Transcript
Speaker: Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Predetermined, a pro wrestling hangout. I'm your host, Garrett Callender, and with me, as always, a man who is ready to give thanks, man, Derek Halpin. Guess who's back. Back again. I'm not sick. Great review. Subscribe. Give five stars.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm back. It feels good to be healthy. Feels good to do another episode of the podcast with you. It feels like it's been forever. It really has, because you and I will text throughout the week, but we save our actual speaking for this. So I basically got to go two weeks without talking to you, and you know my heart hurts inside.
Speaker: Well, we had a brief phone conversation the other day and it was nice to kind of get caught up that way. But I listened to the episode from last week and you and Leah did a fantastic job putting on a show without me. So she was a fine addition to that show. Let me tell you, I loved hearing her insight and the banter you guys had and see hearing some of her disgust for our hobby here.
Speaker: Yeah, I didn't know how that was going to go just because it was very last minute. I feel like a couple hours before we threw up, you know, to have our listeners submit questions. Thank you to all of you that sent in questions. I thought it was pretty funny. I enjoyed myself. You know, someday maybe we'll have Leah back on to give her, you know, have you guys ask questions again and just give her thoughts on things.
Speaker: Yeah, it was definitely fun as somebody who's listened to all of our episodes. It was one that's going to stand out, in my opinion, just for how unique it was. And plus, it's fun to have somebody on a pro wrestling podcast who does not give a shit about the state of pro wrestling. Yeah, she doesn't necessarily hate it. She just doesn't give a shit. I think that's the best way to put it.
Speaker: Well, you I think you and your enthusiasm and and it's never ending for you. I think that wears on her again. So it was the perfect. I don't know. It was kind of the perfect guest for that scenario. Yeah, I feel like not only does it wear on her, but just regular friends, not wrestle friends. But I'm back this week and just as advertised last couple of weeks, we've been hyping this up. Today's episode is going to be dedicated to a very special someone.
Speaker: And who is that, my friend? I was going to say something funny, but you caught me off guard with asking me a question I wasn't ready for. So let's just do Chris Jericho. Y2J. Y2J, baby. The Ayatollah of rock and rolla. How many different nicknames does this guy have? Is it like Apollo Creed? He does have a lot. And I think it varies based on where he is in his career. Well, his career spans a couple of decades, maybe even a few at this point.
Speaker: Yeah, a few decades. You know what, Derek? I am ready to talk about this guy, so hit our goddamn music, man. And drink it in, man.
Speaker: It's going to be so hard throughout this episode to not make Chris Jericho references in the sense of like, he's got so many catchphrases and Jericho -isms and man, this is going to be so much fun. I'm excited to do this while we're doing it.
Speaker: You know what? You know what Jericho would want you to do right now? He would want you to open up your iTunes app on your phone and he wants you to rate, review, subscribe. And you know what? If you're like, Garrett, I already did. You know what? I see your significant other sitting next to you holding an iPhone. I see him right now. I'm looking at you in the gym, the living room, the car, wherever you think you may be. You should know where you are.
Speaker: pick up their phone, do it from theirs, help us out, rate, review, subscribe, leave that five star review. And if you leave that review, we will watch literally anything you want us to as long as it has something even slightly to do with professional wrestling. And that being said, I believe next week we're going to catch up on a couple of the requests that we had because I think we need to rewatch them to have them fresh in our head to talk about them.
Speaker: correct we do have some stuff to get caught up on but i do think that we have thanksgiving if you're listening to this thanksgiving is today uh the day this episode is dropping anyway and it's the perfect time to give thanks to the man the legend chris jericho and we came up with this idea a couple episodes ago i did a ton of research for this so did you we have a lot to talk about
Speaker: I have to ask, does it have anything doing this episode? Do you still feel bad about getting him to block you on Twitter? And you're like, doing a whole episode about this man is the only way that we're going to end up on the Jericho podcast network. Are you asking me if I feel bad about being blocked by him? Do you wish you could go back in time and have been nicer? Yes, I do feel bad about being blocked by Jericho on Twitter. I will admit that I fully deserved it.
Speaker: But it's the kind of thing now, like, I mean, I, I, my comments that got me blocked is when he was in a feud, he came back from, you know, his part -time status. He came back to have a feud with Bray Wyatt. He came back a little out of shape and in his first match with Bray Wyatt, beat him. And I was upset and I made some, I can't remember what my comments were, but it was something about if you're going to come back,
Speaker: Oh, and his match with Wyatt, he had a bunch of botches and I made some snide remark on Twitter and I didn't notice for a long time, but I got blocked. And I'm a fan of Chris Jericho, not die hard, but I am a fan of his career. And it does hurt me to this day to know that I'm blocked. I'm hoping if you were listening to this podcast,
Speaker: Do me a favor. I want to redeem myself with Chris Jericho. Send him something. Say hey at Halloween Halpin on Twitter. He's sorry. He wants to redeem himself. Give him a give him the time of day. Unblock him. I'd be very grateful if you could get if you could get me unblocked by Chris Jericho. I will be forever indebted to you on top of you leaving us a nice review and a five star rating which
Speaker: Like Garrett said, you know somebody who has an extra phone just laying around. Get on there. Give us the rating. Give us the review. But also, I'm sure you've got friends. If you're listening to this podcast and you like pro wrestling, you've got some friends that they could use a dose of us in their life, I think.
Speaker: Oh, I think they could, and I think one of those people is Chris Jericho. And Chris, if you unblock Derek, he will wear a Fozzy shirt every single day for a year, promoting the shit out of your band. He's gonna be front row pumping that fist, singing all the songs along. He'll get a crowd chant going. Please unblock Derek. He's a kind man. You caught him at a time when you beat the shit out of one of his favorite wrestlers.
Speaker: He doesn't care anymore. It's in the past. Water under the bridge. He wants to make amends. It's Thanksgiving. I was an asshole. I acknowledge it. I want your forgiveness. Please forgive me. Please unblock me. Anyways, moving on. We're doing a whole episode to this guy today. He's a legend. I mean, he wears the letters G -O -A -T on his sparkly tights. And there's an argument to be made for that being the case that he is the greatest of all time. Wouldn't you say?
Speaker: After the homework you gave me on this one and going back and rewatching, I think going back and really just seeing where he started and how fucking good this guy is, I think his career has just been so long, sometimes you need a reminder of how awesome he really is and how long that time has been.
Speaker: Yes, absolutely. I mean, we could start with his biography, but holy shit, I would just like to start by listing some of the major championships that he's won. He is a one -time ECW World Television Champion. He is the current IWGP Intercontinental Champion in his first reign. This guy has a four -time WCW Cruiserweight Champion, one -time WCW World Television Champion. He is the first ever, and don't you fucking forget it,
Speaker: undisputed WWF champion, a three -time World Heavyweight Champion, two -time WCW World Champion, and WWE. A WWF Hardcore Champion, European Champion, United States Champion, Intercontinental Championship reigns he's had nine times. He's been Intercontinental Champion, a record nine times. And who's close to challenging him for that record, Garrett? Is it the Miz? It's the fucking Miz.
Speaker: WWE Tag Team Championship, he's had two reigns with those five reigns as World Tag Team Champion. He's the ninth Triple Crown Champion, the fourth Grand Slam Champion. He's won three Slammy Awards, multiple awards by PWI and Wrestling Observer.
Speaker: And the only thing left this man needs is, you know, he's got a weird career right now. I think he needs to challenge Nick Gage for the GCW Heavyweight Championship. He doesn't need to do that. He doesn't need to do that at this point in his career. He doesn't need to, but he's a man that knows what the people want and he's willing to do it. That's what you want.
Speaker: If he faces Nick Gage, his career might be over after that match is done. David Arquette lived through it. He's going to be fine. Nick Gage has a lot more to gain from ending the career of Chris Jericho than he does David Arquette. I think Nick Gage is probably a pretty good guy. I think he's very understanding. And I think he probably works very well with others.
Speaker: We'll see. For my take, I hope that Nick Gage never wrestles Chris Jericho for Jericho's sake.
Speaker: But for the sake of just loving wrestling and wanting to see something that you've never seen, you'd watch it. Do you have a newfound infatuation with Nick Gage? Yeah, I think he's my new favorite person in the world. What happened? What happened? I don't know. I think that, you know, like as a kid, I didn't like the Halloween movies because they scared the shit out of me, like, you know, at a certain age. And I think that I hit that point where Michael Myers got to be fun. And I think...
Speaker: This is Chris Jericho's day, man. Leave Nick Gage at it. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So, Christopher Keith Irving was born on November 9th in 1970 in Manhasset, New York. He grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. His father, we can tie this back into our show. How many episodes have you kicked this show off by forcing me to talk about the NHL? Talk about hockey.
Speaker: Chris Jericho's father is Ted Irving. He's a former NHL left winger who played for the Bruins, the Rangers, the Kings, and Garrett, your St. Louis Blues. Absolutely. His NHL career lasted from 1963 to 1977. Chris Jericho first started watching the AWA and Stampede wrestling, and it was actually Owen Hart that inspired him to become a pro wrestler.
Speaker: Ricky Steamboat and Shawn Michaels were also a couple of inspirations for him, and at age 19, he joined the Hart Brothers School of Wrestling where he met Lance Storm. Wait, does that mean that Stu Hart beat the shit out of him down in the dungeon like he does everyone else? I do think the Harts had a hand in training Chris Jericho, and probably even Stu Hart.
Speaker: Does Jericho have, you know, poor memories? I just remember watching Beyond the Mat and just seeing somebody go down into the basement with Stu Hart, who was like, you know, an old man at that time. And then just hearing like a grown man. And then the moms in the kitchen just like, Oh, that's just Stu. He's torturing a man. Yeah. Yeah. Stu Hart used to beat up on some, on a bunch of Canadians who wanted to be pro wrestlers.
Speaker: It does seem like if you're from Canada, those are your two major professions you get to choose from as hockey player or pro wrestler.
Speaker: So naturally I am a huge fan of Canada because those are their options. It was interesting, uh, in last week's podcast in your conversation with Leah, you got into the top, you got to talking about how wrestling for the longest time was not a part of your life. And you started a relationship with Leah and then suddenly it came back into your life and it took everything over. And that was not what she agreed to.
Speaker: Yeah, no, that was, you know, I snuck that in. I don't know if I feel bad for her. I feel like she, like, did she get duped? Like, is this gonna happen with other things? Is Nick Gage gonna be the new thing that she has to hear about all the time? Well, it depends. If we can get Nick Gage to come over to my apartment for an interview before Southern Underground Pro on January 20th, then maybe. What if he steals your wife? I thought he was gonna be like, where'd the soap dispenser go?
Speaker: I think Nick Gage took it. Anyways, Chris Jericho began his wrestling career. He was actually in a tag team with Lance Storm for most of the beginning of his career. And he made his pro wrestling debut on October 2nd in 1990. We were three years old. And he made his debut as Cowboy Chris Jericho in a match against Lance Storm. I think I remember him telling that story where he's like, I don't know if I want to do this. I'm like, no, you're the cowboy now.
Speaker: Yeah, no, there were several other names that were being considered. The name that he was going to be given was actually voted on by the fans in Mexico. And it was down to He -Man, Chris Power, and Lionheart. But the name they ended up going with was the Golden Lion, Leon De Oro, the Golden Lion. He started wrestling in Japan in 1991.
Speaker: In 1982 he started wrestling in Mexico. He got the name Jericho from the German power metal band Halloween and their album, Walls of Jericho. Foreshadowing. Foreshadowing the five albums I had to listen to for you fuckers. Wait a minute, you didn't have to. You voluntarily did this. It wasn't like people were tweeting us saying, make Garrett do this. I did it so you don't have to. I say that not you, them.
Speaker: And once again you're saying they didn't ask you to do this. Like you're trying to hold everybody's head over everybody's head that you had a miserable time listening to Fauzi. Don't I don't want to get blocked. Hey do you know everybody has different musical tastes Fauzi is not mine. So don't Chris.
Speaker: We're good. Are we really hoping that he's going to listen to this episode, like our piss -poor retrospective on his career? Well, he's like, he's listening. He's like, man, I didn't know they were going to go back to the beginning. And he was like, yeah, this segment is called From Jizz to Jericho, the full career.
Speaker: He was conceived on this date. And it was the hair metal plane that got into his DNA. He loves rock music. I think he's admitted in other interviews, a lot of his characters have been based off Freddie Mercury or David Lee Roth. He likes outrageous rock and roll figures. Yeah, no fucking shit. I've listened to his podcast.
Speaker: I'm just saying. I listen to five Fozzy records. I get it, okay? Dude likes to rock and roll. I don't like how bitter you sound at the start of this show. I'm not bitter, okay? You sound fucking bitter. I listened to three albums today. So you are bitter? No. They're not buying it. You're upset and you did it to yourself. I listened to the self -titled, I listened to All That Remains Reloaded, and I listened to Sin and Bones, Derek.
Speaker: Did you know that his second record has a new metal song on it? I didn't until today. Well, you learned a thing. Yeah, go ahead. Keep teaching us. I was going to teach you. This is this is important to you because you you brought up Gato in relation to Jericho recently on one of our episodes. In 1994, he in 95, he was wrestling in Japan and he had feuds with Gato and Ultimo Dragon. We watched a Chris Jericho versus Ultimo Dragon match from Japan that got sent to us by one of our listeners, actually.
Speaker: Oh, at this point, I'm not calling Andrew Hendren a listener. I'm calling him our go -to classic wrestling historian.
Speaker: Hey, go find us one of these. He's like our archives manager. He really is. Andrew manages the archives. Multiple times now, I've sent him a message like, Andrew, this time period, these wrestlers, you got anything for me? He is shooting me back a message within minutes. And what's funny is all he's probably doing is going to YouTube and entering the words that you sent him. No, no, no.
Speaker: Historian Because he even for this on the payroll He he sent me this when I asked for the any, you know early pre WCW Jericho recommendations He sent me back. This is from the series with Ultimo dragon from 10 reuse war promotion that got him booked in ECW and
Speaker: Yeah, and oh my god, can we talk about that? Do you watch that match right? I did and it's here's the thing about it It's an eight minute long match. You can find it on YouTube if you type in Jericho ultimate of dragon But it feels like it's a lot longer than eight minutes. Was I the only one that felt that way? I think that's just because we didn't understand the commentary but I But racism
Speaker: I don't know. Now I don't even know what to say because I'm like, you went there. You had to comment on the commentary. I just thought that it was a good match for being. How can I be racist? My best friend, my best friend is Japanese wrestling. You're playing this card. I liked when he did the gorilla press.
Speaker: No, this is a good match that we got sent, his match with Ultimo Dragon. I actually was not expecting him to win.
Speaker: Yeah, I wasn't either. And going back and watching, you know, this version of Jericho put so many matches in my head I would have loved to have seen, you know, when he was in his prime doing that cruiserweight style. Right. And it's kind of fun because we really watched his style. He can kind of work with anybody and just kind of evolve and do what he needs to do.
Speaker: Absolutely. Yeah, it's absurd that earlier on in his career, he was like kind of labeled as a cruiserweight because as we have been able to see over like the last almost 30 years.
Speaker: he can work any style. And what was it? Not the most recent NXT takeover pay -per -view, maybe the one before it, where Adam Cole had his match with Ricochet and he gave him the upside down super kick. Yeah, while he was in the middle of doing essentially a moon salt or a lion salt or whatever, right? Yeah, Ricochet was doing like a lion salt essentially and he got super kicked in the face. Well, there's a spot in this Ultimo Dragon Jericho match where there's a blatant
Speaker: Foreshadowing to that where Jericho goes for a lion salt and instead of a super kick Ultimo dragon does a drop kick right to Jericho and it was eerily reminiscent Oh, I popped at work for that. Did you? Oh that got me very very excited. That was awesome I know who else popped for it Andrew Paul Heyman Paul, okay, okay Andrew and Paul
Speaker: Paul Heyman, I guess, had gotten recommendations from Chris Benoit, Dave Meltzer, Perry Saturn, and Mick Foley, who had seen his work with Ultimo Dragon and recommended Paul Heyman bring him to ECW. And so he did. In 1995, Jericho became a part of the ECW roster, and he wrestled with the likes of Taz, Sabu, RVD, Cactus Jack, Shane Douglas, and Two Cold Scorpio. Did you happen to catch any of his ECW work during your research for this? I did not, Derek. I didn't. I didn't.
Speaker: So you're not alone. So we're like, we're not talking about it. No, but I mean, it's I think it was a brief stint in ECW. I think it's worth mentioning because. To put it to you this way, in some former fashion, Chris Jericho has worked for all of the major wrestling promotions of the last 25, 30 years, except GCW.
Speaker: Fuck off with this, stop it. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Is that your new monkey? Is that your new thing you're gonna be pushing on here? I think I'm gonna be telling everybody, like, you gotta be watching it. No, but Jericho, Jericho. Wait, you know, one thing we didn't mention, I sent you this today while I was watching some of his older stuff. I came across a match of him in New Japan where he was wrestling under a hood and his name was Super Liger.
Speaker: Absolutely. And the whole time I'm like, well, other than the hair, how can we tell this is Jericho? Until he put him in a submission move and you can still very clearly hear, ask him! Ask him! Yeah. Which has followed him his whole career. That's the one constant.
Speaker: So here's what's unique about that because i did watch that i watch that match and jericho has such a distinct voice you wouldn't have known until you hear him yelling. In that very very easily easy to recognize jericho voice so he signed with wcw in nineteen ninety six.
Speaker: But not too long after, he also had a New Japan Pro Wrestling deal that he signed. And ECW let him work New Japan. That's why he was able to work as Super Liger, who was supposed to be the arch nemesis of Jushin Thunder Liger. Wait, so that was taking place while he was in WCW? Correct. He had like a two way deal there.
Speaker: which you know how often have we talked about on this podcast how we wish that would happen more often with you know wwe and some of the other promotions well and now i mean they kind of are they're working with progress pretty well correct yeah oh and but i think there's other things that they've been doing too like if you watch some of the the wrestlers
Speaker: their biography DVDs or their specials, they've worked with Ring of Honor and they've gotten archived footage for the sake of giving a big picture look at their career for their specials. And I was surprised during the AJ thing that came after Survivor Series, one of the first things that happened is you see a picture of him with the IWGP heavyweight championship around his waist. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, no, it's it's like we've said before. It's something that the more they do it, I think it helps everybody. I think it and maybe that's one of the reasons Vince doesn't like it. He only wants to help himself. But they're starting to do it a little bit more. And I mean, also with evolve because what were the the guys that have the the plastic cups and NXT? Street Profits, they're the evolved champs now.
Speaker: Wow. And they're NXT guys. So at this point, it just seems like WWE owns Evolve. That's what it feels like. Well, Jericho tried to do the Super Liger thing for a little while. He ended up botching a whole bunch because I guess the mask was a pain in the ass and he couldn't see through it.
Speaker: So he did it a few times and then spent the rest of his New Japan days, or at least the early New Japan days, wrestling without the mask. But in 1996, he signed with WCW. On September 13th on Nitro, he made his debut against Alex Wright. Hell yeah. Alex Wright, because when I was going back to watch some of the WCW Jericho stuff, Alex Wright came across my screen a couple of times. It's like watching a weird Finn Balor.
Speaker: He's got the leather jacket, and he's got the abs, and he's dancing. He's like Finn Balor plus dancing. And German. So they looked at Alex Wright and thought, what can we change to make this cool? He's a demon. Have him quit dancing, cut the dancing. And Alex Wright's like, that's all I had to do, but I love it so much.
Speaker: He won his first WCW title of the Cruiserweight Championship on June 28, 1997, from six, who you may know as X -Pac, whose name is actually Sean Waltman. People love him now, right? We like X -Pac again?
Speaker: That's what's fucking weird is I remember there was a time period where everyone was in love with chanting Xbox sucks and hating on him and it seems like he's had a rebirth and people love him now and I don't know if it has anything to do with his dog or his podcast. I was going to say the same thing. It's that dog. You can't be mad at the guy with the dog.
Speaker: It gets you over no matter what. Like you said, everybody just needs that one little thing and it turns out a special needs dog and a baby Bjorn makes you immune to hate. It's not gonna happen. Some of these old Jericho matches throughout the crowd, X -Pac had the term X -Pac heat.
Speaker: Yeah when somebody has go home heat or go away heat I mean so throughout the whole crowd you're seeing signs that say fire expok and all I was thinking is I kind of want to hang out with expok now he seems kind of cool he seems like a cool dude plus smokes a lot of weed god me and that guy and his baby Bjorn dog we are gonna we're gonna blaze we're gonna have a great time
Speaker: I watched I hadn't done this and all the time I had the W or the WWE Network and my subscription actually expired expired this past Sunday. So Crown Jewel and the timeout that followed from that has officially kicked in officially officially. It's so weird. So we just we said in the last episode that you were in WWE is in a timeout.
Speaker: and then bet all the Becky Lynch stuff happened. And my brain is just like, holy fuck, I really wanna see that. Nothing makes me wanna watch something more than saying I'm not gonna do it. And Nia Jax punching out the thing that you're excited about.
Speaker: Hey, you know, that punch changed a lot of matches. It changed the landscape, though. I mean, without the punch, there's not the iconic image of Becky Lynch and having her face covered with blood standing up amongst the fans. The punch heard round the Twitter. Good lord. It was bullshit, but at the same time, it made her. Sometimes that's all it takes. Yeah, I bet Nia Jax wishes somebody would punch her in the face. Am I right?
Speaker: Oh shit. You hurt Becky. Fuck you. No, I'm just kidding. You're fine. Um, but no, and all the time I'd had the WWE network, I had, I just hadn't sat back and gone through old WCW, pay -per -views, nitros and thunders, and really looked for certain segments. He had notable feuds in WCW with Ray Mysterio, Hooventud Guerreira, Dean Malenko, and maybe pretty notably because it comes up later down the line, Goldberg. Dude, those Hooventud matches.
Speaker: They were great, weren't they? Those guys work so fucking well together. What's funny is I knew that there was a time period where Huventud Guerreira did wear a mask. And I didn't know how he lost it because that's the Huventud Guerreira I was used to was the one without the mask.
Speaker: So I finally got to watch the match where Chris Jericho puts up the Cruiserweight Championship against Hooventud Guerrero's match. I watched that, it was a great one. And I sent that your way. I sent some other things your way, just Jericho as Cruiserweight Champion. What did you think? I really, really liked all of the Cruiserweight Jericho stuff. Hooventud, I remembered the mask. I actually couldn't remember what his face looked like. Really? So at the end of that match, when he had to take it off the whole time, I'm just thinking,
Speaker: Was this like a ricochet thing, where ricochet in lucha underground, he was Prince Puma had a mask, and all I could think is, that guy's so fucking handsome, why are you putting a mask on his face? And all I was thinking is, oh man, when he pulls that off, we are gonna just see a gorgeous Latin prince under there, I know it. Or a Latino prince. We did. That's what you got? Yeah, even though he was getting called Quasimodo a lot.
Speaker: That was what made it so funny that Jericho was trying so hard to be a bully and be like, oh look, look how ugly he is. Oh my God. No, that's good stuff. Good matches. Yeah, it's a dude that looks like the cover of a goddamn romance novel. He looks like he's going to be a pizza delivery guy that shows up and you're like, wow, this pizza delivery guy is a lot more attractive than I expected. Oh my God, is Dixon the pizza.
Speaker: He had great matches with a bunch of guys. I wanted to mark a very specific moment because it seems that again to come up down the line on March 30th 1998 he's in the midst of a feud with Dean Malenko who calls himself the man of a thousand holds.
Speaker: Jericho has a segment that's pretty famous now where he pulls out a very long exaggerated list bragging that he actually has more holds than Dean Malenko and he doesn't bring it up but he's going to now and he calls himself the man of 1004 holds.
Speaker: And he begins to, with his very, very long list, read to the audience, the live crowd, every single hold that he knows, most of them being something to do with an arm bar. And this goes on through the commercial break, where he lists every hold that he knows. This is a precursor to the list a little bit, don't you think?
Speaker: Oh, for sure. For sure. He's always been good at listing things. You said you hadn't gone back and looked through these matches. It's kind of weird because if you just pay attention to WWE's side of history, WCW sucks.
Speaker: Right. And we've heard that so much that I kind of forgot why I like WCW. And going back and checking out these paper views in his matches kind of reminded me, holy shit, I really liked what was happening in 1998.
Speaker: Yeah, I think in a lot of people Mark 1998 is kind of the downturn for WCW, but there was a lot of stuff going on there at the time that you and I both enjoyed. And as much as they tried to downplay how successful WCW was or what they accomplished.
Speaker: There's a lot of good stuff in there, and there's a reason that WWF was getting their ass kicked in the ratings wars week after week after week, and it wasn't just the NWO. That cruiserweight division was on fire, man. And watching that really kind of set up where my interests are currently in wrestling.
Speaker: you didn't know it at the time no i didn't and i would have not really known it because ww just reminds me that wcw sucks and i kind of forgot that they really brought us a lot of these guys to the states that we would have never seen absolutely guys from japan guys from mexico and and if you were turning in for like the markey box office you know hogan stuff you know the nwo
Speaker: Goldberg DDP. You still had this undercard that had guys like Eddie Guerrero and Crispin Juan Dean Malenko and Chris Jericho and who've been to Guerrero and Ray Mysterio and the list just goes on and on and on. Billy Kidman psychosis. I mean there was a lot. Yeah.
Speaker: All these guys that you're naming, it's funny because it really is the same thing that happened to TNA, where everybody just says TNA sucks. And if you go back and look at the time that it sucks, you still have these awesome matches that were basically the cruiserweight division with AJ Styles and, you know, Samoa Joe and all those guys.
Speaker: Yeah, it was really cool kind of going down memory lane. I was stumbling onto episodes of Nitro and Thunder that I stumbled onto the very first episode of Nitro that I'd ever watched start to finish while I was doing this. I don't even know if I could tell you what that was for me.
Speaker: I think the first episode of Nitro I ever watched was the episode where Hogan announced his candidacy for President of the United States. I had watched like clips of wrestling and I had watched, you know what I mean, just like I had tuned in for segments, but this was the first time I had like, oh, I'm watching tonight. And I specifically remember that raw and I have, or not raw, but Nitro and I hadn't seen it since then. I'm gonna go ahead and say in today's political climate, Hogan would probably win. Yeah, is that right? Well, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's hard to say much more than yeah, you're probably right. What wrestler from the current WWE roster would you trust as president? Drew Gulak. A man with a good PowerPoint presentation, he's got a good suit. Yeah, I can't disagree with that.
Speaker: August 10th, 1998, he wins the television title from Stevie Ray and he begins calling out Bill Goldberg. Now this is significant for a bunch of reasons.
Speaker: First of all, first television title, first and only television title that he won in WCW. This is where he begins doing the Goldberg security mocking by having Ralphis as Jericho personal security coming out with his giant gut. And I guess you confused Ralphis and Eugene recently. So this is kind of relevant. I would never, ever kill Ralphis. Don't kill Ralphis. Jericho will block you on Twitter.
Speaker: But yeah, no, he starts coming out, calling him Greenberg, telling the fans that he can beat Goldberg, that he's challenged Goldberg to matches and Goldberg has no showed. And when Goldberg's out in the building, in the building, he challenges them to these matches.
Speaker: Yeah I guess in his mind they were building towards a program and what ended up happening was in Jericho's ideal world this was going to lead to yes Goldberg's eventually gonna kick my ass but it's gonna make money we can do this on a pay -per -view but
Speaker: I guess Bischoff Hogan and Goldberg refused to do a pay -per -view with Jericho Goldberg as a match where Jericho gets squashed because they thought that it was worthy of just being done on Nitro. And I guess this ends up becoming the major factor for why Jericho decides that he's not going to stay with WCW and he opts to leave to go to the WWF.
Speaker: so he didn't mind job into the guy he just he's like we're gonna job to him let's do it big right like he because this has been building for weeks and weeks and weeks of him calling Goldberg out and he thought that it like you know wasn't like it wasn't like every pay -per -view Goldberg had to be fighting a big name at this point it would have been totally appropriate for him to go out there and squash Jericho considering everything that had happened and
Speaker: difference of opinion. And there is another tide turning in the Monday night war as Jericho says, fuck this. I'm leaving WCW going to WWF. And his last match in WCW was in Peoria, Illinois on July 21st, 1999. It was a tag match between Chris Jericho and Eddie Guerrero against Ray Mysterio and Billy Kidman. I bet that was fucking awesome. I don't. Right. I bet he put on a great match just to say, fuck you. So he could get out of there.
Speaker: Yeah, got the hell out of there. Did they know he was leaving at that point or did he just he hadn't resigned or what was going on? Yeah, I think he had. I think he had resigned. Plus, keep in mind, I think in the last year, that was when Paul White, who was wrestling the WCW, was the giant and then went to WWF as the big show. I think in that previous year, the big show had been a part of WWF TV. So, I mean, give a give a credit to Vince out of all the guys he could have targeted.
Speaker: from WCW, he got a really good couple guys to jump ship. At the time, how big was Jericho? I think this is the thing. I did want to make a point to say this when we were doing this podcast.
Speaker: When we were watching wrestling 20 years ago, things like being a mark, things like knowing a guy has the it factor or charisma, putting people over, all this different insider pro -wrestling terminology that gets used so casually today, we didn't know anything about that. It wasn't like I was a Jericho fan. I knew his character, who he was being on TV was a fucking asshole in a douche. You were not a Jericho -holic. I was in the sense that he was entertaining.
Speaker: But you know how you and I, when MJF walked out at AAW, you and I looked at each other and we just knew he had it. Even in 1998, Derek knew that Chris Jericho had charisma. You could plug him into a segment and you would get an entertainment factor out of him. See, I don't know if I had that. I feel like I was pretty dumb. And I like who they told me to like.
Speaker: I feel like based on where they fell in the card kind of showed you how important they were. And going back and watching these, I remembered these Jericho matches, but I feel like I respect them more now than I did then. Right. Well, I just and there's so many things like I sent you that that WCW Road Wild 1998 pay -per -view. We talk about that forever for the rest of my life. Sure. Absolutely. Well, we have time. We can make this podcast go as long as you want, brother. I got nowhere to be.
Speaker: I'm going to a Jack White concert here in a couple hours. So I got a, I got, I got a, you know, I have a time restraint. Oh, well I did not know that. So let me dial it back. We do need to talk about, I sent Garrett WCW road wild 1998 where Jericho faces Hooventud Guerra for the cruiser weight championship. Now, if you don't know what the hog wild or road wild WCW paper views were, they took place in Sturgis, South Dakota,
Speaker: The event was outdoors. You were surrounded by hundreds or thousands of bikers who are actually on their bikes around a wrestling ring, watching wrestling. Most of these people probably do not give two fucks, but they love partying and being loud and rowdy. And they had a WCW pay -per -view themed around that. How familiar are you with Sturgis? I have been through South Dakota.
Speaker: I know that I don't know why, but I knew what this biker rally was. Yeah. And there's just so many people in that town. It's just such a funny thing to be like, oh, this is where the next pay per view has to be. Right. Because Marshall Tucker band's playing down the street. We're going to blow them the fuck out of the water.
Speaker: If there wasn't an event like something like that happening there, obviously Sturgis, South Dakota would not be getting a WCW pay -per -view. They shouldn't have been getting anyone regardless from the way it sounds when you listen to people who worked at the show. But nobody looks less cool than Tony Schiavone in that leather jacket. Oh, God. But anyways, I made note when he came out for his match against Hoeven to the grid, Jericho's wearing a kimono.
Speaker: which just feels like this weird precursor, like, it started to dawn on me, he's never had a problem dressing himself in something that's a little bit effeminate. Like, he's always been capable of pulling that off to make it obnoxious. Oh, he is really good at being, like, even little things. I don't even know if this was meant to be obnoxious. Hate that little fucking chin beard he had. Right? Oh, you just wanted to see him get shot right in the mouth.
Speaker: and Sturgis was the place to do it. If you have an opportunity, it is worth going back watching one of these WCW road wild or hog wild paper views. I can't believe this fucking happened multiple times. It happened, I think, three or four times. You sent me that shoot interview of Big Sexy talking about it, and I was in tears just thinking about all of these guys. They're guys that have been very babied.
Speaker: Yeah. And he's just like, it sucked. They brought in like a shipping container. It was hot as hell. It was just plastic seats. I didn't have anywhere to change. Stayed at a day's end that was 50 miles away. Didn't have a real door.
Speaker: Bikers were throwing rocks at them. There's no fucking barricade. Like the stage is elevated. So when you get thrown out of the ring, the odds of you actually landing on the mat and not just tumbling off another five feet or concrete. Oh my God. Not just concrete like rocks. Yeah. But did you know what it reminded me of though? It reminded me of when we were talking about the Jericho cruise and we said that when they got thrown out of the ring, it was a little bit dangerous because there were like stairs there right next to the ring.
Speaker: Yeah, this was like that, except there are a bunch of fucking bikers everywhere. And they're revving their goddamn engines throughout the whole show. So I'm sure these guys had a hell of a time calling spots. It was funny, though, because any time they wanted somebody to shut the fuck up, they would just collectively rev their engines to drown them out. And what did Kevin Nash say? He said that there were like 11 guys on the WCW roster that were huge motorcycle guys. And they're like, oh, we got to do this show at Sturgis.
Speaker: and the rest of them were like, no, it's a great way to lose a lamb or your life. And even Mean Jeans, like, I enjoyed the drive on here on the motorcycle. I'm like, you did not ride that motorcycle here. Yeah, no, the idea that there was a large chunk of the people working for the company, they're like, what the fuck are we doing? Like, there's not enough of you to warrant this being a thing. And yet it happened multiple times. There's just spots where you realize, like, we're watching two lucha doors
Speaker: at a fucking biker rally in South Dakota. What is happening? I do think it's important to note, so the failed Goldberg feud that Jericho had and WCW led to him leaving WCW and joining the WWF and he made his WWF debut
Speaker: On August 9th, 1999, on Raw in Chicago, Illinois, and he cut a promo. He interrupted and cut a promo on The Rock, telling the WWF he was there to be their savior, yada, yada, yada. For weeks, they had been airing these countdown vignettes of counting down to the new millennium. And of course, we now know as the Y2K phenomenon was being a news story everywhere across the country.
Speaker: Chris Jericho debuts as Chris Jericho Y2J. So while your friend's dad was down, you know, burying all of his money in the ground, worrying about Y2K, little did we know we were in for some Y2J. Well, the thing is, it's one of the more memorable pro wrestling debuts, too. I definitely remembered that one, watching that live. Yeah. I didn't realize it was in Chicago until recently.
Speaker: I did not, was it Rosemont? I'm guessing so. It wasn't at a United Center. Well that's pretty good. So it had to have been. I know at the time the internet wasn't, we didn't have every piece of information before it goes to air. Was that a genuine surprise at the time?
Speaker: The reaction from the fans would indicate that it was a surprise because they went apeshit for him. Like they went apeshit for his debut and then within a few minutes they were booing him as he was talking shit. So it worked out about as good as it could. And from what I understand, I guess he got a lot of heat from some of the guys because of where he debuted on the card. When you joined the WWF and your first interaction is with The Rock, I guess Triple H got really upset and never really liked him until recently.
Speaker: until recently until the last few years I guess they kind of finally hash things out they notoriously didn't like each other and they made no bones about it who did triple age like that wasn't in the click
Speaker: I'm saying nothing because I don't think there's an answer. Yeah, I think that's true. I don't think there's, like now, that's why I thought it was hilarious last week when Leah's like, he seems like a great guy and everybody loves him. And I was like, I don't think we're talking about the same guy. The funny thing is you were commenting on someone, someone out there is raging that she feels this way. I was that guy. You were just, I wish I had been the third person on that podcast to be like, Leah, have you heard these stories? I was wondering who that one star review came from. That was you.
Speaker: Another interesting note, he made his WWF match debut on the very first SmackDown against Road Dogg. So he was a part of the inaugural SmackDown. His first big feud was against China and it was over the Intercontinental Championship. And he won his first Intercontinental Championship at Armageddon 1999.
Speaker: He goes on to obviously have notable feuds with Chris Benoit, Kurt Angle, and then ultimately Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, and obviously Triple H. What were your WWF Jericho memories? I mean, was did he enter your
Speaker: Was WWF at this time in 1999, was that like a back burner promotion for you or were you focused on WCW still or what was going on? Do you remember it being a big deal when Jericho made the jump and everything that followed? I mean, I definitely remember the night he debuted. But like I said, I was never a huge fan of his when he was on WCW. So him carrying over there didn't really change anything for me. I don't remember actively disliking him.
Speaker: but he wasn't my favorite guy, so he didn't matter as much to me, but I was also, I was in junior high. There's signs in the crowd that says Paul is gay. You know, it's a different time. South Park signs left and right. Every other person had a sign back in this era of wrestling. I would have fucking, I'm so glad that's dead.
Speaker: Me too, can you imagine being in a show and having to deal with that shit? You know who's not happy about this? The poster board company. Yeah, they're probably pissed. Oh, they lost so much money when no one brought those anymore. Jesus. Everyone's going green anyway. And you couldn't, I mean, are you gonna find that shit? There are literally thousands of signs being held up at these events. It's insane, but it does show how into it these people were.
Speaker: It was just basically giant neon signs with South Park characters and homophobic and different things on them and laser pointers. God damn. Remember the laser pointer days? Oh my god, where you couldn't watch a show without Vince McMahon getting a red dot in the eye? Some wonder anybody can still see from that era. There's a whole generation of wrestlers blinded from just a really dumb fad in the late 90s.
Speaker: Yeah, I guess I don't know if it's the most significant moment of his career, but it's one of the most significant moments at the WWF Vengeance 2001 pay -per -view. He defeats The Rock and Stone Cold in the same night to become the first ever Undisputed Championship.
Speaker: And the reason this comes about is because after WWF had bought WCW, they obviously acquired some of the talent, not all the people we were excited about, and they had their stupid invasion angle that they botched. But then they had all these belts. They had the United States Championship, they had the World Tag Team Championships, and they had the World Heavyweight Championship. So you had the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, and you had the WWF Championship.
Speaker: They did a what was it like a tournament and it culminated with Jericho winning the first ever undisputed championship where they unified the two titles and it was a big freaking deal. I remember at the time being really excited and thinking this was like a historic moment in pro wrestling to watch the two biggest companies that to date have ever existed have both of those world titles on the one guy's set of shoulders, I guess.
Speaker: Do you remember this? Were you watching in 2001 when this happened? 2001 would have been freshman year of high school. That would have been right at the tail end of me watching, I think. Okay, so we're getting to the point where Garrett's about to dip out of the pro wrestling world. And it may have been right around this time. I vaguely remember this, but not enough that it was, you know, an impactful thing for me. I was busy buying Slipknot t -shirts at Hot Topic.
Speaker: Well this ultimately leads to him defending the Undisputed Championship against Triple H in the main event at WrestleMania 18, which is most famously known for being the Rock Hogan pay -per -view.
Speaker: It's curious that this did end up being the main event of the show because everyone knew that the real main event was Rock Hogan. But he did main event WrestleMania, technically. So he ends up dropping the title to Triple H. And in the next year, he goes on to feud with Shawn Michaels, which culminates in a match at WrestleMania 19 between the two. That's really fucking awesome. And you need to check that out. I sent that one to you. I did watch that one. What did you think?
Speaker: Of all the ones you sent me, that was actually the one I was least interested in. Was that how you felt coming out of it? Yeah. No, I mean, at the end of it. Oh, you didn't like it? I didn't not like it, but I think it just wasn't, I don't know. I wasn't super, super into it.
Speaker: That's weird because it's widely regarded as a great match. I thought it was wonderful. I don't think it was a bad match by any means. I just, you know, I had sat there and watched all of the really exciting cruiserweight stuff and then moved on to that. And I don't know. I just always think that Sean Michael seems mean. What? That's what you're worried about in the midst of this? Where I'm just like, I don't think me and him are going to talk much.
Speaker: Derek, this is a hangout podcast. I am constantly in a state of looking at people and thinking, we gonna hang? Probably not. That's how you're sizing people up. And meanwhile, you're courting Nick Gage. Hey, Nick Gage can hang. Fozzie Jericho can hang. You know, you go have a drink, you have a smoke with him. It's great. I don't know what you're doing with Shawn Michaels, especially because this is cross around the next Shawn Michaels.
Speaker: And so you held that against the match. I didn't hold that against the match. Well, what do you what do you love about this match? It's not you know, I don't have to love every match. It's a good fucking wrestling match. It was fun. Yeah. Not enough V triggers for you. I like a good number of V triggers they threw.
Speaker: So the next night after WrestleMania 19, Goldberg joins the WWE. What we'd all been waiting for. And this has been building for a while. So apparently Goldberg and Kevin Nash are talking shit about Jericho in the back.
Speaker: Jericho finds out about it and realizes that the pecking order is different in WWE. He's at the top of the food chain. Goldberg's the newcomer. So he goes to confront Bill Goldberg. They get into an argument and they get ready to fight. And I guess Jericho takes him down with a front face lock and holds him there and says he can hold him there until he basically blows up. And yeah, Jericho took down Bill Goldberg, settle it, squash it.
Speaker: Wait, I think they're friends. Are you telling me that this happened in the ring or this happened backstage? This happened backstage. So this is real. This is real life. Chris Jericho took down Bill Goldberg. And this is what led him to believe that he could fight Brock Lesnar that one night. Apparently he did.
Speaker: You've gotten to fights with two really big men. That's pretty cool. Yeah, right. You know, you are doing a good job of selling me more on this Chris Jericho fella. He should unblock you. Well, it's important to note that during I guess they have real life heat Goldberg and Jericho and a lot of it stems from Goldberg not being able to tell that all the things that Chris Jericho was doing on television was a work.
Speaker: that he legitimately thought that Chris Jericho was taking shots at Bill Goldberg, the man, and he was getting worked up about it. And he held a grudge from WCW all the way to WWE in 2003. I guess Chris Jericho squashed it. Well, you know, Bill Goldberg, not the smartest guy in the world. He did that car show where I told you about that a few episodes ago where he kicked the car and it exploded. Yeah. Probably watched that on TV and thought I didn't remember that car exploding.
Speaker: Oh. Fucking throw him in there with Nick Gage too. I would love to see Nick Gage versus Bill Goldberg. I would pay money for that. Where is a Saudi prince when you need him?
Speaker: That's almost in bad taste considering the recent news that's been coming out. Well, not that one. A different one. A different one. Well, he happens, there's a lot of things, there's a lot of firsts, there's a lot of historic moments in his career. He's been involved in the first ever Elimination Chamber match and he was involved in the first ever Money in the Bank ladder match at WrestleMania 21.
Speaker: He lost a summer 2005 feud with John Cena, which I remember pretty well. And as a result of the feud, he had a fired from Raw match with Cena on Raw, and he lost the feud, and he disappeared. For two years. Where'd he go, Derek? What year was this? He probably went to go make one of those Fozzy records that you hate so much. Well, that's why I'm checking. Don't, Derek, don't put words in my mouth. What year was this? 2005.
Speaker: Oh no, there was no Fozzie record between the year 2000 and 2011. Really? He was just taking some time off. I don't know, maybe he was making MacGruber then. I don't remember what year that came out either.
Speaker: Um, he returned in 2007 with his pretty memorable, uh, there were, I guess there were like matrix type vignettes during, uh, WWE shows that were showing some kind of hint that something was coming, uh, with, uh, binary code ended up, if you decoded it.
Speaker: something to have. Ultimately, the message ended up being save us Jericho and he comes back in 2007. He ends up having a feud to save people from Randy Orton. Thank God. In hindsight, you're thanking him. Yeah, this is an episode of giving thanks. Thank you for saving us from Randy.
Speaker: who Garrett is still dealing with to this day. He's still around. And you know what? He's smoking cigs and drinking just like Jericho, but he's not this fun. Well, you probably don't know this. When he makes this return in 2007, this is when he breaks out the code breaker finisher. I was going to ask you, when did that finally come out?
Speaker: Yeah, it started in 2007. He came back and obviously he'd been, this is something that we haven't talked about yet. During his WCW run, when he would use the Boston, what is essentially a Boston crab, he called it the lion tamer. He would drop to one knee, put a little bit more torque and bend on the spine. But when he goes to WWE FE,
Speaker: He calls up the walls of Jericho and it's essentially just a straight Boston crab. There's a lot of people who prefer the lion tamer. So one of my favorite moments of wrestling in the last several years, the hardest I've laughed ever, it was the version of Jericho that got you blocked on Twitter.
Speaker: he was getting ready to put somebody into a lion, or I guess the walls of Jericho, and Michael Cole goes, oh God, is he gonna do it? Is he gonna do it? And Jericho sits down! And it was just so funny because he was kind of in dad bod mode, and they made it sound like him sitting on this guy was just so devastating, and it was just so tame that I couldn't stop laughing.
Speaker: I don't remember that specific moment. That's because it was a random match on Raw. Well, over the next few years, I mean, there's a lot of stuff. He kind of comes over the next few years and on again, off again, Jericho. And that kind of continues in some form or fashion to this day. March 10th, 2008, he wins his eighth Intercontinental Championship in a match against Jeff Hardy.
Speaker: Shortly after that, there's the Geratron 6000 incident where he notoriously throws HBK into the Geratron and scars him and damages him. He ends up winning a feud of the year in 2008 from Wrestling Observer and Pro Wrestling Illustrated for his feud with HBK.
Speaker: And shortly after this is when he starts his what you referenced to me the other day, his no country for old men gimmick where he's wearing a suit and he has a self -righteous attitude. When does he not? It's the best thing about Jericho. He believes he's better than you. And he is. And that's why, before Jericho leaves, he needs one feud with MJF just so I can see them talking back and forth.
Speaker: I would love to see that. I think MJF would as well. Oh, I'm sure he would be thrilled. I'm I'm sure he's taken a lot of tips from watching Jericho's stuff. I think he would tell you to mind your own fucking business and don't put words in his mouth. Do you remember? So in 2008, he wins Superstar of the Year, The Slammy from WWE. But do you remember his feud with Mickey Rourke? Oh, my God. Once again, another guy who doesn't know when something to work.
Speaker: Up next, Mickey Rourke versus anybody who doesn't know when something's at work, I'm sending them the gauge way. Get in there, Mickey. Get woke the fuck up. He has an onscreen feud with Mickey Rourke, and it ends up culminating in him having a match at WrestleMania 25 that's an elimination match against Jimmy Snooka, Ricky the Dragon Steamboat, and Roddy Piper. And he ends up winning, but he gets knocked out by Mickey Rourke.
Speaker: wins the world title and ends up having a hell of a championship match against Edge at WrestleMania 26, which was in Arizona. I almost went to this WrestleMania. I didn't. Is that when you live in Tucson? Yeah, I remember like a day or two, but not too long before I was checking online ticket prices.
Speaker: to see if like what they were and I remember there was there were cheap seats in the upper deck for like 50 bucks or something almost went it's so weird I feel like the last few years WrestleMania hasn't sold out immediately this year there's pretty much only single seats left yeah this far out I mean day one they sold that many tickets
Speaker: Why do you think that is? To considering all the factors, considering concerns over the weather, considering it's not like they haven't been to New York or New Jersey or wherever recently, they've been there recently. I feel like I've been seeing this year more people talking about going to mania.
Speaker: I mean, I know wrestling is in this huge boom and maybe, you know, maybe people are finally wanting to make that trip to do the whole weekend, you know, do all the festivities. And that's kind of the cherry on top at the end. So I mean, maybe that has something to do with it or maybe it's just. I mean, is it the current product? Was it the idea that Becky Lynch might headline that sold those tickets? Maybe. I don't know. I really don't know what it is. Is it because
Speaker: Does it have something to do with that Madison Square Garden show between Ring of Honor and New Japan? Maybe there's people who are already going to that that are like, I guess if I'm in town. Well, that was kind of my thought too. I was like, well, I'm going to this, I should go to this. I did not get Mania tickets. I don't plan to, but maybe as I see matches roll out, you'll see me trolling on StubHub looking for some sweet deals. You'll be scouring internet for something, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it's interesting because this is like the first you've kind of been outwardly saying, yeah, I'm not going this year. And then watch it'll end up being Ronda Rousey versus Becky Lynch in the main event and you're going to want to go 100 percent. I mean, that has me full. I'm fully invested in Becky Lynch right now. Yeah. As we all are.
Speaker: So over the next few years of Chris Jericho's career, he has a tag team with Big Show. They're known as Jera Show. He has a couple of world title reigns. He ends up having a pretty damn good feud with CM Punk that we covered during our CM Punk episode at WrestleMania 28. Damn good match. Next year, he ends up jobbing to Fandango at WrestleMania 29 in New York. What happened? New Jersey, New York.
Speaker: He entered that phase of his career where his sole existence is to put over younger talent. I thought you were going to say, he entered the locker room and did not shake John Cena's hand. Or Randy Orton's. Randy Orton's dick hand. Oh, God. Yeah. And that kind of takes us through the phase where I got in trouble with Chris Jericho. He has a few of the Bray Wyatt. And you go to WrestleMania 32.
Speaker: and he ends up having a match against AJ Styles. And at this point, from what I've gathered from listening to you, you still really didn't give a shit about Chris Jericho at this point. I really didn't. I don't know if I had gone back at that point and really had watched the Cruiserweight stuff, if I would have been like, fuck, this guy is a legend, I should give a shit right now. But like you said, it was in the time period where he came back and he was just kind of putting people over.
Speaker: Well, he had a brief tag team run with AJ Styles. Very brief. And I think everybody knew what was going to happen. I think most people, I remember being excited for the AJ Styles Chris Jericho match just because it was a match people wanted to see. And it was happening now. And I don't think, they really didn't need any build. They really could have just booked the match and had everyone be excited for it, but they had Jericho turn on Styles. And I was surprised because I really thought that Styles was going to win their match at WrestleMania 32, ended up being Jericho who won.
Speaker: I actually really appreciate that they did that. Like the swerve? Well, it gave Jericho something to brag about for a while. That's true. And he needed that because he was just, you know, putting people over and I didn't have a lot of reason, but that match also came on... That came on second on the card, I believe, and it followed that ladder match that was just so fucking exciting where we watched Zack Ryder win.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a damn good ladder match too. Yeah, it was great. I just remember, I don't know. I don't know, but it also could have been that I wasn't, you know, watching TNA. So as we were talking through this, I've watched a lot more AJ Styles, you know, since he appeared on WWE. I think it's important at this point in the podcast and in this story of Jericho's career to note that it's not too long after WrestleMania 32 where something changes, at least for you,
Speaker: And there's a moment where Chris Jericho decides to start wearing a scarf.
Speaker: decides to have a little bit of a personality change, tweaked it just a little bit, and there's a moment where he's on a ladder in the middle of the ring, and you tell the story best, like this is the moment where Jericho finally drew you in. And he didn't even say anything yet. It was just throughout the segment, he was sitting cross -legged at the top of this ladder with the scarf on, and there was some fucking look on his face that I couldn't look away. I know Conan O 'Brien always says in a movie, the eye always goes to gold bloom,
Speaker: I was going to Jericho. So what was it exactly was it just he just there was something that had changed it was his attitude where I don't even know how to place what attitude that version of him had. He was cocky. He was a little effeminate right.
Speaker: a little bit. Just a tad. There was, I don't know. Aggressively funny, like aggressive but in a humorous way. Yeah, like it was a point in his career where he knew he was the shit. He was basically, honestly, I don't wanna say this but maybe MJF took some things from that version of Jericho. I'm sure he did. And that was just a, what, a few years ago now? Yeah. A couple years ago.
Speaker: It wasn't too long after this, after he starts wearing the scarf, that he befriends Kevin Owens. They start doing the list of Jericho schtick. And we could do a whole podcast list on that and how crazy over that got.
Speaker: Again, going back to his list of 1004 holds, Chris Jericho is the master of taking something that is small and somewhat insignificant and getting it over. Whether it's Mitch the potted plant, whether it's a scarf, whether it's a list, doesn't matter. Whether it's the song Judas by Fozzie. He earned that. He earned it. He got it over with me. I like that one now. Yeah, it's a good song. Good on you, Chris. Please unblock me.
Speaker: Also, we did a pretty killer cover of SOS by Abba. Can't get enough of that. I think that the the Jericho Owen stuff in 2016 and then I guess going into 2017, that was some of the best stuff on Raw in a long time. Festival of Friendship was a great segment. Should have ended with a heavyweight championship match. It should have. And it was and here's the thing, it was scheduled to.
Speaker: But of course, Bill Goldberg came in to fuck up Jericho's plans again. And that's why he's getting thrown in somewhere with Nick Gage. Yeah. That's one of the many reasons. Again, I would pay money out of my own pocket to see Nick Gage beat the holy shit out of Bill Goldberg. It would be cathartic for so many reasons. What if he's just like, hey, Derek, MDK, this is for you, brother. How would you feel? I'd buy a Nick Gage shirt, maybe a couple.
Speaker: MDK. Would you interview him? Would I? Yeah. Sure. Would you feel comfortable throughout it? No, you know the answer. Don't ask. You know that I wouldn't be. What would you ask him and what would you steer clear from?
Speaker: Is it weird being in a profession where there's a theme of this is a work, this isn't scripted, this is meant to keep people safe, and you are the guy walking around with the reputation of being a bad motherfucker that can legitimately hurt people? How does that feel?
Speaker: Oh, I thought you were asking me. I have no idea. You asked me what questions I would ask him. Yeah, I was joking. I took your question seriously. I gave you an answer. This is the Chris Jericho episode with sprinkles of Nick Gage throughout. And yeah, I feel like he's my new Suzuki. It's going to be a long rest of the 2018. It's going to go over, man. January 20th, he's here in Nashville.
Speaker: Sorry, back to back to Jericho. WrestleMania 33. Right. He had 33 wins in Orlando. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the funny thing is, out of all the matches on that card, it's it definitely ranks on the top three. They had a damn good match. I think that was when the storm was rolling in when they were wrestling. Yeah. And they actually Jericho went on second again.
Speaker: They followed what, Styles and Shane? Yeah, and then, oh man, to me the most memorable thing. Was that the second match? It was. Oh man. I mean, second match of the main card at least. I was gonna say maybe the pre -show has me confused because I had already been watching for five hours at that point. Yeah, because at that point you'd already seen a title match in the pre -show. Right.
Speaker: The most memorable thing to me about that match is actually one of the 24s that was made about that WrestleMania when you see Kevin Owens go back and be like, did I do good, boss? And he's just like, no. And then you just see. Are we good? And they said no. Then Kevin Owens just awkwardly stands there for a little too long until he feels like, OK, I think I can leave now.
Speaker: I have so many thoughts on that because I can tell you this much, it wasn't like Roman versus Undertaker was a killer match. There were a lot of other people to be more disappointed with on that card, but hey, whatever. He should've walked back at the end and been like, do you still feel the same? He should've walked back and been like, fuck you, I'm going back to Ring of Honor. He runs out and just does a run -in on the Undertaker.
Speaker: undertake a Roman match, you know, just fucking book his own destiny. Steals the show better than Enzo did at Survivor Series. Oh, buddy, that guy is sad. That guy is sad.
Speaker: So not too long, I guess right after Mania, he has a rematch for the US title against Owens. He wins the title back for a night and drops it back to Owens on SmackDown. Then he disappears for a while. He shows up like a month later for a triple threat against Owens and Styles, where Styles pins Jericho to win the United States Championship. And the next time we would see Jericho, I think was at the Raw anniversary show and then at the Greatest Royal Rumble.
Speaker: And that was the last of Jericho and WWE up to this point. And now we're at the New Japan stage of Chris Jericho. Garrett, people love New Japan, Chris Jericho. I think as I was watching through beginning to end of his career, he's always really funny.
Speaker: Even when he was a dick, you know, he was funny. I feel like this new version is just a more badass version of him that we aren't necessarily used to. So he is really good at reinventing and finding something new.
Speaker: But he took on a task that a lot of people thought he would never do, which is leave. It's well, I mean, that but it's it's he's Chris Jericho. He doesn't have to do any of these things anymore. Like we we listed all of his his championship accomplishments in pro wrestling, but he's got a podcast. He's a he's a best selling author.
Speaker: He's got a rock band that tours around the world. Whether you like them or not, there's enough fans that they do this quite regularly. He doesn't have to do anything anymore, it seems like. And here he is fulfilling this dream match between him and Kenny Omega. And this is less than a year ago. It feels like it was so much longer ago, but it was less than a year ago. And do you remember when that match was announced? There was, I mean, if we didn't know he was coming at Y2K,
Speaker: him showing up at New Japan blew my goddamn mind. Yeah? Like just that thing where he's, oh my god. I mean, none of us were expecting that. A man of that, you know, that career at the age he's at has no reason to need to go to New Japan and take just a fucking beating.
Speaker: Absolutely. I mean, even if it is a part -time schedule, I mean, it's the other side of the world from where he lives. He's busy touring with his band still, and he's making time to go do dates for New Japan. Not very many, but at this point, he's had matches against Kenny Omega. He's had matches against Naito, Evil. I guess Naito has a rematch coming up at Wrestle Kingdom.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean he's pretty much working the Lesnar schedule. He made it sound like this is the most money he's ever made wrestling. But the thing is, he's doing the Lesnar schedule the right way where he's blatantly being an ass about it. Like we talked about recently, when New Japan announced the rematch between him and Naito, he went out of his way to be like, you can book the match. That doesn't mean I'm showing up. He doesn't get a rematch. I think it's...
Speaker: I've said this before, the way he carries himself in wrestling, where he knows he's the shit, and I've heard him, when they talk about the attitude era, he's often compared himself, he's said, you know, if Rock and Austin were the Lennon and McCartney, or McCartney and Lennon, he feels like he was the George Harrison. Who's Ringo? I think that's a...
Speaker: Steve Blackman, I don't know. I did some good stuff, too. I was there. I don't know what his voice sounds like. I just I just think it's it's crazy to see where he's at and what he's doing. And even all the way up to, you know, the Jericho cruise, he's doing things the way he wants to do them, and he's big enough to get away with it. What do you think is next for him? Where does he go from here?
Speaker: I don't know what's next for him. I mean, obviously he's going to drop the intercontinental title to somebody. Probably Nido. But then we also, you know, there's those rumors of him starting his own promotion.
Speaker: I think the theme of this episode at least is that Chris Jericho, it seems like he can do anything. Nothing is off the table. He's been in the pro wrestling industry for like 30 years coming up. He's won countless titles. He's a New York best seller. He blocked Derek on Twitter. He blocked me and with your help, he'll unblock me. We're going to get you unblocked, my friend. I hope so. I think we're going to have to assure him that you're going to be good.
Speaker: I will be a good boy. I have, the thing that sucks most about being blocked by Jericho is I have all these compliments I have wanted to give him over the last three years that I'm not able to give him anymore. Well, maybe we need to make a video of you and post it on our Twitter because he hasn't blocked us yet. If he blocks the show, I don't know if I'm going to forgive you. I might block you too. Do you have any final words on the career of Chris Jericho's? We're kind of wrapping this episode up here.
Speaker: Yeah, I have a quick thing here. So on the third Fauzi record, Sin and Bones, the first song is called Spider in My Mouth. And he sings about a spider being in his mouth. And the second song is about how scratchy sandpaper is. That's all I have. That sums up the career of Chris Jericho.
Speaker: What? You're totally getting blocked. I don't want to get blocked, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding, Jericho. No, the dude's had an amazing career. One of the best of all time. Love him to death. I love him now more than I did when I was a kid. I feel like I can appreciate everything he's done more. I hope he keeps going. I am loving the shit out of him. He's, you know, he's even making music I like a little more now.
Speaker: He has aged like a fine wine. He does seem to get better with age, even if he is working on a limited schedule. Do you think he is? Oh, sorry. Go ahead. I was going to say, it just feels like we've only done like what one other episode where we focused on one superstar. Yeah. I'm glad that we took time to do one on Jericho because there's nobody else in the wrestling industry like him. There's nobody else.
Speaker: Not even close. Do you think that kids now watching him would look at him as our Ric Flair? You hear so many people say that they were influenced by Shawn Michaels. I don't know if I would say he's our Ric Flair. Maybe he's gonna get there in the next 10, 15 years if he decides to hang around that long. I do think he's been influential. I think when you stack him up against the all -time greats, people may rank
Speaker: the rocks promo skills over Jericho's, but not by much. They may rank Sean Michaels and ring skills over Jericho's, but not by much. And what, what he may be the best overall wrestler there's ever been as far as checking all the boxes and being very good at every aspect of the industry.
Speaker: There's an argument to be made there that whatever it takes to be a pro wrestler, he has mastered that in some form or fashion. And if he's not the best at it, he's one of the best at every aspect of pro wrestling. Do you think the thing that's keeping him from just that full on legend status is the fact that he's still going? No, I think that's adding to it.
Speaker: I don't know, I feel like we just haven't had, as we're going back and watching all this, I'm like, no, dude's a legend. It's just, we've been consistently watching him for so long, and it just feels like he's still there. I feel like he never really went away. I guess it depends on who you ask, because I definitely remember periods where he stepped away from wrestling for a year or two. But a year or two, he's always come back. Right.
Speaker: But you don't know that at the time. It's possible that whenever he drops the IWGP Intercontinental Championship, he might go away. We don't know. We don't know when the last time is going to be. And that's why we did this episode because we need to appreciate Chris Jericho on this Thanksgiving and give thanks to Y2J. And you know what else I'm thankful for? I'm thankful for our lovely listeners. I'm thankful for you. I'm thankful for this podcast.
Speaker: I'm thankful for pro wrestling. I'm thankful for Nick Gage. I'm thankful for Becky Lynch. I'm thankful for you too, buddy. Hey, I love you. Love you too. God, this has been a fun one. You gave me from Jizz to Jericho, the Chris Jericho story, or if you want a different title, his next book, please just call it Ask Him. That's the title of the book.
Speaker: That actually should be the name of his Q &A tour. He should go do like a Kevin Smith style Q &A, and then the tour's just called Ask Him. From Ultimo Drago, offer from Ultimo Dragon to Don Callis.
Speaker: God damn, this has been fun. Oh, and now we're right at the tail end. We did have our first submission from our onsite correspondent, John in L .A. He was sitting front row at Joey Janela's loss. I keep wanting to call lost in L .A. Joey Janela's L .A. confidential.
Speaker: loved looking at his face, just gauge his reactions on things the entire time. I haven't even listened to this yet, so I am very excited to hear what John has to say about the craziness that was that fucking show. I mean, we could spend a whole episode breaking down just how terrified and out of place David Arquette looked in the ring with Nick Gage. I'm excited. What have you got for me? What are we getting from John? Well, we're going to find out because I haven't even listened to it, so we're going to just play it right now.
Speaker: in our goddamn clip. Well, hey there pre -determined listeners. It is your West Coast correspondent, John Varon. That's how you say my last name, Garrett. You're not even paying me to do this. The least you could do is know how to properly address me. Here with some thoughts coming out of Joey Janela's LA confidential. I am sitting in my car at the moment, literally recording this moments after I've left the venue.
Speaker: wanting to give you a rundown. Overall, it was a great show, really fun show. Not my preferred mode of show. I'm a little bit more of a work -rate New Japan, you know, treated like a sport kind of guy. But this was still really fun. It got really emotionally intense towards the end, and I'll get to that. But let me give you a match -by -match rundown here. First up, we had DJ Z versus the great Safke.
Speaker: There was a really good character work in it. I was really impressed with the way that they told a story that still lets Sasuke work at a rate that he's comfortable at, at his age. The real secret star of this match was DJZ, and this guy has star written all over him. Not to say Sasuke didn't have some good spots. There was some work towards the outside on the apron. It was great. Sasuke went over.
Speaker: And yeah, overall, really, really good match. That was followed up by two guys I had never seen before, Tony Deppin and the Jungle Boy, who I was told by someone in the crowd, this has not been vetted. Again, I just left the venue, that he is Luke Perry's son. West Coast Wrestling, everybody. Everybody's related to somebody. This is a really good classic style.
Speaker: Really high work rate, but Deppin was playing the old -school heel, very vaudeville in what he was doing. There was this sit -out move that Jungle Boy pulled on the top rope that was really, really sick. Deppin went over, but mark my words, guys. Jungle Boy has Star written all over him. He just needs to get a way better name than that.
Speaker: After that was one of my matches that I was most excited for. Brody King, homegrown Santino Brothers star out here on the West Coast versus hardcore Bob Holly. And this was just a fucking war. It was awesome. Just two hosses going at it, chop for chop, just beating the holy fucking hell out of each other. Holly can still go.
Speaker: It was really, really fantastic. If you can find this match and you're a fan of hard hitting, not a ton of flippy shit, not a ton of intricate choreography, just two dudes brawling, you know, NWA style matches, you're going to love, love, love this. Holly got on the mic afterwards and mentioned that he was gassed to the gills back in WWE. That got a kick out of me. And he seemed to be really, really touched by the entire crowd chanting Holly, Holly, Holly.
Speaker: We really, really hope he comes back. He was awesome. Also, side note, the announcer for this event, I did not get his name, but he was fantastic. Was a really, really big fan of his work, if you can find him. Next up was probably the most, well, I would have said it was the most uncomfortable match of the evening if it weren't for the main event, because this was Penelope Ford, the bad girl, versus returning SoCal legend, the human tornado.
Speaker: former PWG champion coming back to make his name. And guys, I don't know if you feel me on this, but there's a right way and a wrong way to work an intergender match. If you want to do an intergender match, you can do a match where the guy respects the female competitor as a competitor or you can do a match where the guy doesn't and is like a woman's place is in the kitchen and then she immediately shows them up and then he starts taking it seriously.
Speaker: What you can't do is what this match did, which was just human tornado continually dominating Penelope Ford, calling her a bitch throughout, and every time she started to get some offense in, doing something dirty to make sure that she stayed down.
Speaker: They were maybe trying to do like a reverse Me Too kind of thing, but I'm not sure. It maybe would have worked better if Human Tornado had sold on offense a little bit more. I didn't feel like he was selling quite enough on offense. And that could have made the difference. Other than that, it just kind of looked like a guy beating up a girl until the end. And I don't care that they shook hands at the end. It just, it didn't feel comfortable for me or anyone sitting around me.
Speaker: After that, we had D -Lo Brown versus Ethan Page. And D -Lo Brown really, really sold me on this ineffable quality of a wrestler coming out of the TV system. He's definitely not honestly quite the worker he was back in 1998, because it was 20 years ago. So he did still hit a moonsault off the second rope, and that was dope. So I'm not trying to take anything away from him.
Speaker: What he lacked in his ability to go, he made up for in character work and his ability to tell a story. These guys told an amazing story, and it showed that Delo, while he might not still have the physique he did and the athleticism he did in 1998, he still has the mind for the business, and he knows how to use the tools at his disposal.
Speaker: And that's not to say that he's a slouch. He's still definitely held his own, and he didn't look like a guy who was covering up a bunch of stuff. He just wasn't the Insano pinball frog slash dude we remember. Really, really good match, really impressed by D -Lo. Next up was this Insano scramble. It was Kikutaru, Delilah Doom, Jake Atlas, Chase Owens. And I'm going to be honest, guys, three other guys, I didn't even get their names.
Speaker: It was a crazy schmoz, really enjoyed it. Delilah Doom spilled out to ringside, and I leaned over and asked her, so how does this match work? Because she started out on the ring apron looking like she wanted to get tagged in. And so I leaned over and was like, Delilah, is this a tag match? How does this work? And she looked me in the eye and said, I honestly have no idea. So if you watch this back, now you know they didn't know either. Moving on.
Speaker: We had KTD versus Jacob Fatu. This was short, but awesome, hard -hitting match, two big guys. Jacob Fatu has what I think is one of the hottest gimmicks on the Indies right now. Huge dude, what moves faster than a huge dude ought to. That goes a long, long way these days, and he knows how to work that gimmick. He did a great, great job. His dives to the outside looked crisp, and they got in and got out as fast as they could.
Speaker: Next up, or not as fast as they could, but you know what I mean. It was a fast -paced match. They didn't take any more time than they needed. Coming up after that, the whole card got kind of scrambled by the fact that Joey Ryan had to drop out, though he did make a cameo appearance in the main event. And then someone else had to drop out, and it's escaping my brain right now, because again, sending in a car outside of the hi -hat right now recording this.
Speaker: Marco Stunt, because of some scrambling in the card, ended up facing Eli Everfly, which was great because those two guys rarely get to face guys their own size. So it ended up being this really hard -hitting, fast -paced match. And it was fantastic until towards the end. They had been bringing out these flimsy IKEA doors, which were kind of their version of tables to put people through. And I guess they had done a spot on the other side of the ring from where I was so I couldn't see it.
Speaker: But they had put up one of these doors and then done like a Canadian destroyer through one. And Marco over rolled because he's a tiny guy and he's going to do that. And it sounds like he might have broke his shin. Anybody watching the live feed probably saw there was a call to some people to get to ringside, followed by carrying Marco out through the front of the venue. But we wish Marco a speedy recovery, obviously, and we thank him for a fantastic match.
Speaker: And that leads to our main event. Now, listeners, I had never seen Nick Gage before. I don't know if you have. But, ladies and gentlemen, we have a new Sandman. He is a death -matching motherfucker who came out in a shirt that said MDK, as in murder, death, kill.
Speaker: because I guess he's a big fan of the running man, which I am too, so I can appreciate that. Followed by a really frightened looking David Arquette. They did some wrestling. They spilled to the outside. Arquette tried a couple of times to pull a tope suicita, holding a chair to the outside. Kept getting hung up on the ropes. After three attempts, he finally gave up. I mean, they looked good, but like, you know, doing that holding a chair,
Speaker: Like, your eyes are maybe a little bit bigger than your stomach there. But then, Nick Gage at one point pulled out a pizza cutter. I don't know if this is before or after I talked to David, but he spilled out to the side of the ring at one point, or he was on the ropes on the side of the ring next to my side. And I was sitting at ringside, so I leaned over because I saw that out of the back a bunch of people were carrying tubes of neon light tubes. And so I said to him,
Speaker: David, they're bringing neon light tubes. And he looked at me and said, what does that mean? And I replied, it means they're going to try and hit you with neon light tubes. And so he said, what should I do? And listeners, I didn't know what to say besides, you should try not to get hit by neon light tubes. And listeners, I can tell you he did not succeed in that.
Speaker: There was a lot of light tube fuckery. He pulled a somersault cannonball onto Nick Gage, threw a light tube at one point at the turnbuckle. That was awesome. I want to tell you, David Arquette fucking went for it in this match. This was his death match moment, and he did not pull any punches. He let Nick Gage grind a glass edge of a light tube into his forehead. He got bladed. At one point, he was clutching his neck. I think he was concerned that he was cut a little bit deep.
Speaker: It didn't seem to be as big of a deal as it was, but then it seemed like they went to the finish. I think I heard, I might not be right, but I think I heard from ringside him call for Gage to pin him, and then he powdered and went right to the back. Nick Gage then caught a promo, and Arquette shouted some shit from the back, sort of towards the back of the staircase that led to backstage, but I wasn't able to make out the wording. I apologize, listeners.
Speaker: But that was the match. It was a little bit uncomfortable. It was a little bit awesome. It's aging well in my brain now that I'm sort of memory -wise removed from the blood. But overall, great event. I didn't even mention the Joey Ryan shenanigans. He definitely came out with superkick Nick Gage at one point, which didn't seem to have much of an effect on the finish of the match, but it was nice to see Joey Ryan.
Speaker: But yeah, overall, really fun. If you can catch a Joey Janela GCW show, strongly recommend it. Not sure if I'm into their more deathmatch -y shit, but everything else was good. There were some moments that rang a little hollow, like that Penelope Ford Human Tornado match.
Speaker: But overall, it was a good show and I'm glad I went. Back to you, Garrett. Full disclosure, we didn't get to hear it together, so we're hearing it for the first time as we're listening to it. Wow, that was good information, John. Thanks. That was fun stuff.
Speaker: All right, everybody. Thanks again for listening. Please rate, review, subscribe. Follow us on Twitter at Wrestle Hangout. Follow us on Instagram at Predetermined Podcasts. We're at Wrestle Hangout on Facebook. My Instagram and shit is at Gartet. What is yours, Derek? I am on Twitter. I am at Halloween Halpin. And you can also probably reach out to us on, I don't know, the Predetermined Podcasts Instagram as well.
Speaker: Please do also want to give another shout out. Thank you suplex and stilettos for sending me a uh, a ms patch in the mail I was very excited about that. Thank you very much garrett Unfortunately, this episode has to come to an end. So it's time to hit our goddamn music
