Chris Jericho Recalls WWE Almost Firing Him In The 90's
On a special rebuttal episode of Talk Is Jericho, Chris Jericho brought on Conrad Thompson to host Talk Is Jericho to give his side of the stories Bruce Prichard told about him on Something to Wrestle's 20-year anniversary Chris Jericho episode. Jericho first talked about the reaction to him coming in from WCW to WWE during the Monday Night War.
"There was a huge target on my back when I came in because if you remember Big Show was the first kind of jump from from WCW to WWE, and I was the next one," Jericho noted. "Show and I weren't great friends at the time, not that we had any heat. We just didn't really know each other very well, and I didn't have anybody like I didn't have any friends.
"You have guys that you're friends with but not guys that you've been through the wars with and watched each other's backs and stuff. So when I came in like the Monday Night Wars were real like that was something that all the guys were really behind, and when I came in by myself, this good-looking guy with long blond hair also super confident in his promos where I come in and bury The Rock."
Jericho said it was calling The Undertaker boring that caught the attention of Shawn Michaels and Stone Cold Steven Austin. He said they gave him a warning to not say that again and to watch what he says towards WWE's big stars.
"Then I buried The Undertaker huge the next night, but that was kind of what my role was. I was the 'Millennium Man', and I was there to save the WWE," Jericho explained. "I remember the time with Undertaker. I said something along the lines of 'I just interrupted your super boring promo,' and he just happened to be doing a super boring promo. So I came out and said it. Instead of getting the heat, I got a super reaction because he was telling this really boring story about him and Big Show in the desert, and Show got bit by a scorpion, so he carried Undertaker on his motorcycle out of the desert.
"Like what are you talking about? I remember like Shawn Michaels was around and Austin too, and they said, 'for future reference you might not want to call the biggest name in the company boring next time.' I go hahaha. Meanwhile, not realize that they were giving me a little bit of a heads up, like hey you piece of s–t, watch what you're saying."
Jericho then talked about his feud with Chyna. He said he could not believe that he was booked to lose to Chyna and notes that the crowd booed her because she had beaten Jericho.
"Then they put me in there with Chyna, and Chyna was the week after Russo left because that's when it really started," Jericho said. "I worked with her three PPVs in a row, and I'll never forget the night in Detroit for the Intercontinental Championship. It was me vs. Chyna, and they put her over on me. And I just couldn't believe that they would do that. Like really? I came in with so much steam and now you're having me lose to Chyna, and Vince even asked me beforehand like, 'I'm going to have you work with Chyna. You don't have any aversions to working with a woman do you?' And I said, 'no, I mean not at all. I mean if this is what you want it.' Obviously, they were pushing her as more than just the woman. Then let's do it.
"I just couldn't believe that they put her over on me, but they did, and I think that we had a really good match that night. Problem was the crowd didn't buy the fact that she beat me, and they booed her. And that was a real big problem that they booed Chyna. So then the word around is I don't know how to be a heel, and then we worked another time, the next month in December, and I don't even remember. It was some kind of miscommunication where I end up kicking her in the face or giving her a shot in the face or something like that, and she had a black eye. And it wasn't even a big one."
Jericho had said before on Ric Flair's podcast that he apologized to Chyna for that incident. On Talk Is Jericho, Jericho said that incident led to a meeting in Vince McMahon's office where McMahon had expressed his regret over signing Jericho from WCW.
"It was a small black eye, and I remember Vince telling me, he's like, 'don't think you have to go easy with her just because she's a woman. I want you to work like you usually work,' and the next day, I got called to Vince's office after the PPV," Jericho recalled. "And I thought he's probably calling me in there to tell me that I did a good job. I go into this room, and it's me and it's Vince, Jim Ross and Jack Lanza.
"And Vince goes off on me. 'How could you hit a woman? How could you hit a woman? You gave her a black eye. The problem is you're just not any good. You're not worth the contract. You're not worth the paper that your contract is printed on. You're the drizzling s–ts. I've been given sold a bill of goods,' and I was just like what? Of course, I didn't say anything, but I'm thinking to myself like did you not see the match we had yesterday? It's best match she's ever had."
After that meeting, Jericho was given an ultimatum. If Jericho did not have a good match with X-Pac, then he would be fired. Jericho said he thanked X-Pac after that night for putting on a good match with him saving his job.
"Then there was this kind of underlying theme of just wanting to get rid of me," Jericho admitted. "I remember Vince told me that night like, 'you're going to work with X-Pac.' It was in Tampa on RAW. 'If you don't have a good match tonight, you're fired.' That's what he said, and I was like, OK and thinking like, that's a lot of pressure. It's also leaving it completely up to X-Pac, like if he sandbagged me or wanted to have a shi–y match, he could have, and I would have been gone according to Vince.
"I had known Sean from Japan. Not well, but we worked together, and yeah, I felt he was a little bit of kindred spirit, kind of a small guy in a big man's world. Obviously, I him knew from WCW as well, and I thanked him because we had a good match because X-Pac, listen, he's a great performer. There's no doubt about it, and he did know the mythical WWE style, which there is such a thing. I didn't know it when I came in nor did anybody try and tell me, so Sean went out of his way to tell me that."
Jericho revealed that X-Pac had apologized to him for his behavior during those days. Jericho said that D-Generation X had a pack mentatlity when it came to new wrestlers coming into WWE, but he said he trusted his experience and believed that he could prove himself.
"He actually apologized to me a few years ago for being, you know, a d–k at that time," Jericho revealed. "It's was just a pack mentality, a gang mentality. Here comes the new kid to school. Let's kill him. Let's bury him, and that's kind of what DX's MO was at the time. And the only thing that saved me was I had nine years of experience. I knew that no matter how much I got buried, I could always work my way out of it because I knew how to work and I wasn't an a–hole. Even if I was portrayed that way at first, it's going to take me a while to prove myself, but I'm not going anywhere."
Jericho wanted to rebut the idea that he was ripped in the WWE locker room as Prichard suggested on his podcast. Jericho also wanted to bring up a topic that wasn't brought up on Something to Wrestle and that was Jericho and Chyna being co-Intercontinental Champions. It is worth noting that WWE does not officially recognize this title reign and rather deems the title vacant, but Jericho explained why he thought the idea was "the worse idea he had ever been involved with."
"The other thing that you forgot to mention with Bruce was when Vince had me and Chyna be the co-champions Intercontinental Champions, which to me is still the worst idea I've ever had to be involved with, and how this came to be was it was another match between me and Chyna," Jericho recalled. "The typical you go to give a guy a German suplex, and it's a 1-2-3. We both raised our shoulder at the same time. So referee number one's looking at Chyna's shoulder being up. Referee number two is looking at my shoulder being up, and they're the both arguing back and forth. And they decide well, it's not a draw. They are now the co-Intercontinental Champions, and I remember saying to Vince like it doesn't make any sense. Why would you put us together?
"Because I smash Chyna's thumb with a hammer, we had a little bit of a blood feud, and he's like, 'You're two good-looking people. People want to see you together,' and it was like, 'no, they don't. And I don't want to see us together.' It's like sometimes you see a bad on-screen couple with no chemistry whatsoever. That was us, and we were supposed to be romantically linked but we had nothing in common. It was terrible. We didn't like each other, and to make us co-champions was so bad."
On the April 3, 2000 episode of RAW, Eddie Guerrero defeated Jericho to become the new WWE European Champion. Jericho said he was not only happy to drop the title to one of his closest friends, but he was also happy that Chyna would now be paired with Guerrero. The late Chyna had reflected on her friendship with Guerrero a few years ago, and Jericho also praised Guerrero for being better than him since he made the partnership with Chyna work better than he could.
"Why I liked it the most was because I didn't really want to be the European Champion. I didn't really feel that was a belt that was worthy, and I just wanted to get away from Chyna," Jericho admitted. "So when they had him beat me for it, I was like, 'thank you. Thank you. Thank you. She's his problem now.' Once again, the reason why Eddie is a million times better than me in any way shape or form is he actually made it work with her and got over huge. That's where the whole 'Latino Heat' thing started, and he just he jumped right into it man, like whatever aversions she had with me was probably caused by DX and Hunter. There wasn't that with Eddie.
"I think they found Eddie to be harmless, and I know when they first brought The Radicalz in, I wanted to do something with Chris [Benoit]. And right from the bat, the writers told me that Vince sees Eddie as the real star of the four of them, and I was like Eddie really? Like more than Chris and this is going to sound weird now but at the time more than Perry Saturn? 'Yep, he says Eddie is the one,' and he sure proved it with the whole Chyna thing. He was able to make it work with her in a way that I never could."
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Talk Is Jericho with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.