Before there was The List of Jericho, there was Chris Jericho’s List of Moves. Locked in a heated rivalry with Dean Malenko over the WCW Cruiserweight title, Jericho dubbed himself “The Man of 1,004 Holds,” claiming to be four holds better than Malenko.
On an episode of Talk is Jericho, the first ever Undisputed Champion talked about the origin of “The Man of 1,004 Holds” gimmick with The Disco Inferno Glenn Gilbertti:
Jericho: One of the most famous things that people reference to this day is my man of 1,004 holds promo in Chicago. This was your idea.
Gilbertti: Right, it was my idea. When we come up with an idea like that, everybody kind of wants credit for it. Remember when we were coming up with a list of names to use for holds and stuff? (Mark) Madden, to this day, claims it was his idea.
Jericho: And Raven will say that.
Jericho went on to say that he would rundown the Chicago crowd during the commercial in order to get heat before picking up where he left off on the list when Nitro came back on the air.
Jericho and Gilbertti continued their discussion with Gilbertti saying that he just pitched the promo to Terry Taylor and that was that. While Gilbertti wasn’t part of the booking team at the time of Jericho’s promo, he did mention that he was constantly pitching to the office because he knew how “the boys” were when the cameras weren’t rolling.
Gilbertti: I would always pitch things, like let this guy try this because I know him and this is part of his personality that you don’t see on TV, but we can get it on TV. I was always in there just trying to pitch stuff.
Gilbertti eventually became part of the booking team during the tail end of WCW’s run.
So there you go, Disco Inferno was the one who came up with what’s likely your favorite Chris Jericho WCW promo.
