Jim Ross believes that Chris Jericho was cut from the WrestleMania 2000 headlining Fatal 4-Way Match simply because he was too short to be considered a top-tier talent at the time.
Today, Chris Jericho is seen as one of the most decorated veterans in the history of modern wrestling. However, when he first started with WWE, he was still battling the stigma of being a Cruiserweight from WCW.
On his podcast, while talking about WrestleMania 2000, Jim Ross discussed the decision to remove Chris Jericho from the main event Fatal 4-Way and replace Y2J with Mick Foley, who had just retired from WWE at the previous pay-per-view, No Way Out 2000. To Jim Ross, there was only one reason for this removal, Chris Jericho's height.
“I had to negotiate with Vince basically to get Chris on the radar because of his fucking height. That was it,” Jim Ross said very bluntly. “But what would you dislike, what would be your bad box checkmarks with Chris Jericho? He can't work? No, he's a real good worker. Oh, he can't talk, can he? Oh, he's a real good talker. Is he injury [prone]? No, he hasn't been injured, he's as durable as anybody we've ever hired. So what is it? His blue eyes? Fact that he's from Winnipeg? The fact he survived that Tony Cardello death tour one time? No, he's short, in Vince's eyes, short.”
Jim continued, “That's why Jericho wore lifts in his shoes in those early days in WWE. But nonetheless, that's it. What else could there be? I mean, he wasn't hard to get along with. He worked his ass off. He was talented, was highly skilled, great skill set. He was not the ideal height to be in a main event at WrestleMania, in Vince's view. And the way it works there... The world revolves around Vince. It's not about anybody else. He didn't like Chris's height and therefore, he was able to make a major change, and it was not a good change. I love Mick Foley, I hired Mick Foley, I went to the wall from Mick Foley more than one time. I don't have any regrets, but Mick Foley retiring for 60 days or whatever it was, was not good business for anybody.”
Chris Jericho would go on to main event WrestleMania with the man that walked in and out of Wrestlemania 2000 with the WWE Championship, Triple H, just two years later at WrestleMania X8. Now, through the evolution of wrestling, Chris Jericho is one of the larger men in All Elite Wrestling, where Jim Ross serves as the lead play-by-play announcer and a senior advisor.
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