That Time Chris Jericho Was Almost The Goon

The Goon - like many characters at the time - was introduced via a series of vignettes. The common perception of skit series' like these is that they help the viewer understand the performer they're about to see and hopefully engage with. But in storytelling terms, they actually reflect a huge problem with a gimmick of this nature.

Vince McMahon infamously likes potential television personalities to sell him an inanimate object in their interviewer auditions. Recent unearthed Network footage has Renee Young given a biro to burst with excitement over, whilst Eric Bischoff at his most handsome in 1990 was handed a grubby mop to flog. McMahon, however, once took a lot longer to try and sell his audience on one of his new ideas.

'Wild' Bill Irwin was winding his career down somewhat by 1996, but was dependable as affordable enhancement talent if nothing else. Determined to wrap him in gimmick, McMahon produced weeks of footage of him battering folk in his first profession. A goon - to answer the question posed earlier in this article - is somebody on the team that can be tactically deployed as a fighter or violent player should the situation require such 'skill'. If a hockey player was going to try his hand at professional wrestling, it would be a team's goon, but The Chairman again never stopped to ask why that would be so.

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