Posted in: The Northern Star The Northern Star--A Passion For The Chris Revisited
By XanMan
Dec 31, 2008 - 5:13:28 PM
"The waste of plenty is the resource of scarcity."--Thomas Love Peacock
The last book I read was A Lion's Tale by Chris Jericho, and prior to finishing the book and reading about his comments on WCW, I watched the first disc of the new Eddie Guerrero compilation, entitled Viva La Raza--The Legacy of Eddie Guerrero. In both mediums, Jericho gets the point across that, though both were wrestling excellent matches week in and week out in WCW, nobody really cared. The boys in the back acknowledged what they were doing--some, like Kevin Nash and Scott Hall with scorn--but upper management didn't care and because they didn't, neither did the announcers or the fans. If you were a viewer of WCW at the time--and most wrestling fans were, because this was at the height of the Monday Night Wars--you'll know that for the undercard matches the announcers rarely paid attention. They were too busy putting over whatever the NWO was doing. They had reason for doing so--after all, the NWO was the hottest thing in wrestling in years--but that reasoning was extremely short-sighted. Most of the main members of the NWO had their best days behind them and weren't going to be with the company in ten years time; indeed there was no WCW by that time.
But, of course, management had no way of knowing that and neither did the announcers, so they shouldn't have been constantly short-changing their young talent in order to further push the old. Yes, it was the older established stars that were getting WCW their popularity and buys--for the most part--but by focusing solely on them and ignoring the undercard, they were mortgaging their future for the present, which is never a good thing. It's not lost on me that they pushed cruiserweights better than any major United States promotion before or since, but the pushes were a result of Eric Bischoff trying to snap up all the professional wrestling talent he could before the WWF and using somebody else's money to do it. What they were actually going to do with the talent, I don't believe he knew at the time; he just didn't want anybody else to have them. The cruiserweight division that lit up Monday nights, and was an incredibly strong opening act for the NWO, the Four Horsemen, and everybody else on both Nitro and Thunder was brought on because WCW had signed talent they weren't sure what to do with, so they relegated such excellent wrestlers as Eddy Guerrero and Chris Jericho there.
That's the biggest fault I can find with Eric Bischoff's way of running a wrestling company, and it's why both the AWA and WCW collapsed under his watch. You would have to be a fool to sign such talents as Eddy Guerrero, Dean Malenko, Chris Benoit, and Chris Jericho and let them languish at the bottom of the card; fortunately for us and them, languish is something these four refused to do; their talent and fire would not allow that to be. I have to admit--to my shame--that I didn't see much out of Chris Jericho during his early days in WCW. Like I believe many fans, I thought him too vanilla, and that if the commentators were willing to talk over the entirety of his matches about stuff that was occurring later in the card what he was doing was unimportant. My shame is more than some, though, because I actually had the benefit of seeing him defend his ECW Television Title in a match on whatever ECW's syndicated program was called--I'm pretty sure it was just "ECW." This was a 4-way dance between Jericho, 2 Cold Scorpio, Shane Douglas, and Pit Bull # 2, and in an inventive move, Heyman booked the champ to be the first man eliminated in the match.
Still, I'd seen enough of him to be impressed and to remember him when I saw him debut for WCW, but not enough to overcome what I saw as very bland in their organization. It was a little like watching Scott Levy being Scott Anthony in Global and Scotty Flamingo in WCW, but then become a manager named Johnny Polo in the WWE. Sometimes the gimmick with which you're placed subborns your talent so much that the inherent ability you possess is rendered invisible. So, like Jericho said both in his book and on the Viva La Raza DVD, he decided that he'd go out there and consistently have the best match on the card and even if nobody else would know, he'd know. You have to admire that kind of determination nearly as much as you have to disdain the naivete in which it's based. He was still earning a paycheck that allowed him to live comfortably, and he was still on national television every week, but he was hardly having the kind of career he'd dreamed of as a boy and it wasn't likely to get any better with him playing a bland pretty boy with no personality whose matches weren't even really being called by the commentating team, regardless of how good they were.
"Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die."--G.K. Chesterton
What we couldn't see on television and, thus, didn't know at the time is that behind closed doors Jericho was coming up with different ideas for angles to get over all the time; including lobbying to be a heel. So when he was finally told by Bischoff that he was going heel, he was ecstatic and it showed in his work. It's been such a long time(and the WWE has been so incredibly lackadaisical about putting out a DVD for him) that I can't quite remember all the antics that Jericho got up to, but I do remember clearly loving every second of his work as a heel, and how he went from being an absolute goody two-shoes of a face one minute to being a whiny crybaby the very next and the fit he threw slamming the steel chair against the steel barricade at ringside after being beaten by Booker T and his Harlem Hangover. Hey, you know what? Why do we--and the commenators...and the general managers...and the wrestlers--always use the adjective "steel?" When was the last time you saw someone in the WWE get hit with a wooden chair or a plastic chair(or a lawn chair--that would be fucking awesome, right?) The barricades for WWE aren't even steel anymore, so I guess at least that phrase can no longer be used.
A phrase that's never been used in the WWF/WWE is "Lionheart" Chris Jericho. Sure, they call his second rope springboard moonsault The Lionsault, and JR's even slipped up a time or two and called Jericho's boston crab The Liontamer, but by mutual agreement between Jericho and Vince McMahon the Lionheart nickname was retired when Jericho moved from WCW to the WWF. Vince McMahon had never really been one to laud or even acknowledge anyone not named Ric Flair's accomplishments in any other organization, so it was hardly surprising, but in this case I really do think it was a good move. While the name Chris Jericho certainly had bank, as despite constantly being kept on the undercard of the turner organization, he had developed a large share of fans--known, of course, as Jericoholics, but WCW wasn't like the WWE where once you had a nickname it became almost a literal identity for you. When someone says "The Rock," you know they are talking about Maivia, when some says "Stone Cold," you know it's Austin. But, "Lionheart," even back in the day made you stop and think who they were talking about. It's a nickname that could get somebody over, yet didn't quite.
It didn't, of course, because Chris Jericho wasn't supposed to get over, and the reason he wasn't supposed to get over was because he was Chris Jericho. He wasn't Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Sting, Kevin Nash, Ric Flair, Scott Hall, Scott Steiner, Diamond Dallas Page, or Marcus Alexander Bagwell and because he wasn't, nobody really gave a shit what he did. Jericho says a couple times in the section that talks about WCW that if he tried to pull some of the things in the WWF that he pulled in WCW he would have been fired on the spot. Jericho getting over as a heel wasn't supposed to happen because he getting over at all wasn't supposed to happen, but I, personally, found it a nice irony that the man who for years had sported the "Lionheart" tag was now portraying the quintissential cowardly heel and doing it at the top of what was basically the forgotten division of the organization. Yes, WCW did make cruiserweight wrestling prominent in the United States, but it's in the WWE that cruiserweights showcased at that weight class--Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Eddy Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Jr., Chavo Guerrero and WWE Cruiserweight Champ Matt Hardy became World Champions, if you include WWECW.
Five guys that were used as undercard wrestlers because of their size in WCW--including Chris Jericho--became World Champions in the WWE--the so-called land of the giants, which is why despite all the CW Titles Jericho had in WCW he still felt like he wasn't getting a push. The fans loved him; even buying up in droves the t-shirt he designed himself and eating up the infomercial he created for himself. When he would jump in the ring, play his air guitar, and say "I want you to want me!" I did. Not in a gay way, of course, but in a "I want to be entertained by this guy, forever" way. In this little bit of the WCW/NWO world, "Lionheart" Chris Jericho was a major success--at least in the hearts, minds, and souls of his fans. It's unfair that he was treated so crappily by WCW management, really, considering how well he was doing without any backing at all. It's kind of like the way CM Punk's merchandise was flying off the shelves earlier this year and the WWE decided to run with him because of it. If WCW had done that, who knows what would have happened. Maybe they could have stayed ahead of the curve by pushing guys like Jericho, Benoit, and the Guerreros instead of letting them walk away for the WWF.
"I've recognized something with potential, I have a belief in it, and now, I'm trying to visualize the business plan."--Bill Jones
But walk away they did, with Jericho being the first to go and boy, oh boy, did he arrive in style! Despite being an internet wrestling columnist now, there are times I wish that the Internet Wrestling Community hadn't exploded the way it has, and Jericho's defection from WCW to the WWF was definitely one of those times. Back in 1999 when the new millenium clock started counting down and was obviously off-pace, I was wondering what was going on, until my friend Kevin said that he read a rumor that the new millenium was going to be Chris Jericho entering the fray of the World Wrestling Federation. To be sure, I was excited; one of my favorite wrestlers eeeeever and a guy I considered already a 5-time World Champion(4 CW reigns and 1 TV Title reign) was going someplace that might actually elevate him to where I believed he deserved and wouldn't keep him playing second banana to older wrestlers whose best days--at least inside the ring--were behind them. They didn't really have a choice in that manner, actually, since the WWE didn't employ many washed up wrestlers at that time, and the ones they did(Degenerate says, "Mae Young, How you doing?) were certainly not main eventers.
The main eventers of that time included Mick Foley, Triple H, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Undertaker, The Big Show, and the man who Chris Jericho would interrupt on August 9, 1999 to begin the new millenium of the World Wrestling Federation: The Rock. To have the most charismatic(and electrifying) performer in the WWF interact immediately with the most charismatic performer their Monday Night opposition used to have was a brilliant stroke of genius, and the segment was amazing. No longer was Chris Jericho the cowardly lion opening Nitro in order to eventually turn it over to those for whom he was the better. No, here was a cocky, arrogant superstar announcing his presence with authority to begin the second hour of Monday Night RAW and thrust himself prominently into his new organization by interrupting its top star mid-monologue. The aforementioned Kevin, my brother Trav, and I were fortunate enough to be at SummerSlam just under two weeks later to see Jericho deliver yet another exciting promo; this time standing on top The Lion's Den. It appeared somebody in a high position with a profesional wrestling promotion had finally noticed the immense talent that Jericho possessed.
In A Lion's Tale Jericho mentions that every time he debuted in a new promotion, his first match there has always been a bad one, and unfortunately despite the on-fire promos leading up to it, his first match in the WWE was indeed fairly bad, but to be charitable to the newly christened Y2J, it was against the Road Dog, who despite being a member of one of my favorite tag teams in history, has never been passable as a single's wrestler even in his best years. Soon after, though--Survivor Series 1999--Jericho was in the thick of the hunt for the The Intercontinental Title, which at the time really meant something; he won the championship for the first time a month later at Armageddon; the first of what would eventually be a record 8 times holding the Intercontinental Title. After a nice storyline where he and Chyna were co-champions, he would lose the title to Kurt Angle a couple months later, and then have a 1-day European Title reign starting at Wrestlemania 2000 and ending the next night on RAW. Who would cost him the title but his old buddy, Chyna? Exactly two weeks later, Chris Jericho would defeat Triple H for the WWF Championship, only to have the decision reversed the same night.
And so it went with Jericho. He'd rise to the top--nearly upending Triple H in a Last Man Standing match--to drop back down to the midcard; defeating Chris Benoit for the I-C Title, and then losing it to Triple H. Then he and Benoit won the tag straps from Trips and Stone Cold; and lost them a month later to the Dudley Boyz. In October of 2001 Jericho won the WCW World Title from the Rock and lost it back to him about a month later, but that year culminated at Vengeance in which Jericho--as he so often brags--defeated The Rock(for the World Heavyweight Title) and Stone Cold Steve Austin(for the WWF Title) in the same night to become the first ever Undisputed Champion. But, a strange thing happened. He seemed uncomfortable being the champ; as even when he was giving his cocky heel promos, he always looked nervous doing so. Despite his experience and travels, he just wasn't ready for the big stage, and after being squashed at Wrestlemania by Triple H, he was relegated back to the midcard until the summer of 2005 when he would become involved in a feud with John Cena--carrying him to his best career matches to that point--that ended with his actual contract expiring and his "firing" by RAW GM Eric Bischoff on live television.
"Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope."--Herman Melville
And, of course, now he's back and he has been for over a year, but I must admit that when the "Save Us" campaign started playing on RAW, and I realized that it was for my boy, Chris Jericho, that I awaited his return with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. While I will always believe that Jericho could have been a major player in WCW if he had been allowed to and could have been a cog that would have kept the machine running, I also don't really believe he was used corrected in the WWF/E all the time, either. It's clear that Vince McMahon acknowledged his abilities far more than Eric Bischoff or anybody else involved in WCW during Jericho's time there did, but they still appeared to keep Jericho in the midcard for longer than was necessary. Yes, he was the first ever Undisputed WWF Champion, and yes, he looked nervous as hell in that role and seemed like he was in over his head, but that didn't mean that he was never going to be ready for the big time; it simply meant that he needed more seasoning first, and if Jericho's final days with the WWE in 2005 taught me anything, it was that the WWE didn't feel that Chris Jericho was World Title material any longer; or else why have him go out the way he did?
What I didn't realize at the time was that he had only agreed to a couple month extension to stick around and help the company out. Seems strange, really, considering how well Christian was positioned to be the top contender to Cena's championship, and how I think both guys could have benefitted from the two having a one-on-one feud. But, that's neither here nor there, I suppose. The bottom line is that while I was excited to see one of my favorite wrestlers ever back in the WWE, I was worried that he wasn't going to be used in the manner that I believed to be correct, and for a long time it appeared that I was right. Randy Orton was in the middle of what became a very successful title reign for him, but Jericho arriving in the middle of his promo to tell the Viper that he had arrived to save the WWE and the fans from him was actually perfectly timed, as Orton did seem to be a little stale and did not appear to have any challengers waiting in the wings against whom to defend his championship. The title seemed ripe for the picking and why not let the newly arrived Jericho roll with the strap, as long as he was already rolling with momentum? Instead they used the title match to set up a JBL/Jericho feud.
And so, it seemed the little bit of a hope I had for Jericho being World Champ was over. But, then a funny thing happened. Jericho and JBL--two of the most professional workers you'll ever find--didn't "click" in the ring. Somehow these two outstanding veterans couldn't really find any chemistry. It was probably because they were both returning after long layoffs into a feud that seemed thrown together. After all, Jericho was there to save us, and the only thing JBL was doing to us was being impressive on commentary. So the feud was aborted and when Jeff Hardy had to be punished for violating the Wellness Policy for the second time, Jericho was the first beneficiary as he was given new direction and his record-setting 8th Intercontinental Title reign. Soon after, he became a fly in the ointment of the brewing Batista/HBK feud and turned it into his own beef with his former hero Shawn Michaels; thus the Heart Break King's reluctant defeat of his own boyhood idol and now close friend, "Nature Boy" Ric Flair begat what most consider to be the feud of the year, and also led to Chris Jericho shedding his Y2J character and assuming that of a bitter heel.
It's a role Jericho plays to a tee. He stands in the middle of the ring glaring at the audience and at the camera, and no one has ever drawn more heat. He was so good at drawing that heat that within months of his heel turn, the bookers had almost no choice but to give him a new run with the World Heavyweight Championship. Sure, they booked him to lose it to The Animal, and then to win it back 8 days later in a fantastic cage match only to have him lose it again to everyone's favorite returning superhero, John Cena, but that's almost besides the point. Seven years after his inital run at the top of the organization, Jericho proved that he has matured as a performer, that he can rule the organization and now has the confidence to do so without batting an eye. Jericho is a lion no more. He hasn't been since 1999, but this year he has shown his character. He's a sneaky predator who will lead a lion to his prey; who will use anybody at any time in order to get what he desires, and what he desires is what all the greats desire: The World Heavyweight Title. He hasn't quite succeeded HBK as king of the jungle; not yet, but that's okay. 2008 still belonged to Chris Jericho. It was the Year of the Jackal.
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