10 Best Payoffs To WWE Storylines

In mid-1999, with the year 2000 fast-approaching—and with it, the hysteria of the Y2K bug—a clock counting down to the new millennium began to feature on WWE programming.

The clock ticked away until it finally ran down on the 9 August showing of Raw, when The Rock was interrupted by that familiar countdown and eventually the Millennium man himself: Chris Jericho.

Referring to himself as Y2J (a play on that Y2K bug malarkey), Jericho announced that he had indeed arrived and was ready to save the company amidst a “downward spiral” of television ratings, “plummeting” pay-per-view buy-rates, and “non-existent” mainstream acceptance. Bold.

There were a couple of questions to be had from the segment. How come the clock ran down in early August? Why did The Rock simply shut Jericho down on his very first night in the company?

Ultimately, none of that nitpicking really mattered, because the countdown clock had been such an interesting idea and the reveal itself was so well-executed. A testament to that is the fact that fans in attendance had Jericho signs, so they clearly knew what was going on, and yet his appearance still produced an absolutely huge pop from the Chicago crowd.