That Time Chris Jericho Was Almost The Goon

What even is a goon?

Not necessarily a question posed by a small portion of WWE's smaller-than-ever audience, but certainly one that ran through the heads of your author as a younger fan alongside any others that had no interest in Ice Hockey and/or came from a country where the sport barely registered.

The company were no strangers to narrow-mindedness in their characterisations during the company's nadir, but 1996 saw a sea change at large that left behind the exhausted gimmicks Vince McMahon and his inner circle were devising at the time.

The aforementioned ascent of Stone Cold Steve Austin was driven first by a profanity-laden promo of literally biblical proportions. The man that stared ice daggers down the lens as he talked about Jake Roberts' psalms and John 3:16s was no Chilly McFreeze. He was a real human being with - at that time, ostensibly ugly - real human traits, not a fake human being working a gimmick. Or, for that matter, a part-time job.

If newly-installed Vice President Of Talent Relations Jim Ross had helped furnish McMahon's roster with potential stars, The Chairman himself had to get out of his own head and book them better than the clowns, dentists and binmen that had come before. Gimmicks sold t-shirts but characters (particularly ones played by competent wrestlers) sold tickets. The company had been on thin ice for too long.

CONT'D...