Date: August 9th Chris Jericho's time in WCW was eventful and full of promise. He won the WCW Cruiserweight Title four times, including one reign being the third-longest in WCW history, to go with a reign as the Television Champion. He was one of the better overall packages of in-ring work, mic skills and entertainment value. However, you knew he was never going to get pushed to the top because he wasn't a former WWF Champion or someone who weighed 300 pounds. His arrival to the WWF was done flawlessly. Lengthy "Countdown To The Millennium" vignettes kept airing on WWF programming, playing off of the "Y2K" craze/scare when people wondered if the world economies would crash as calendars went from 1999 to 2000 and computers were unable to handle the changes. Fans who or what the countdown was for and even in the early days of wrestling news sites on the internet, Jericho's name was tossed around. He would finally debut, interrupting a promo by none other than The Rock. It was an electric atmosphere in Chicago that night, with the crowd going ballistic when Jericho's name was revealed on the TitanTron and he showed up on stage. He stood toe-to-toe, verbally, with Rock for a while, which is something that virtually nobody did in those days. It was a sign that he might just be treated as a bigger deal in the WWF, which he was. To this day, Jericho's debut is one of the best in wrestling history, still getting mentioned by people all the time and on shows like WWE Countdown.
Columnist/Podcaster/Director at LordsOfPain.net for nearly seven years, with nearly 2000 total columns written. Interviewed and/or involved in interviewing the likes of Tyler Black/Seth Rollins (twice), Diamond Dallas Page, Jimmy Jacobs, Christopher Daniels, Uhaa Nation and more.
