Chris Jericho On His WWE Monday Night RAW Debut Being One Of The Best Ever
For several weeks, the "Countdown to the Millenium" appeared on WWE programming, with the timer decreasing more during each time it was aired. In the media, various outlets warned their viewers of the "Y2K bug," which was the projection of computer systems going awry in the beginning of the year 2000 since the double zero that abbreviates the year was believed to be unrecognizable by computer program coding.
WWE took advantage of this technology scare, and on August 9, 1999, the Countdown to the Millenium struck zero during a promo from The Rock. All of a sudden, the music hits, and out comes WCW-defect Chris Jericho. Jericho would commence the "Y2J problem," and competed exclusively in WWE for 18 years before being a part of New Japan Pro Wrestling's annual Wrestle Kingdom event, as he competed against IWGP U.S. Champion Kenny Omega.
The Cult of Whatever recently caught up with Jericho about his debut on Raw, and he shared these thoughts.
"It was definitely one of the best debuts ever," said Jericho. "I came up with the idea of the countdown clock and Vince McMahon came up with the idea of having the clock end right in the middle of Rocks promo. I think that is the biggest reaction I had ever got, a lot of people knew it was going to me but there were also a lot of people that didn't have a clue.
"It was a different world back then, the internet wasn't like it is today, these days you would just go online and you can find things out right away but it wasn't like that then."
This moment would recently be ranked fourth in the 25 greatest moments in the history of Raw.
Source: Cult of Whatever