Chris Jericho looks back on his first-ever WrestleMania match.
WrestleMania 2000 was a night to showcase the future of WWE at the time. Names like Edge, Christian, Jeff Hardy, Matt Hardy, Kurt Angle, and Chris Jericho were all in high-profile Championship matches. Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle had the benefit of being in one match for two prestigious championships.
Both men were joined by Chris Benoit in a Triple Threat Match for both the Intercontinental and European Championships. The match was scheduled to be a 2-fall match with each being contested for one of their respective championships.
Reflecting on the match while he was a guest on the Kurt Angle Podcast, Chris Jericho explained everything that he feels went wrong with the match and why he wasn't a big fan of the concept, to begin with.
“It was a three-way match and whoever won the first fall won the first belt, whoever won the second fall won the second belt,” Jericho explained. “Kurt was in the unenviable position of losing both his titles without being pinned. I pinned Chris for one, he pinned me for the other. He won the Intercontinental and I won the European. Chris won first and I won second. It didn't make sense. Why would you have the Intercontinental Championship decided first, which was a famous legendary belt, and the European title second, which is not as high up. I remember going to Pat (Patterson) and saying, 'We should change the order of who wins first or who wins the titles. If you want me to win last, put the Intercontinental Title on me and the European on Chris. If you want it to stay the same, have me win the European first.' I wasn't trying to politic for the Intercontinental Championship, although it would come across that way. I was like, 'I can't talk to Vince about this because he's going to think I'm trying to politic for the Intercontinental Championship.' I went to talk to Pat because he's smart about what's going on. 'Ah, it doesn't matter. It's what Vince wants to do, it's not worth fighting for.' None of us had any power at the time anyway, so I just did it. I remember thinking, 'it makes no fucking sense!'”
Continuing on, Chris Jericho would reminisce about how the three individuals would go on to have great matches with one another but that night in California, it just didn't click.
“Considering it was the three of us and all the great matches the three of us had together, I remember thinking that one didn't go the way I wanted it to. Maybe it was just me, I don't even think I watched it back, maybe the crowd wasn't too hot, but something about it, I just didn't feel worked,” Jericho said.
These days, Chris Jericho is still going and it is in All Elite Wrestling. Most recently, he just dropped his old faction, the Inner Circle, for a new faction called the Jericho Appreciation Society. Learn more here.
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