Why Jericho was awesome in WCW.

The best begins at 4:16, but watch the whole thing. :D

ha ha....Gotta love Jericho.

Another bit with Jericho's hilarious homage to This Is Spinal Tap.



Love this. Jericho was one of the most entertaining things on Nitro, bar none.

Even though Jericho was being held down, he absolutely excelled at taking the scraps he was handed in WCW, the cruiserweight title, and a short TV title run, and ran with it as far as they could possibly let him.

Obviously he should have broken past all of this because his amazing acting ability, his character, charisma, and ability to make anything entertaining should have put him up in the main event picture he would enjoy in WWE.

You can see everything from his fued with Malenko, to the provoking of Goldberg while delivering a consistent amount of entertainment and athletic matches with the tools that put him over quickly. Jericho sold Monday Night Jericho shirts like crazy, and quickly gained his own niche.

It was when he was trying to transition into a fued with Goldberg that they basically killed him dead, and quickly knocked him back down the pegs after giving him a few "running from Goldberg" moments, and let him know he hit the ceiling that he wasn't going to get past even though he'd taken everything he was given and ran with it like a monster.

Looking at how his WCW career played out, he gave 100% percent to all his segments and delivered 150%, and were from my personal recollections of watching back then, some of my favorite segments on WCW television, but it took the WWE to take him seriously against the WCW politics.

Still, I love watching these old Jericho bits. If it wasn't for his WCW stuff, I wouldn't have jumped so highly on him in the WWE as I did, so I owe a lot to WCW for that, even though it took WWE for his career to take off. Especially to truly show what he could do in the ring as well as talk.

Chris Jericho is definitely one of those guys that needs to be absolutely brought into the Hall Of Fame one day.

(just as an aside, I have to say from that video that didn't Wrath have a great look in terms of his build?. May not have been a tremendous wrestler, but look wise he was excellent)

But as for Jericho, I honestly think he's/he was probably closest to the dictionary definition of a perfect professional wrestler. He really is/was one of those guys who could literally do it all - for ease of reference I'll talk in the past tense here.

He was technically excellent, he could brawl, he could do fast paced matches with lucha libre stars and hang in Japanese style matches as well. He had a fantastic gift for comedy with natural comic timing and great acting ability, and yet he could cut a serious promo as well and come across as genuinely devious, manipulative, and heelish. He could work heel or face against big or small, in tag teams or singles and always make it work.

Its a crime that his run as undisputed champion was overshadowed by politics which meant it came second fiddle to the rise of HHH, but he has before and since won every title going in the WWE, multiple times for most of them, and every win has been utterly deserved.

As for his Hall of Fame spot, its already assured, don't worry. First undisputed champion, grandslam WWE champion, he's in all the way.

Those two videos just prove though why WWE must have been doing jigs when they signed Jericho. He was so clearly talented from the get go, and the fans engaged him so much. I've always been a fan of Jericho, great heel, comical face, and a very talented wrestler.

When Jerichio was on WCW back then, I ALWAYS used to compare him to Kefka from Final Fantasy 6.

He was a masterful heel, a completely deluded and at times psychopathic character, maniacal and comedically selfish, but also was a complete self-depreciating clown who used his buffoonery to his own advantage.

Like when he drove Malenko stark raving mad with his continued pushing and prodding and making a joke out of both himself and the title that Malenko held in such high regard.

Jericho was not only calculating and devious in his jokester persona, that he meticulously drove Malenko bonkers not JUST because of what he said about him and his family, but also he was a clownish bully to Rey Mysterio, Juventud, Prince Iukea and literally the other entire Cruiserweight division, going so far as to make fun of them as they each went down the ramp at Slamboree for the shot at his title.

Or Jericho's almost batshit insane determination to find loopholes to keep his titles instead of actually fighting for them (While he would always show himself more than cabable of winning fairly, anyway). Even to the point where he would make people hold signs pointing to him that read "Conspiracy Victim", and poured over rule books at the library of Congress and thought that the President of the US would help him, when it was clear that he was just trying to push people's buttons and intentionally irritate the world with his ridiculously hilarious actions.

As proven in the other video like the Spinal Tap homage, Jericho's character in WCW often pretended to be stupid, to infuriate others, or to cause them to underestimate him, or in fact cover up for the fact that he'd pretend to get lost just so he could evade Wrath and Goldberg.

Or when he basically snapped at James Dillon even when he was trying to suck up to him, and call him names the minute he thought JJ wasn't looking, and the act surprised when he was there the whole time.

And not only that, Chris Jericho in WCW didn't just remind me of Kefka by his demenour, but he also looked a lot like him, I thought. With the colorful tights, and comically tussled blonde hair propped up in the most ridiculous ways. Back then I always even wondered if Kefka was an inspiration for the character in some way.