Everyone needs a fresh start at some point, and after becoming a near household name in WCW, Chris Jericho set his sights on a new challenge and on This Day in Wrestling History he debuted in the WWE on August 9, 1999.
There are few things as enjoyable as watching a wrestlers from some of their earliest days to the pinnacle of their careers, and I’m happy to have watched Jericho from his early days in WCW through WWE and into AEW.
It’s been a fun ride, but making a debut can go so many ways it’s impossible to tell how people will react.
But that’s what makes them so memorable.
Stepping through
Things rarely go off without some kind of snag, and the WWE slipped up when they announced Jericho’s signing a month earlier, so some fans already knew.
Jericho hits at it when he mentions seeing Jericho signs when he came out.
Special thanks to @awrestlinghistorian for the excerpt.
“As soon as I breached the curtain and interrupted The Rock mid-promo, the crowd response was unbelievable. JERICHO signs were everywhere and people were jumping up and down with huge smiles on their faces, ecstatic that it was me that was the big surprise at the end of the countdown.
“It seemed that half of the arena had been sent personal invitations from Vince McMahon himself alerting them to the fact that Jericho was appearing tonight. I hadn’t really known what to expect from the crowd, a bigger star in WWE after thirty seconds than I had been in WCW after three years.
“I had been planning this moment for months and knew exactly what I wanted to do. I had seen Michael Jackson in concert in 1993 in Mexico City and had never forgotten the monumental entrance he made. He propelled up from underneath the stage and froze with his back to the crowd and his arms in a crucifix position for what seemed for hours as the crowd went nuts with anticipation. He didn’t rush the moment or move a muscle. He just stood as stiff as a statue and took his sweet time before turning around and revealing himself.
“I wanted to do the same thing for my debut. So I stood with my back to the crowd in a Jesus Christ pose and let the crowd rumble. Even though the Titantron read JERICHO in ten-foot-high letters, it wasn’t until I spun around and people saw my face that they really exploded.” – Chris Jericho, Undisputed book.
This was such an awesome moment and the way they tied into the Y2K fear was genius. This is one of the best debuts in history, and it definitely deserves its own This Day in Wrestling History moment.
What’s your favorite debut? Let us know in the comments below.
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