight Champion mid-feud, adding even more fuel to the fire. Ladder matches, Last Man Standing matches notwithstanding, Jericho retained (regained? Retained.) his title and HBK moved on to a feud with JBL.
Few feuds have captured this level of interest and kept on delivering, especially from both the “championship implications” and the “bitter personal feud” angles.
Putting People Over
Another great hallmark of Jericho’s career is his willingness to work with the younger wrestlers and help their respective stars rise.
While his current feud with Bray Wyatt isn’t reaching the potential we all feel it to have, his involvement with up-and-coming talents like Fandango and Wade Barrett worked tremendously in these men’s favor. MORE!!!
Particularly noteworthy was his putting over of Fandango (a refurbished Johnny Curtis) on his very first match… at Wrestlemania! With the gimmick of a flamboyant dancer in 2013, Fandango seemed all but destined to fade into obscurity after a few weeks of good ol’ fashioned trying (see Adam Rose).
However, his partnering up with Jericho for a Wrestlemania feud clearly put Fandango on the map and gave him instant credibility. Not only because it was Jericho, the name, but because it was Jericho, the worker, ready to put together a feud where both men appeared strong, threatening and still captivating as characters.
If unnoticed during his feud with Fandango, Jericho’s value became evident at the feud’s conclusion, as Fandango has become stranded in the low midcard ever since, with no one to play off of for a compelling storyline. While we can obviously note that this is not the fault of the wrestlers, it does show that Jericho has the rare ability of staying over while he’s putting others over. Narrowed down to a science. Or to a business?
What else is noteworthy about Jericho to you?
