AEW's Chris Jericho On When He Knew It Was Time To Leave WCW

Chris Jericho's WWE run was what ended up shooting him into the spotlight of pro wrestling, but before making his August 26, 1999 debut in the promotion, he first established most of his character in WCW. Jericho recently looked back at his lengthy career on "Talk Is Jericho," and recalled when he knew he had to jump ship from the failing organization.

Jericho has discussed his nixed rivalry with Goldberg in WCW extensively in the past, but he cited this again as the moment he knew he wasn't going to go far enough there. "[Goldberg] had his reason why, and I had my reasons why, and I just realized I'm never going to get above a certain level here in WCW, so maybe it's time to leave."

Around this time, Jericho recalls getting a call from Don Callis — then still portraying The Jackyl in WWE —  who informed him that then-WWE writer Vince Russo wanted to talk to him. "So, I did do, I guess what you would call nowadays a 'tampering phone call' with Vince Russo," Jericho admitted. "It was a Christmas time thing where they asked me how much longer my deal was. I think it was Christmas 1997."

"So, I think when Russo called me, I was technically not even under contract and what do I mean by that? Yes, I was under a contract, I had agreed to a contract, but I never signed the damn thing," Jericho claimed. 

The veteran explained that he originally didn't sign the contract, and when nobody said anything, he just played a game to see how long until someone would. However, he lamented that WCW was unfortunately very disorganized, even recalling the story where he got a check for zero dollars and zero cents. Jericho also admitted he never told Russo about his contract situation with WCW, but claimed he would never have just walked out on them.

"I had made a commitment for three years, and I've never been the type of guy to try and, you know, stab somebody in the back or whatever it may be," he said. "And I just literally — just said, to Russo (...) that I was in a contract, but, you know, I was interested to go to WWF — at the time — when my deal was up." Looking back at how his WWE debut happened two years later, it's clear Jericho was a man of his word when it came to WCW.

Chris Jericho recalled growing up in Winnipeg — which he described as a "WWF backyard," and that he used to have a dream about being recognized by his school. "I had this dream that it would say: Congratulations to Chris Irvine — whatever, I think I didn't even have Chris Jericho at the time when I was day dreaming this — for being the WWF Intercontinental Champion," he recalled. "They would put that up on the school, in a sign that they had there."

Jericho pointed out that his high school never put up a sign for him when he ended up winning the championship, but either way, he'd end up having the most runs with the title of all time, so he ended up realizing the dream in a way. "So, I always wanted to be in the WWF, I always wanted to end up there, and you know, WCW was a cool place to be, but back in my head, you know, I always kind of wanted to end up in WWE," Jericho admitted. 

Despite leaving WCW, Jericho claimed he did have good times in the promotion, but that the aforementioned issue with Goldberg ultimately made him realize that he'd never get further up the locker room ladder.

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "Talk is Jericho" and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.