Chris Jericho

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Christopher Keith Irvine CanadaCanada
Jericho at Wrestlemania XXVIII.

Jericho at Wrestlemania XXVIII .

Data
Ring name Chris Jericho
Corazón de León
Lion Do
Lion Heart
Super Liger
Additions to names The Alpha
The Ayatollah of Rock 'n' Rolla
The Best in the World
The Painmaker
Y2J
height 180 cm
Fighting weight 102 kg
birth November 9, 1970
Manhasset , New York , USA
Announced from Manhasset, New York
Winnipeg , Canada
Calgary , Alberta
Trained by Ed Langley
Katsuji Adachi
Keith Hart
Stu Hart
debut October 2, 1990

Christopher Keith Irvine (born November 9, 1970 in Manhasset , New York , USA ), better known by his ring name Chris Jericho , is a US- born Canadian wrestler , actor , author , radio host , show host , rock musician and is currently with All Elite Wrestling under contract. He is the final WCW World Champion , a former WWE Champion and World Heavyweight Champion , as well as a former AEW World Champion . In addition, Jericho held a total of ten Intercontinental Championship titles (9 × WWE, 1 × NJPW) and was the first Undisputed Champion in WWE history.

Before joining WWE, he also worked in World Championship Wrestling and Extreme Championship Wrestling as well as internationally in Canadian, Mexican and Japanese wrestling leagues. Jericho is also the singer of the heavy metal band Fozzy .

Private life

Although Canadian, Chris Irvine was born in the United States to former ice hockey player Ted Irvine , who played here for the New York Rangers . A little later, however, the Irvine family moved back to Canada, more precisely to St. James / Winnipeg in Manitoba , where Chris lived and went to school from now on. During this time he also came to wrestling , after having watched the broadcasts of the WWWF (later WWF , now WWE ) and Stampede Wrestling for years.

On July 30, 2000, the Canadian married his long-time girlfriend Jessica Lockhart in his then hometown of Winnipeg. At the open-air ceremony in the St. Charles Country Club, around 150 family members were present as well as a number of wrestling colleagues. a. Billy Kidman , Lance Storm , Chris Benoit , Edge , Christian and Disco Inferno.

On September 24, 2003, Chris and Jessica's son was born. On July 18, 2006, he also became the father of twins. The family has since moved to Tampa , Florida .

In his spare time, Irvine plays ice hockey (his father Ted Irvine played in the National Hockey League ). He is a fan of the Calgary Flames , which he sometimes expressed in his wrestling appearances through appropriate fan clothing (sometimes he also wears a Toronto Maple Leafs t-shirt ).

On January 27, 2010, Jericho was arrested with Gregory Helms at a gas station in Crescent Springs, Kentucky, after police investigated a lead that a group of people were about to fight each other in a taxi. However, the police arrested both wrestlers for drunkenness in public. Helms and Jericho were released after paying a fine of $ 120 each.

Wrestling career

Beginnings

At 19, Chris Jericho joined the Hart Brothers School of Wrestling, where he met Lance Evers (who later became Lance Storm ) on the first day . The two became good friends from that day on. Two months later, Chris Jericho was ready to perform on independent shows. He made his debut on October 2, 1990, battling his best friend Lance Storm. The match ended in a draw. From then on, Jericho and Storm also worked as a tag team. They were known as "Sudden Impact". Jericho takes its name from the album by the German power metal band Helloween . The album is called Walls of Jericho. In his biography Jericho writes that he originally came up with the name through a comic. There was a character in the comic who was named Jericho. Jericho, Triple H and Storm worked with future superstars Edge , Christian and Terry Gerin (Rhino) for Tony Condello. You have also worked for Calgary's Canadian National Wrestling Alliance (CNWA) and Canadian Rocky Mountain Wrestling (CRMW). In 1991 Jericho and Storm began touring Japan for Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling . There he made friends with Ricky Fuji, who was also trained by Stu Hart . In the winter of 1992 Jericho traveled to Mexico to work for many small but also for the largest wrestling organization in Mexico (Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre, CMLL). From December 1993 on, Jericho had held the NWA Middleweight Championship at CMLL for eleven months. His steadily increasing wrestling skills brought him to Japan in 1994, where he worked for the Wrestling and Romance (WAR) promotion. There he competed against people like Gedo and Último Dragón . Against Último Dragón he had later lost the WAR International Junior Heavyweight Title. In 1994 Jericho had reunited with his former team partner Lance Storm and from now on fought under the team name "Thrillseekers" for Jim Cornette's Smokey Mountain Wrestling Promotion. In December 1995 Jericho took part in the Super J Cup Tour for the second time. There he lost to Wild Pegasus .

In March 1994 he returned to America with Lance Storm and they got an engagement with Smoky Mountain Wrestling . Here both were allowed to win the Tag Team title and Irvine again the NWA Middleweight title. In 1995 Irvine left Smoky Mountain Wrestling and then returned to WAR. There he received the International Junior Heavyweight Title in the following period and the International Junior Tag Team title followed a year later.

Extreme Championship Wrestling (1995-1996)

The league ECW signed in February 1996 on the advice of Mick Foley Irvine for some appearances. For three and a half weeks, from June 22 to July 13, 1996, he held the ECW Television title before he had to cede it to Shane Douglas . At this point, Irvine had already signed a contract with World Championship Wrestling .

World Championship Wrestling (1996-1999)

On August 20, 1996, he made his debut in World Championship Wrestling, where he was sent to fight the New World Order as a WCW envoy within a major storyline . 1997 Irvine were denied major successes, which provoked audience reactions with screams against the performance. These were anything but satisfactory for WCW boss Bischoff and so Irvine disappeared from the screens for a while. For a good quarter of the year he did not appear at major events, but only on television programs. Only in the summer was he allowed to win the WCW cruiserweight title. A short-term feud program against Alex Wright followed .

Through the collaboration of World Championship Wrestling and New Japan Pro Wrestling , Jericho was sent to the NJPW. In January 1997 he made his debut as a Super Liger.

After getting a bad guy gimmick , he dominated the light heavyweight scene for the next half of the year. His daring statements and provocations made him known. In the long run, however, it was only used in the middle combat map.

Eventually Irvine was able to win a title again by receiving the WCW Television Champion title from Stevie Ray . A planned feud against the then WCW World Champion Bill Goldberg was not realized due to real disagreements between the two opponents.

1999 became Irvine's last in WCW. He played his last match there on July 21, 1999 on the side of Eddie Guerrero against Billy Kidman and Rey Mysterio .

World Wrestling Federation / Entertainment (1999-2018)

Debut and first Undisputed Champion (1999-2001)

Chris Irvine had signed with World Wrestling Entertainment after his WCW contract expired and its owner Vince McMahon decided to properly build Irvine as the coming WWE Superstar. The whole summer of 1999 was marked by video promos, in which fragments of a millennium counter ran down again and again . No explanation was given to the WWE audience as to who or what was behind these promos. The viewers only got the resolution on August 9th of the same year for the RAW program . During a speech by The Rock the counter ran out, there were fireworks and Irvine marched into the hall as “Y2J” (a reference to Y2K , the catastrophe at the turn of the millennium) to have a speech duel with The Rock. Chris Irvine's ring character had not undergone any significant change and now picked up in WWE where he left off in WCW: as a heel with many provocative gestures and insults to his opponents.

After this debut, the WWE involved him in the action for the Intercontinental title and he feuded with both Chyna and Hardcore Holly . At the end of this storyline, he was allowed to achieve this title with the support of Chyna. However, he had to give the title back to Kurt Angle . At WrestleMania 16 , Irvine was allowed to win the WWF European title and hold it for 24 hours. In the following RAW broadcast, he had to give this title to Eddie Guerrero.

On April 17, 2000, Irvine was allowed to defeat the WWF Champion Triple H on Raw and win his title. But the title was revoked again in the same broadcast.

At the big event Royal Rumble 2001 he was allowed to win the WWE Intercontinental title in a ladder match led by Chris Benoit . After losing the title to Triple H, he and Benoit formed a tag team and both were allowed to hold the tag team title at short notice. Benoit and Irvine eventually had to hand over the tag team title to the Dudley Boyz .

Chris Irvine has been involved in various feuds and storylines for a while. One of them was letting him win the WWF hardcore title and then losing it to Rhino that evening . As a former member of the then competitive leagues Extreme Championship Wrestling and World Championship Wrestling , however, he was tied as main eventer in the WCW-ECW invasion created by the WWF . In 2001 Irvine was allowed to win the combined WWF and WCW Heavyweight Championship at "Vengeance 2001" and thus become the first "Undisputed WWF Champion" when he was allowed to defeat Steve Austin in the final round . In 2002 he had to surrender this title to Triple H.

Various feuds and time off (2002-2005)

Jericho on Raw in 2003.

As part of the WWF Brand Extension , Irvine has now been sent to the RAW squad. There he was allowed to win Rob Van Dam's Intercontinental title in late summer .

With Bill Goldberg's transfer to WWE, the old WCW feud was revived. At the WWE PPV “Bad Blood” 2003 Goldberg was able to defeat Jericho. After several different feuds, Irvine succeeded again in 2004 to win the then vacant Intercontinental title. But this reign was again short-lived. After losing the title to Shelton Benjamin at the "Taboo Tuesday" event, a long feud between the two began.

Chris Irvine's WWE contract expired in late summer and he was seriously considering retiring from his active wrestling career. In addition to his family, there was also his musical hobby, the rock band Fozzy , which achieved ever greater success and Irvine intended to play an active role in their rise as a lead singer. So Irvine decided for the time being for a music career.

His last feud brought him together with WWE Champion John Cena in 2005 . After failing to win Cena's title, Irvine was fired from WWE within a storyline by RAW boss Eric Bischoff .

Intercontinental Champion and feud against Shawn Michaels (2007-2008)

Chris Jericho vs. Shawn Michaels at Great American Bash 2008 .

At the end of 2007, however, World Wrestling Entertainment was speculating about Irvine's possible comeback, especially since competitor Total Nonstop Action Wrestling was also openly interested in this. On November 19, 2007, the "SAVE US.222" videos, which had been heavily discussed on the Internet for weeks and were filled with cryptic messages and broadcast on numerous WWE television shows, were resolved on RAW. While Randy Orton celebrated his win and the defense of his WWE Championship against Shawn Michaels , there was a "SAVE US.Y2J" video and Irvine stepped on the ramp with the words, "Welcome to RAW is Jericho". A brief feud against WWE Champion Orton was followed by a feud against JBL .

On March 10, 2008, Irvine won the Intercontinental Championship for the eighth time in a three-hour special edition of RAW, which took place under the motto: "WrestleMania Rewind Night". He defeated reigning champion Jeff Hardy . The reason for winning the title was a 60-day suspension of Hardy, who had failed the WWE drug test. After WrestleMania 24, a feud with Shawn Michaels began, which resulted in Irvine's wrestling character Chris Jericho becoming the villain. This was explained by the fact that Jericho was no longer interested in the fans, as they cheered Shawn Michaels, who was described by Irvine in his Chris Jericho role as an "ignorant and selfish person". Lance Cade was put by him until he was released in October 2008. The feud with HBK also explained Michaels' involvement in Irvine's title match at the pay-per-view Night of the Champions , which caused Irvine to lose the Intercontinental title to Kofi Kingston .

World Heavyweight Champion and second time out (2008-2010)

World Heavyweight Champion Jericho in 2009.

At the major event Unforgiven on September 7, 2008, Irvine received the World Heavyweight Championship as a substitute for the champion CM Punk , who had previously been eliminated according to the storyline . This was sold as a big surprise as Irvine had already played and lost a hard-fought, storyline-unsanctioned match against Shawn Michaels at the same event. After Unforgiven, the feud against Shawn Michaels, this time for the World Heavyweight Championship, continued. This resulted in a ladder match between Irvine and Michaels at the major No Mercy event on October 5, 2008. At the Cyber ​​Sunday 2008 event , he had to surrender his title to Batista as part of a feud program with Batista . On November 3rd at RAW, Irvine got the title back in a steel cage match. On November 23, 2008, he had to give it to John Cena in the course of a title match at the Survivor Series event .

After the WWE Draft 2009, where he moved to SmackDown , Irvine was again Intercontinental Champion by defeating Rey Mysterio in Extreme Rules . At the major WWE event The Bash 2009 , Irvine and his new tag team partner Edge won the Unified WWE Tag Team Championship after he had previously had to surrender his Intercontinental Championship back to Rey Mysterio. After Edge was injured, he was given The Big Show as a new tag team partner, with whom he last held the title. In the pay-per-view WWE: Tables, Ladders & Chairs they had the title to the D-Generation X exits.

At the Pay Per View WWE Elimination Chamber on February 21, 2010, he won the Undertaker's World Heavyweight Championship in the match of the same name . Two days after he was allowed to defend his Wrestlemania XXVI title against the returning Edge, Irvine lost his Smackdown TV Awards title to Jack Swagger .

After the draft on April 26, 2010, Irvine joined RAW and briefly tagged with The Miz . On September 27, 2010, he played his last match against Randy Orton .

Feuds against CM Punk and various feuds (2012-2016)

Jericho versus CM Punk at Wrestlemania XXVIII
Jericho on his return in 2013

On January 2, 2012, Irvine returned to WWE after over a year on hiatus in the first RAW show of the year after his return was announced through videos that were ambiguous since November 2011. Irvine initially feuded against WWE Champion CM Punk .

On May 25, 2012, he was suspended from the WWE for 30 days. The reason for this is the crumpling and kicking of the Brazilian flag at a live event the day before in São Paulo . He apologized for this action at the event and on the WWE homepage.

After losing a match against his feud opponent Dolph Ziggler on 20 August 2012 in RAW Irvine was from his WWE contract dismissed . This served as a break for another European tour with his band Fozzy.

Irvine returned at the Royal Rumble on January 27, 2013. After the match, it was revealed that he had been reinstated by management.

On June 30, 2014, Irvine returned to WWE Raw and there confronted the also-returned The Miz .

Irvine returned to the TV shows at Night of Champions 2015, battling the Wyatt Family alongside Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns . Previously, he spent months solely at house shows occurred and tours abroad and not involved in current storylines.

Tag team and feud against Kevin Owens (2016-2018)

Chris Jericho in 2016

He paused a segment of The New Day on Monday Night Raw on January 4th and returned to TV. In the following promo he announced that he would take part in the 2016 Royal Rumble Match.

After the Royal Rumble, Irvine denied a feud against AJ Styles . At Wrestlemania 32 he won against AJ Styles. On the January 9, 2017 edition of Raw, he and Kevin Owens defeated Roman Reigns in a handicap match, making Irvine the first time in his career to win the WWE United States Championship . He also announced that he will take part in the 2017 Royal Rumble Match. He was not victorious in this, but was able to set the record of being the longest Royal Rumble participant of all time. At Wrestlemania 33 on April 2, 2017, he played a match against rival and former best friend Kevin Owens for the United States Championship; he lost this after an apron power bomb against him and he thus lost his title to Owens. In a rematch at WWE Payback on April 30th, he was able to regain the title from Owens, but lost it again to Kevin Owens on May 2nd, 2017 during SmackDown Live.

New Japan Pro Wrestling (2017-2019)

On November 5, 2017, Irvine challenged Kenny Omega to a match at the NJPW event WrestleKingdom 12, but he lost that match, which was his first match outside of WWE since 1999.

The next day at the New Year Dash event, he attacked Tetsuya Naito . This resulted in an attack at another show in Fukuoka where Naito was bleeding profusely and was later challenged to a match at Dominion for his IWGP Intercontinental Championship. Chris Jericho won this. This reign lasted 209 days and lost the title, ultimately back to Tetsuya Naito, in a no disqualification match .

Despite his arrangements with All Elite Wrestling, Irvine challenged IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada on May 4th, 2019, who accepted the challenge. This match took place on June 9, 2019 at NJPW's "Dominion" show in Osaka , Japan .

All Elite Wrestling (since 2019)

At the launch of the All Elite Wrestling league , Irvine was featured as a member of the Rosters. At the first AEW event Double or Nothing on May 25, 2019, he defeated Kenny Omega and thus received a place in the first match for the newly introduced AEW World Championship . At All Out on August 31, 2019, he won the title match against Adam Page and became the first AEW World Champion. During his feud with Cody and his stable The Elite , Irvine founded his own stable The Inner Circle in early October 2019 . During the first two editions of AEW Dynamite , Jake Hager , Sammy Guevara, Santana and Ortiz formed around Irvine as leaders. He lost the AEW World Championship to Jon Moxley on February 29, 2020 at Revolution .

Outside of wrestling

Music career

Fozzy perform live.

Jericho is the founder and front man of the heavy metal band Fozzy , with whom he has released seven studio albums to date and is now touring around the world. At the beginning he used the pseudonym "Moongoose McQueen" to differentiate himself from his wrestling alter ego "Chris Jericho". In the meantime, however, he also uses the latter name as a musician. In the meantime, Jericho interrupted his wrestling career from 2005 to 2007 and 2010 to 2011 to devote himself entirely to music. In 2012 Fozzy went on a world tour with the band Soil .

Books

Jericho wrote his autobiography, A Lion's Tale: Around the World in Spandex , which was published on October 25, 2007 and became a New York Times bestseller. The book covers Jericho's life and wrestling career through to his debut in WWE. Jericho's second autobiography, Undisputed: How to Become the World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps , was released on February 16, 2011 and has covered his wrestling career since his WWE debut. Jericho's third book, The Best In The World ... At What I Have No Idea , was published on October 14, 2014 . It covers some untold stories from the Save Us era, his career with Fozzy. Jericho's fourth book, No Is a Four-Letter Word: How I Failed Spelling but Succeeded in Life , was published on August 29, 2017 and contains 20 valuable lessons Jericho learned throughout his career as a wrestler and musician.

Titles and awards

Intercontinental Champion Jericho in his ninth reign in 2009.
  • Consejo Mundial de la Lucha Libre
    • NWA World Middleweight Championship (1 ×)
  • World Wrestling Association
    • WWA World Tag Team Championship (1 × with El Dandy)
  • Wrestling Association * R *
    • WAR International Junior Heavyweight Championship (1 ×)
    • WAR International Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship (1 × with Gedo)
  • Canadian Rocky Mountain Wrestling
    • CRMW Heavyweight Championship (1 ×)
    • CRMW North American Tag Team Tag Team Championship (2 × with Lance Storm )

Individual evidence

  1. a b cagematch.de Cagematch.de profile of Irvine
  2. Power-Wrestling.de - Details on the arrest of Chris Jericho and Gregory Helms  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.power-wrestling.de  
  3. imdb.com
  4. Batista receives the World Heavyweight Champion title from Chris Jericho
  5. Jericho gets the title back in a steel cage match
  6. John Cena receives the title in the Survivor Series
  7. Chris Jericho suspended , accessed May 25, 2012
  8. Chris Jericho responds to Brazil incident , accessed May 25, 2012
  9. WWE Monday Night RAW # 1233 report + results from New Orleans, Louisiana from January 9, 2017 (including videos) wrestling-infos.de, accessed on January 10, 2017
  10. pwinsider.com pwinsider.com, accessed November 5, 2017
  11. Sport1.de: Wrestling: Kenny Omega defeated Chris Jericho at Wrestle Kingdom 12 . In: Sport1.de . ( sport1.de [accessed on January 4, 2018]).
  12. Naito Responds To Brutal Chris Jericho Attack, WWE Announcer All In ?, Ospreay - Kushida - WrestlingInc.com . In: WrestlingInc.com . ( wrestlinginc.com [accessed June 14, 2018]).
  13. Csonka's NJPW Dominion 2018 Review | 411MANIA. Retrieved June 14, 2018 (American English).
  14. [1]
  15. [2]
  16. Chris Jericho shocks by signing with All Elite Wrestling as AEW rally hits a home run. Retrieved January 13, 2019 (American English).
  17. ^ First All Elite Wrestling Event.Retrieved May 26, 2019

Web links

Commons : Chris Jericho  - Collection of images, videos and audio files