8 Times Wrestlers Refused To Work With Each Other
6. Chris Jericho & Bill Goldberg
The writing was on the wall for Chris Jericho's time in WCW long before he made his celebrated debut on Monday Night Raw in 1999, and there was an irony to him doing the saviour gimmick opposite The Rock et al a good year after it was genuinely required.
'The Ayatollah Of Rock & Rolla' was inch-perfect as a heel that transcended the cruiserweight division he was the kingpin of by 1998. He didn't have the all-important height of the average Atlanta main eventer, but to paraphrase an infamous Shawn Michaels clap-back, he was 10 foot tall when stood on his charisma. He knew it too, and was acutely aware of just how low the earning ceiling was for him the longer he stuck around. Then, he found the workaround - cut promos for the job you want rather than the one you have. Bill Goldberg became the target for his relentless vitriol, with Jericho daring to suggest that he had the superior streak, beating a knock-off version of 'Da Man' and even mocking his iconic entrance in a fashion so spectacular that it became one of the last genuinely funny moments in the company's catalogue.
The stage was set, entirely by Jericho himself, but the original Big Bill didn't even entertain the prospect of sharing it with him. Taking very bad advice about not working with comedy guys, Goldberg impolitely noped the lot of it, blowing the programme off with a simple-but-brutal spear in the aisle instead of offering Jericho a singles match for the top strap. The World Champion allegedly told Chris (or told others to tell him) that he didn't "do comedy", and that was that. Funny could have been money after all - it was for the future 'Y2J' when he finally found his way to the other side of the 1990s wrestling divide.