For Chris Jericho, pro wrestling is just role playing, but whether he’s off-camera or on, he’s still proud to call himself “King of the World” ….
Chris Jericho: King of the Ring
In the ring and in front of the camera, Chris Jericho is a loudmouth lout who wrestles with grace, speed, and brute force. He’s arrogant and obnoxious, frequently smacking down enemies, critics, and even fans with ranted barbs before laying waste to his rivals on the mat. When he’s not tearing his enemies apart with his hands or his mouth, the six-foot-one 230-pounder is proclaiming himself “the Ayatollah of rock ’n’ rolla,” the “larger-than-life living legend,” and “the king of the world,” sometimes all in the same breath.
But behind the scenes the man who once delighted in regularly calling wrestling industry bigwig Vince McMahon’s daughter Stephanie a “filthy, dirty, disgusting, brutal, bottom-feeding trash-bag tramp” is smiling, courteous, and seemingly harmless. “When people meet me, they think I’m going to be this crazy asshole,” says Jericho with a gentle voice and a wide grin. “But then they talk to me and realize I’m a really nice guy, which confuses them. That character on TV is not my personality at all. It’s just a role I play. I just happen to play it well.”
For Jericho, it’s all showbiz. Sure, he’s an impressive athlete, and he’s leveled some of the best in the business, but he’s become just as renowned for his dramatic ringside bravado, which has granted him the key to a luxury lifestyle. It has also allowed him to step into the shoes of someone he’s not, someone far more confident, crass, and as unconcerned about the consequences of his actions than the former Chris Irvine ever could have been.
“When I come to the arena, no one’s paying to see the real me,” Jericho says. “They’re paying to see Chris Jericho. When Paul Stanley went onstage with Kiss, he didn’t wear jeans and a T-shirt. He put on makeup, platform shoes, and the leather jumpsuit. He was the Star Child. And when Chris Jericho comes onscreen, I put on my show-business clothes too, because this is about entertaining the crowd, and unfortunately, in this business a lot of guys forget that.”
Jericho was born in New York, but grew up mostly in Winnipeg, Canada, in an upper-class Christian household. His father, Ted Irvine, was a professional hockey player, first with the New York Rangers, then with the St. Louis Blues and the Los Angeles Kings. Encouraged by his dad, Chris played hockey at a young age, until he discovered wrestling. It was wrestling and rock music that sustained him through his teens. Before he first climbed into the ring, he was on the stage as a singer in several rock bands. He formed his current group, Fozzy, with members of the metal group Stuck Mojo in 1999 while he was recovering from an ankle injury.
As interested as he is in rock, getting into the ring with The Rock — as well as Triple H, Hulk Hogan, and countless others — is Jericho’s calling card. Jericho is one of the main attractions of RAW, from World Wrestling Entertainment (formerly the World Wrestling Federation), and he’s actively tearing up the tag-team circuit with his wrestling partner, Christian. In his 12 years in the pro ring, Jericho has won the World Championship Wrestling World Television Title; the WWF Intercontinental Title, European Title, World Title, Tag Team Title, and Hardcore Title; the WCW World Championship Title and Tag Team Title; and the WWF Undisputed World Championship — this latter by defeating Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock in back-to-back matches.
“I like being a puppet master that controls the emotions of the crowd. I can make people do whatever I want them to do.”
Wrestling is grueling and dangerous, but you get lots of chicks when you fight for a living, right?
I never got girls because of wrestling, I just got girls because of who I was. I started wrestling when I was 19, and I was working in Mexico and Japan and Germany before I broke into the business in the States when I was 25. I wasn’t ever really a magnet for hot girls when I was in the wrestling world at that low-end level. And then when I got popular, I was focusing so hard on my career that I never had any good relationships up until I met my wife four years ago.
Is the wrestling community as hedonistic as the rock world?
When I first started in the business, it was very decadent. It was very drug-based and there were a lot of addicts, and guys that were just out to screw every girl they could. But the business has progressed over the past 12 years to where it’s a very high-tech, high-end form of entertainment. There’s a lot of money at stake. And as the profile of wrestling has grown bigger, so has the intensity and seriousness of the wrestlers. You can’t go out every night and get hammered and bang every chick you can find. I think people would be disappointed if they knew how boring it really is. I’ve become addicted to the X-Files DVDs, so after a match I usually just want to stay in my hotel room and watch those or watch a movie on TV.
Are wrestlers misunderstood?
I think so. Guys aren’t stupid anymore. A lot of them have college educations. One of the guys in our company, Kane, is a seven-foot-tall 320-pound monster. The story line is, he was burned as a child, which is why he wears this creepy-looking mask. He’s actually an English major, and he and I have always discussed stuff like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and the newest Tom Clancy novels. So it’s not like we’re all just sitting in the back lifting weights and snorting at each other.
What’s the thing you enjoy most about wrestling?
I like being a puppet master that controls the emotions of the crowd. I can make people do whatever I want them to do: cheer, boo, yell, scream, be in shock, be in suspense, be in disbelief. Only the best in the business can hold the crowd in the palm of their hand.
What’s your greatest fear?
That I’ll be seriously hurt in the ring. Some guys have been paralyzed out there. My greatest fear is going into a match and not being able to come out of it the same way, and thinking how that would affect my life and my family’s life.
Do you have anxiety dreams?
I have this recurring nightmare where my music is playing for my match on live TV, and I don’t know who I’m wrestling and I don’t even have my ring gear on.
Do you ever disagree with what’s written into the wrestling script?
There is no script. That’s a myth. You know which guy’s gonna win before-hand, and you’re putting on a show, but there aren’t ten sheets of paper that say, “Opponent A does drop kick. Opponent B does clothesline.”
Is it upsetting when you find out you have to lose a match?
No, because it’s all entertainment. Maybe back when I started. And when you have a goal to reach, you don’t want to lose, because it makes you look bad. But now it’s not about that for me. It’s about entertaining people and making money for everybody.
What’s been your greatest thrill?
Probably the greatest thrill was when I won the undisputed championship, which came after the combining of the two big companies. [World Championship Wrestling] was bought by the [World Wrestling Federation], and the champions of each fought. I beat The Rock and Steve Austin in the same night to become the first undisputed champion of the wrestling business. That was the biggest thrill for me. That was kind of the culmination of all my years of work.
Your dad was a successful NHL player. What’s your first memory of Daddy on ice?
I remember going to check him out at Madison Square Garden when I was really little, and I used to get pissed off because he would never look at me. And I remember the Garden was very loud for me, and I would try to cover my ears with my little jacket.
Aside from being deafened and feeling abandoned, did you get anything else out of watching him play?
It was a great introduction into the sporting world, and when I got a little older, it instilled in me the urge to want to play in front of huge crowds. It was very cool when I finally wound up wrestling at the Garden 20 years later.
Were you a happy child?
Pretty much. I was an only child, and my folks ended up getting divorced when I was 16, and obviously that sucked, but I had lots of good friends and I was very into music. I had a band in high school and I was with the rockers, but we also hung out with the jocks and the preppies because we wanted to be friends with everybody. We’d always win the air-band contests in school and put on skits in the talent show. Everyone thought we were cool because we were very creative and personable.
So the jocks didn’t beat up the rockers at your school?
They did, but I could have probably beat up most of the jocks.
Were you a troublemaker?
We had our fun. We’d light off fire-crackers in the library, and me and a friend of mine started our own business when we were 15, creating fake IDs. Back then you didn’t need picture IDs, so we’d take our birth certificates and go to a print shop. We got decal numbers that you could rub on, and we’d put them on top of our real birth certificates, then photocopy them and laminate them. We used them to get into strip clubs. Then we realized we could sell them to people. We’d sell them for like ten bucks, but when you’re 16, ten bucks ain’t bad.
When did you discover wrestling?
When I was five or six years old, I watched it on TV with my grandma. And I went to a lot of shows with my dad or my aunt. Wrestling was popular in Winnipeg, and these matches would come to town every month, and I’d never miss a show.
Why were you so into wrestling?
It captured my imagination. I loved the athleticism. When I was a kid, I had a little fake wrestling league with a friend of mine. We called it the BTWF, which stood for Big Time Wrestling Federation, and every Wednesday we’d go into the gym and tell the teacher we were going to practice our gymnastics. We’d pull out the big cushions and close the curtain and we’d wrestle. Each week we’d have different finishes and different angles, just like we’d seen on TV.
It sounds like what’s going on now, with bored suburban kids beating the crap out of one another in backyard wrestling tournaments.
No, man, this was 1986, and we never hurt each other. The craziest thing we’d do was jump off the bleachers onto a big thick mattress. It’s kind of funny to see these 16-year-old kids wrestling to injure one another, and cutting themselves with razor blades because they think it’s cool. It’s not cool. It sucks. It’s stupid. You can definitely have fun and use your imagination to wrestle, but you should never go to those extremes.
Some professional wrestlers get paid to cut themselves during a match. Does that bother you?
No, because it’s part of the deal, and I’ve been in “Hell in a Cell” matches where I’ve had barbed-wire rope literally stuck in my head. But that’s the culmination of months of angles and months of building it up, and getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to do it. There are guys who do it all the time, and that’s not really wrestling. That’s more of a gory stunt show.
When did you get involved in wrestling as a profession?
When I was 16 I decided to go to wrestling school. I was living in Winnipeg, and they had a company called Calgary Stampede Wrestling. There was a wrestler named Bret Hart, and his dad, Stu Hart, was the promoter. So I wrote them a letter when I was 16, and they said you have to be 18 years old. From then on, everything I did was honed on becoming a wrestler. When I was 17 I went on the road with a small-time wrestling group, and I was the guy who set up the ring and tore it down. And I sold programs and T-shirts. That was my first experience in the business. The next year I packed up all my stuff and moved to Calgary to go to wrestling school.
Can you remember the lean years when “Chris Jericho” was just breaking into the business?
It was 1990. Wrestling was going through a down cycle, and it was not very glamorous. Stampede closed, so once I graduated I never had a company to work for. It was just independent shows here and there. It was pretty low-level shit work. I can remember my very first match. I got paid $30, and a couple matches later I wrestled at some barn at a kid’s birthday party. I got paid a hot dog and a glass of orange juice. I used to drive this ’76 Volare, and I’d put in 86 cents of gas because that’s all I had. The first year, I only wrestled in about 40 matches, but that was part of what made it all the more special when I actually starting achieving things.
Now how many matches do you compete in per year?
I’m up at around 180 to 200, and it takes its toll, but you kind of build up an overall body callous to it. I don’t know what it is about guys in our business, but they’re tougher than the average Joe. They’re tougher than football players and hockey players. I guarantee if you went through our locker room, if it was a hockey roster or a football roster, half the guys would be on the disabled list. In our occupation you don’t get the chance to go on the disabled list unless you’re really super-hurt. You can’t just take a few days off.
Have you ever been super-hurt?
The worst was a broken arm that I had to have treated with a three-inch steel plate and seven screws, which I still have. I was trying this move called a shooting-star press, which is kind of a diving move with a crazy flip, and when I landed, I landed on my arm. I could tell it was broken even though it didn’t hurt. So I went to the hospital and the doctor was moving my arm up and down and it was just bouncing back and forth in a really weird motion. He said I needed surgery right then, and I said, “Well, I have a match tonight, but I’ll come in tomorrow.” So he put a soft cast on my hand and I put my tights on and went into the arena and wrestled, which is not the smartest thing I’ve ever done.
Ever severely injured anyone else?
There’s been a couple of times, but not really due to my negligence. I was in the ring when a guy blew out his knee and we had to end the match. And I was in the match with Triple H when he tore his quadriceps and had to be out of action for eight months. It was a terrible feeling, because we were having a great match, and then he hit me from behind, and his legs just buckled and the quad tore right off the bone, and we had to continue wrestling for another five minutes. There’s nothing worse than being out there and knowing that one of your peers is seriously injured, and you gotta keep going.
Who is your favorite opponent?
It would probably be Hulk Hogan. The crowd goes bananas when you wrestle against him. It doesn’t matter that sometimes his moves don’t look very devastating or he doesn’t have a huge repertoire of moves. It becomes easy and fun because the crowd gets really involved.
Twelve years into your career, what are your future goals?
I’ve accomplished pretty much everything I’ve ever wanted to accomplish in wrestling, so I have kind of a new attitude now. I just want to be as entertaining as I can be. I want people to get their money’s worth when they pay to see Chris Jericho. I want to help the business thrive and prosper and be entertaining. That’s my new motivation.
In addition to your wrestling career, you have a heavy-metal band called Fozzy. Why start a rock group?
Because I love music and I always have. In wrestling, I’ve done everything I’ve wanted to do, and that’s why Fozzy’s so great. It’s like starting out from scratch. I’m creating something out of nothing, just like I created Chris Jericho out of nothing.
What does Chris Jericho do for kicks when you’re at home?
Man, I’m out in front of people all the time, so I just hang out with my wife and our dog. Just lying on your couch and watching TV is something a lot of people take for granted. We don’t get a chance to do that very much, so when I’m home it’s my time to be with my family.
Are there any major life lessons you’ve learned in the wrestling arena?
Always enjoy every day of your life and be as positive as you can and try to be as cool as you can to other people, because you never know what’s going to happen day after day. And don’t sweat the small things. It’s not about the little things; it’s about the big picture. If you worry about the little things, it will drive you crazy, and it’s just not worth it.
What do you sweat about when you’re not in the ring?
The constant wear and tear I’ve had on my body, and the fact that there’s no off-season. It never ends. It’s four days a week, 52 weeks a year, for as many years as you want to go. There’s never a light at the end of the tunnel.
How long can you keep doing this?
I’m 31 now, so I think I can keep doing it as long as I want to, whether it’s three years or six years or ten years. I just signed a contract for three years, and in three years I’ll see how I feel. I could quit today if I want to. I don’t want to. The day I want to is the day I get out, because the day you lose your drive and your desire, it’s time to step out and let other guys take over.
You might be wondering about Chris Jericho today. Mostly we think that because those of us who remember Chris Jericho then started wondering about Chris Jericho now. So we looked it up. (Y’know, because we’re super clever like that.) Turns out you can find, as one might expect, a web site for him, and one can also find all sorts of things Mr. Jericho has his fingers in currently. Honestly we got tired just reading it all. We have no idea how he actually keeps up with doing it. We definitely salute him, however. Wrestling, podcasts, rock bands … wow. Still one impressive dude.
