Chris Jericho reflects on getting major locker room heat on his second night in WWE.
Chris Jericho's first night in WWE saw him interrupt The Rock on the August 9, 1999 episode of WWE Monday Night Raw. With that, he was off to a hot start. Twenty-four hours later, during the WWE SmackDown tapings, Jericho would try to continue his hot streak by aiming at The Undertaker and calling him "boring."
During the recent episode of his Talk is Jericho podcast, Jericho revealed that Not only was he supposed to originally cut a promo on Stone Cold Steve Austin, the WWE Champion at the time, before Austin turned him down, but he also revealed that he instantly got heat for his comments about Undertaker and was given some friendly advice by Shawn Michaels.
I did a promo on Undertaker on Tuesday," Jericho began. "Originally, it was supposed to be a promo on Austin, but I think Steve said, ‘Screw that. I’m not doing it.’ My idea at the time was I was just going to bury all the top stars and tell them how boring they are. I told Undertaker how boring he was after he just delivered a ten-minute super boring promo. I got so much heat for that. I remember Shawn Michaels said, ‘Word of advice. Something you might not want to do on the second night in the company is tell the top star in the company how boring he is.’"
"Shawn was right, but Undertaker was actually really boring that night," Jericho reiterated. "I kind of hit the nail on the head. He did this big promo with the Big Show, walking through the desert and getting bit by a scorpion. Everyone was like, ‘Huh?’ ‘Undertaker, you’re boring, and you’re washed up.’ He gave me the line of, ‘I’ve had more shower time than you’ve had ring time,’ which was pretty funny, but nine years in, at that point, I had like 1500 matches. Ehhh, not necessarily true."
Chris Jericho and The Undertaker never worked in a singles program, which led to a big pay-per-view singles match. Jericho and Big Show would challenge Undertaker for the World Heavyweight Championship in a Triple Threat Match at the 2009 WWE Survivor Series. Thanks to interference from Shawn Michaels, Jericho would eventually beat The Undertaker for the World Heavyweight Championship at the 2010 WWE Elimination Chamber event in the titular match.
Chris Jericho is now a seasoned veteran in All Elite Wrestling. He will defend the FTW Title against HOOK at AEW All In in Wembley Stadium on August 25. Check out the full card here.
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