AEW Star Chris Jericho Looks Back On WWE Debut

Long before he was accidentally putting Big Bill through barbed wire and losing the FTW World Title to Hook at AEW All In, Chris Jericho was a 29 year old WCW star, having hit the ceiling and looking to apply his craft elsewhere. That happened in 1999, when Jericho jumped from WCW to WWE, leading to a near 20 year run with the promotion that would help solidify Jericho as a future wrestling Hall of Famer.

On a recent episode of "Talk is Jericho" celebrating the 25th anniversary of his WWE debut, Jericho took fans through the process of his jump from WCW to WWE, revealing that he was looking to change up his character as well when he switched promotions. As he's done so in the past, Jericho reiterated that the inspiration for his WWE character came from the most unlikely of places.

"I remember being in the post office in Clearwater; I was living in Clearwater, Florida at the time," Jericho said. "And it was right before...this is probably around June or so of 99, and there was a big countdown clock on the wall that said "countdown to the new millennium." And at the time it was, I don't know, five months, eighteen days, fifteen hours, thirty seven seconds...that sort of a thing. And I remember, the idea just struck me. 'That would be a really cool way for somebody to come into a wrestling company.' And I'm like 'Wait a second; that be a really cool way for me to go into the WWE. Like a countdown.'"

Jericho then took the idea to then WWE head writer Vince Russo, himself only a few months away from jumping from WWE to WCW. While Jericho would later go on to have a great relationship with Vince McMahon, the two had hardly spoken during that time, leading Jericho to work more closely with Russo before the idea was presented to McMahon.

"So I called him [Russo] and I said I had this idea of debuting with a countdown clock," Jericho said. "And the countdown would go and then when it hits zero, there I am. And I was thinking it would hit zero like when I was, from what I recall...it would hit zero just as my WWE contract began, or something along those lines.

"So I pitched that idea, and then a few days later, Russo called me back and said 'Vince really likes the idea, but he's going to have the clock end when 'Raw' starts, not when your contract begins.' But I think my contract started end of June or something, and we had decided, I guess Vince had decided, I was going to start August 9. I was like 'That's a great idea, let's do that.'"

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