7 Huge Mistakes WWE Made With Chris Jericho's Debut Year

1. He Should Have Feuded With The Rock Right Away

When Jericho showed up on his first night in Chicago, the countdown clock ended and The Rock was in the ring doing a promo. Suddenly, the lights went out and "JERICHO" appeared on screen as the Chicago crowd went wild. Jericho did a fired up promo talking about how he was our party host and the crowd loved him for it. Rock did his routine where he didn't know who he was and shut him up with his "it doesn't matter what your name is" line. Later in the show, Jericho interfered in Rock's match with Big Show. If you only watched that show you would think that it was leading to a PPV match between the two immediately, but that didn't happen. It led to nothing. They simply wanted Rock in the ring to be there for Jericho's moment as a way to have somebody do a promo against Jericho as he made his entrance. Rock was in a feud with Billy Gunn, so they didn't do Jericho/Rock immediately. They had their first match on the October 4, 1999 edition of Raw although their first feud didn't take place for two years. It's a shame that it didn't happen because it would have got Jericho off on the right foot. Instead, he was directionless for his first few months in the company. Perhaps WWE was leery because he was new, but they should have believed in him right away because he had the momentum to make it work. If he lost to Rock, so what? It would have meant a lot just to put Jericho in the ring with him.