Undeniably one of the greatest of all time, Chris Jericho has had a lengthy wrestling
career that has lasted nearly 3 decades, yet he's still at the top of the game today.
He's accomplished nearly everything possible in the business, but he continues to entertain
fans with his amazing character and ring work.
With everything going down with Kevin Owens right now, this is a great time for Wrestling
Origins: Chris Jericho!
Christopher Keith Irvine was born in Manhasset, New York, USA, on November 9th, 1970.
Despite being born in the US Chris holds Canadian citizenship and was raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
His father is New York Rangers legend Ted Irvine, which explains why he was born in
the States.
As a kid, Chris would become a fan of wrestling after first watching it alongside his grandmother,
as well as watching local events in Winnipeg.
His favourite superstars back then were Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat and Shawn Michaels,
and he cites both of them as inspirations for becoming a wrestler.
Interestingly, Chris says he was never a huge sports fan because he didn't like the concept
of a team, but instead individual athletes and characters.
Irvine was also a big fan of Rock music and aspired to become a musician from a young
age too.
He would go back and forth between his two passions; sometimes he would become obsessed
with music and other times with wrestling, but he knew from as early as 12 years old
that he wanted to pursue one of them, if not both.
In pursuit of his musical passions, Chris would play in bands throughout school and
take any gig he could get.
The same could be said about wrestling, as Chris first started out working as a member
of the ring crew for a local promotion before starting his own promotion out of a gymnasium
where he and his friend each played multiple characters.
They were mostly just doing it to have fun, but it solidified that wrestling was something
Chris wanted to pursue.
After being told to have a backup plan by somebody in the wrestling business, Chris
went to Red River Community College in Winnipeg where he earned his degree in journalism and
graduated with top honors.
With his education completed, Irvine decided to take the leap and move to Calgary to get
serious about wrestling.
At the age of 19, Chris entered the Hart Brothers School of Wrestling where he immediately met
Lance Storm.
He would be trained by Ed Langley and local wrestler Brady Young, and would make his wrestling
debut just two short months later in local promotions in Alberta, initially going under
the name Cowboy Chris Jericho, and having his very first match against Lance.
Interesting fact: the name Jericho was taken from an album titled "Walls of Jericho"
by German power metal band Helloween.
Soon after, the two would begin tagging together, wrestling across both Alberta and Manitoba
in 1990, and by 1991, the pair ventured out to Japan to compete for Frontier Martial-Arts
Wrestling as the duo Sudden Impact.
In 1992, Chris went down to Mexico and competed under the names Golden Lion and Lion Heart,
though both names were in Spanish.
He most notably wrestled for CMLL in Mexico and would have an 11-month reign as NWA Middleweight
Champion there.
After leaving Mexico for Germany, Jericho rejoined with Lance Storm as The Thrillseekers
in Jim Cornette's SMW promotion where they notably feuded with The Rock 'n' Roll
Express.
In 1995, Chris would head back to Japan and win Wrestle Association R's International
Junior Heavyweight Championship, but lost it to Ultimo Dragon after a month.
Chris would also notably compete in the Super J-Cup, but lost to Wild Pegasus, or Chris
Benoit.
Chris would however become Tag Team Champion soon after, but lost the titles to Lance Storm.
Also in 1995, through the recommendations of Chris Benoit, Dave Meltzer, and Perry Saturn,
Jericho landed a shot with Extreme Championship Wrestling, or ECW. Paul Heyman was impressed
with how many people believed in the young Canadian wrestler, and even Mick Foley was
raving about his match with Ultimo Dragon in Japan, so Heyman gave him a chance.
Jericho would quickly win the ECW World Television Championship in June of 1996, but only held
it for a few weeks.
Jericho would go on to wrestle the likes of Sabu, RVD, Mick Foley, and Taz, all of which
slowly but surely garnered the attention of wrestling powerhouse WCW.
On August 26th, 1996, Chris Jericho made his first appearance on WCW's Nitro.
He would wrestle Chris Benoit just a few weeks later at his first PPV, before being shipped
back to Japan in 1997 as part of a talent exchange program.
There, he was known as Super Liger, the masked nemesis of Jushin Thunder Liger, but it wasn't
well received.
Once he returned to WCW in the summer of 1997, he would win the WCW Cruiserweight Championship
for the first time from Syxx, and once again two months later from Alex Wright.
From there, Chris Jericho would notably feud with Rey Mysterio, Juventud Guerrera, and
most importantly Dean Malenko.
It was during this feud with Malenko, a master of technical wrestling who was called "The
Man of 1000 Holds", that Chris became known as "The Man of 1004 Holds".
It's worth noting also that Jericho refused to wrestle Malenko throughout the feud.
In 1998, Chris Jericho debuted a huge set of papers that listed every single one of
the 1004 holds he knew.
Of course many of these holds were made up and many were repeated, but the list itself
was iconic.
Jericho would finally wrestle Malenko after putting off the match and won, but after being
tricked into another match against a mystery opponent, Malenko would return to one of the
loudest pops in WCW history and defeat Jericho for his belt.
Chris would eventually win the title back from Malenko, only to lose it to Jueventud
Guerrera.
After a stint as World Television Champion, Jericho began to become frustrated with WCW
and its booking.
This frustration would build up until he eventually left the company to sign with WWF on June
30th, 1999.
Chris Jericho would make an epic debut that featured a countdown clock that was supposedly
counting down to the new millennium.
As the clock finally struck zero, Y2J appeared and cut off The Rock's promo.
He would quickly establish himself as a badass heel, famously claiming "RAW is Jericho".
Chris Jericho's first real, long-term feud in WWF was with Chyna for the Intercontinental
Championship.
Yup, WWF was a lot different back then.
After losing to her at Survivor Series, he would eventually capture the belt at Armageddon.
This was followed by some controversy though that made the two co-champions, but Chris
unified the belts soon after at Royal Rumble.
After losing his belt to European Champion Kurt Angle, he competed at WrestleMania 2000
against Chris Benoit and Angle in a two-falls contest, in which Jericho won the European
Championship but not the IC.
He would however lose the title to Eddie Guerrero the next day.
A similar thing happened a month later when he won the Intercontinental Championship again,
but lost it to Benoit four days later.
Moving forward, Benoit and Jericho would become tag partners and won the WWF Tag Team Championships
from Triple H and Stone Cold.
They would defend the belts until Benoit was injured and sidelined for a year, which resulted
in Jericho losing them to the Dudley Boyz.
In late 2001, Chris Jericho became a key player in The Invasion storyline where WCW and ECW
tried to overtake WWF.
He would begin to feud with The Rock and won his WCW Championship from him.
The Rock would regain it, but Jericho would turn heel by attacking him.
Following that, Chris Jericho would do the impossible by defeating The Rock and Stone
Cold Steve Austin in the same night, winning the World Championship and WWF Championship,
becoming the first ever to hold them both.
Chris Jericho became the first-ever Undisputed WWF Champion.
Jericho would retain against The Rock and Stone Cold, but lost the unified championship
to Triple H at WrestleMania 18.
Over the next little while: Chris would win the Tag titles with his partner Christian,
have one of the best matches in WWE history with Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania 19, feuded
and lost to Goldberg after becoming jealous of his success, and came full circle to feud
with Christian and win his record-breaking seventh Intercontinental Championship.
After becoming General Manager of RAW for a week, Jericho stripped Triple H of his World
Heavyweight Championship so he could compete for it himself in the Elimination Chamber,
but he was unsuccessful.
At WrestleMania 21, Jericho created and competed in the first ever Money in the Bank ladder
match, but couldn't win it.
Soon after, Jericho would turn heel again by betraying WWE Champion John Cena, starting
a feud.
He was unable to capture the belt on three occasions, with the final being in a "You're
Fired" match, causing Jericho to leave the company, but in reality his contract was up
and he wanted to take a break.
Chris Jericho would return after two years in 2007 where he revealed his intention to
become WWE Champion once again.
He would feud with Randy Orton first but failed to capture the belt, so he would move on to
the IC title and won it from Jeff Hardy.
Next he would reignite his feud with Shawn Michaels, notably throwing him through the
Jeritron 6000 during an interview, in what eventually became known as Feud of the Year.
After losing his title to Kofi Kingston and ending his feud with Michaels, Jericho would
finally become World Heavyweight Champion after a Championship Scramble match.
He would hold this belt for a little while but eventually lost it to John Cena.
Over the next little while, Jericho would feud with actor Mickey Rourke, feuded with
WWE legends, won the Unified WWE Tag Team Championships with Edge as well as Big Show,
won the World Heavyweight Title at Elimination Chamber 2010, lost said title to Jack Swagger
on SmackDown, and got punted in the head by Randy Orton which once again allowed him to
be written out.
After returning in 2012, Jericho would start feuding with CM Punk.
This was a relatively memorable feud because Jericho brought up Punk's family, mentioning
that his father is an alcoholic and sister a drug addict.
Despite his psychological attacks, Jericho was unable to win the belt from Punk on two
occasions.
After getting suspended for disrespecting the Brazilian flag, Jericho feuded with Dolph
Ziggler, and once again got terminated as part of a match stipulation so he could go
on tour with his band.
When he returned in 2013, Jericho most notably feuded and lost to Fandango at WrestleMania
29, went on tour again, and feuded and lost to Bray Wyatt.
More recently, he feuded with the debuting AJ Styles before tagging with him as Y2AJ,
but he turned heel and faced AJ at WrestleMania 32.
He would also feud with Dean Ambrose and get RKO'd by Randy Orton at SummerSlam before
eventually finding his way to a new tag partner.
After engaging in a feud with Enzo and Cass, Chris Jericho aligned himself with fellow
Canadian heel Kevin Owens.
The two started out simply as tag partners, but soon became friends… no, best friends.
Jericho as you know would help Kevin Owens retain his Universal Championship on multiple
occasion, introduce the famous "List of Jericho", and win the title that has eluded
him all these years; the United States Championship.
After successfully becoming the hottest duo in wrestling and the very best of friends,
Jericho threw a "Festival of Friendship" this past week on RAW to honour their bond.
However, Owens would shockingly turn on Jericho, breaking the hearts of millions of WWE fans
worldwide in the process.
And that was Wrestling Origins: Chris Jericho.
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As always thanks for watching, and I'll catch you in the next one!
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