10 Times Chris Jericho Shocked The Wrestling World

10. Debuting On WWE Monday Night Raw

The white hot reaction Chris Jericho received just for the appearance of his surname on the Monday Night Raw TitanTron was no fluke, nor just a victory for the excellent 'Countdown To The Millennium' campaign the company had embarked upon that summer in preparation for his arrival.

Earned from years of graft honing a character destined to be defeated by the glass ceiling in WCW, the soon-to-be-christened 'Y2J' might not have raced out the blocks in his WWE run (or even during an only-okay promo battle with The Rock that very night) but it was impossible to argue he didn't deserve the elevated his status his debut afforded.

Exactly the right level of self-aggrandising and bombastic, the blusterous (and yet, entirely idiotic) persona he'd tinkered with on Nitro was box-fresh on the other channel, particularly as WWE experienced the first flirtations with frustration at repetitive main events in 1999. Jericho would take a long time to truly crack the upper echelon of the organisation in the role, but his arrival foreshadowed the flood of Atlanta escapees that would drastically transform the product for the better over the following few months.