That Time Chris Jericho Was WWE Champion For 30 Minutes

Jericho immediately smothered Triple H in an all-out assault of a brawl, the sort that electrified the wider WWF fanbase. This was Jericho acclimatising to the main event scene while, at the same time, adding a new aerial dimension to it. Jericho wore his working boots on the night, as opposed to the clumsy lifts Vince McMahon ordered him to wear. At ringside, the Acolytes acted as Jericho’s protection from the McMahon-Helmsley regime, and resident pissant Shane McMahon, as the roster itself was balanced perfectly under the narrative wizardry of writer Chris Kreski—a man who doesn’t draw a latter-day cult, but a man who should.

Jericho lit up the Pennsylvania crowd with his aerial attacks. Trips, on career form as a big-bumping but formidable heel Ace, responded with a series of illegal punches. The in-ring action matched superbly the dramatic heft of the shared universe angle; Trips dangled Jericho in the air before smashing him to the canvas with a suplex, as if to tell the obnoxious brat that he, not Jericho, pulled the strings here.

At this point, Jericho rolled out of danger’s mouth, his own bloodied. The wrestling Gods themselves had rewarded Jericho’s excellent babyface performance with the consummate visual of babyface sympathy. Jericho timed his comebacks to perfection, pulling a now white-hot crowd into the drama of a missile dropkick near-fall. They didn’t need convincing to chant “Go Jericho, go!”; in response to the smaller Jericho’s Herculean application of the Walls of Jericho, they roared “Y2J! Y2J! Y2J!”

Triple H bumped referee Mike Chioda, leading to a turnabout-is-fair play belt shot and a nail-biting near-fall. Earl Hebner, tortured by the regime in the preceding weeks, took it upon himself to take charge of a situation that had, by now, descended into classic, molten Attitude Era chaos. Hebner, exasperated, shoved Triple H. Triple H decked him with a shove of his own, allowing Jericho to land a spinning heel kick, a Lionsault, and, to the lion’s roar of the crowd, the WWF Championship…

…for about half an hour.

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