6. Chris Jericho Felt Personally Responsible For Weak 2002 Main Event With Steve Austin
It would be fair to say that Chris Jericho's first WWE Title run, as Undisputed Champ no less, didn't exactly set the world on fire. He got off to a flier, beating The Rock and Steve Austin in the same night, but it was pretty much all downhill from there. By the end of his run he was reduced to cleaning up Stephanie McMahon's dog's poop. But, to be fair to Jericho, he did have one or two decent matches while champ, including a sterling effort with The Rock at the Royal Rumble PPV. Fans were hoping that he could deliver the goods a month later at No Way Out but, sadly, his main event match with Austin just didn't click. Jericho took full responsibility for the substandard show-closer, writing in his (second) autobiography, Undisputed:
Steve and I were pretty much left on our own to think of how to build up the match, and we came up with a few good ideas (including me pummeling him over the head with his own beer cooler) with no input from the boss, which was surprising. But as mediocre as the build was, the match was 316 times worse. Nothing clicked for us at all and my performance was brutal. Wed had decent to good matches in the past, but that night we were like Peanut Butter and Chong. It just didnt work, and I take full responsibility for it because Steve was a proven great worker and I was the damn champion whose job it was to take control and make a match work no matter who Iwas up against.
Sure, it was no Alicia Fox versus Melina, but it wasn't awful by any means. Nevertheless, Jericho shouldered the blame for it.
