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By
Tom the Actuary of Jive
If you move around much,
trying to remember what happened when in your life can be difficult, regardless
of your age. Once you are in a new place, the old place is kind of forgotten.
Order of events gets difficult, too. That is one reason why people’s memoirs
contain so many small mistaken matters of fact. The people honestly can’t
remember.
If you try to recreate the
career of some public figure, it gets difficult, particularly if (a) you have no
access to the person; and (b) the person spent much of their career outside the
eye of television cameras. Fortunately, we all have access to the Internet,
where people often feel a need to compile information and provide it to all of
us for free*. That being the case, consider if will: Chris Jericho.
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November 9, 1970 |
Chris Irvine was born in New York,
NY, the child of hockey player Ted Irvine |
|
June - Sept 1990 |
Trained at Hart Bros. Pro
Wrestling Camp - Calgary |
|
October 2, 1990 |
Made professional debut
|
|
1991 – 1992 |
Worked Canadian independent shows
|
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August 1992 |
Worked for Bay Area Wrestling in
San Francisco, U.S.A |
|
Nov - Dec 1992 |
Began working in Monterrey, Mexico
|
19 Years old when he began
training and had his first match. Moved from Canada to California to Mexico
within the next three years.
|
Jan 29, 1993 |
Won Canadian Heavyweight
Championship from Biff Wellington |
|
April 23, 1993 |
Debuted for E.M.L.L. in Mexico
City |
|
July 21, 1993 |
Won WWA Tag Team Championship with
El Dandy from Texano and Silver King in Mexico City |
|
Sept. 12, 1993 - Oct. 18, 1993 |
Debuted in Hamburg, Germany for
CWA |
|
December 4, 1993 |
Won NWA Middleweight belt from
Mano Negra in Mexico City |
|
January 7, 1993 |
Won Canadian Midweight belt from
Steve Rivers in Calgary |
|
February 24, 1994 |
Debuted for WAR in Japan
|
|
March 7, 1994 |
Debuted for Smoky Mountain
Wrestling in Tennessee, U.S.A. |
He won his first title at age
22 and went between Canada, Mexico, Germany, back to Mexico, back to Canada,
over for his first tour of Japan, and over to Tennessee within the next 15
months.
|
March 3, 1995 |
Won Junior Heavyweight Tournament
from Negro Casas in Mexico City |
|
March 26, 1995 |
Lost to Gedo in final of WAR
International Junior Heavyweight Belt Tournament in Japan |
|
June 4, 1995 |
Won WAR International Junior
Heavyweight Belt from Gedo in Japan |
|
July 7, 1995 |
Beat Ultimo Dragon in
International Junior Heavyweight Belt defense in Japan |
|
December 13, 1995 |
Appeared in Super J Cup-2nd stage
losing to Wild Pegasus in the second round |
In 1995, he traveled largely
between Mexcio and Japan, winning prestigious titles in both places against the
world’s top junior heavyweight titles. Also, note the beginning of the Jericho
– Benoit connection.
|
February 2, 1996 |
Debuted for ECW in Philadelphia,
U.S.A. |
|
February 23, 1996 |
Won WAR International Junior
Heavyweight tag team belts with GEDO in Japan |
|
February 26, 1996 |
Defeated Jushin Liger and Takaiwa
for International Junior Tag belt defense |
|
June 1, 1996 |
Appeared in the Antonio Inoki
World Peace Festival against Bam Bam Bigelow and Konan in L.A. |
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June 22, 1996 |
Won ECW TV Title from Pitbull #2
in Philadelphia |
|
August 20, 1996 |
Debuted with WCW Beating J.L.
|
|
September 15, 1996 |
Made PPV Debut vs Chris Benoit
|
In 1996, it was more of the
same, making his ECW, WCW, and American PPV debuts within the year.
Now lets pause a moment at
this point. You have, at the time of his North American PPV debut a 25 year old
man with 6 years in the business. He’s traveled all over and been in matches
with the greatest workers in the world. Still, a person who travels that much
cannot have much of a life outside of work.
On to 1997:
|
Jan 29, 1997 |
Debuted with New Japan Pro
Wrestling |
|
May 16 - June 5, 1997 |
Competed in New Japan's Top of the
Super Jr. Tournament. Finished tied for 3rd with Jushin Liger and Shinjiro
Otani |
|
June 28, 1997 |
Won WCW Cruiserweight title from
Syxx in L.A. |
|
August 12, 1997 |
Beat Alex Wright for Cruiserweight
title. |
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September 23,1997 |
Completed 30th tour of Japan
|
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September 25, 1997 |
Inducted into the Canadian
Wrestling Hall of Fame |
Amazing. By age 27, the guy
had been on 30 tours of Japan with a number of different promotions and was
placed in the Canadian Wrestling Hall of Fame.
|
January 24,1998 |
Won WCW Cruiserweight Title for
the third time from Rey Misterio, Jr |
|
February 22,1998 |
Defeated Juventud Guerrera causing
him to unmask, in mask vs title match in San Francisco, CA |
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July 13,1998 |
Won Cruiserweight Title from Rey
Misterio Jr for unprecedented FIFTH time |
|
Aug 10, 1998 |
Won World Television Title from
Stevie Ray |
In 1998, Jericho was getting
over massively with WCW fans even though he wasn’t in the n.W.o.
storyline. Many people feel he reaches his promo peak (to date) at this time,
and around this time he began his part-time affiliation with the mock-metal band
Fozzy. Still, the financially strapped WCW wasn’t as interested in retaining
him as the WWF was in getting him, so the next year saw:
|
Jan 17, 1999 |
Beat Perry Saturn in a loser must
wear a dress match |
|
June 30, 1999 |
Signed with the World Wrestling
Federation |
|
August 9,1999 |
Debuted on Raw Is Jericho Chicago
IL |
|
December 12, 1999 |
Won WWF Intercontinental
Championship from Chyna |
Jericho’s debut in the WWF is
generally considered to be one of the two or three most successful debuts in
wrestling history. The next year was incredibly eventful for him, personally
and professionally:
|
April 2, 2000 |
Appeared in first Wrestlemania and
defeated Chris Benoit and Kurt Angle to win the WWF European Championship
|
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April 17, 2000 |
Defeated HHH to win the WWF
Championship. Title was later taken away on a technicality |
|
April 18, 2000 |
Pinned the Rock in a Lumberjack
match |
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May 4, 2000 |
Won the Intercontinental
Championship for the second time by defeating Chris Benoit |
|
May 8, 2000 |
Raw was Jericho as Y2J wrestled
three times during the show. |
|
May 21, 2000 |
Lost to Chris Benoit in a classic
Submission match |
|
July 30, 2000 |
Married Jessica Lee Lockheart in
Winnipeg |
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July 23, 2000 |
Lost to HHH in a classic Last Man
Standing Match |
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Dec 10, 2000 |
Defeated Kane in a Last Man
Standing match |
Jericho was a top card
performer for the WWF, having matches with the fed’s top performers throughout
the year. He also found time to get married last July: not suprisingly, it was
once he stopped the international travel schedule. Just to complete the
picture:
|
Jan 21, 2001 |
Defeated Chris Benoit in a classic
Ladder match and captured the WWF Intercontinental Championship for the
third time. |
|
Feb 25, 2001 |
Defeated X-Pac, Chris Benoit, and
Eddy Guerrero to retain WWF Intercontinental Championship. |
|
April 1, 2001 |
Defeated William Regal at
Wrestlemania X-7. |
|
April 29,2001 |
Lost to William Regal in a
“Duchess of Queensbury” Match. |
|
May 20, 2001 |
Wins “Tag Team Turmoil” Match with
Chris Benoit to determine top contendership to WWF Tag Team Championships
against the APA, the Radicalz, the Dudley Boyz, X-Factor, the Hardy Boyz,
and Edge and Christian. |
|
May 21, 2001 |
Along with Chris Benoit, defeated
Stone Cold Steve Austin and Triple H to win the WWF Tag Team titles. |
|
June 23, 2001 |
Lost Triple Threat Match (along
with Chris Benoit) to Steve Austin for the WWF World Title |
A summary of his career in the WWF:
WWF PPV Record to
date: 11 wins, 10 losses
Pattern by of wins and
losses: WLW WLW LLL LLW WLW WWW LWL
He had a four match losing
streak last year, but he has won 5 of his last 7 PPV matches.
At 30 years old, with a new
wife (he got married 26 days before I did), and burgeoning career, and more
financial and travel stability than he’s had his whole adult life, things have
to be looking pretty good for him. He’s avoided the serious injury bug that’s
plaguing so much of the roster and is positioned to jump over and be one of the
leading figures in WCW if they need him.
Chris Jericho knows the
business – it has been his whole adult life. As of February of this year, he
had wrestled more than 1,200 professional matches – one every three days – for
the last ten-and-one-half years. While not considered a worker of the
consistency or caliber of Chris Benoit – he continues to be one of the most
consistently entertaining performers in all of wrestling.
And his best days are no
doubt ahead of him.
= = = = =
* Most of this information
came from Jericho’s website:
http://www.chrisjericho.com. It’s one of the best wrestler websites out
there in terms of actual information being in it.
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Breaking It Down
