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The Monday Night War Review: Episode Eleven- ‘Monday Night Jericho’

October 29, 2014 | Posted by Robert Leighty Jr.
Monday Night War WWE WCW Raw Nitro

The Monday Night War Review: Episode Eleven- ‘Monday Night Jericho’

-Interesting topic this week as I never would have singled Jericho out for his own episode. I figured the CW episode was enough, but apparently they feel his impact on the War was greater than I do. Don’t get me wrong Jericho is awesome, but anything of real note he did was after WCW closed their doors. If Jericho gets his own episode then there are a lot of other guys probably deserving of their own one as well.

-Have I mentioned how awesome the opening is?

-We start off in Jan of 1996 and the War is rather even with Nitro at 2.6 and RAW at 2.5. Jericho talks about how he wanted to be in the WWE, but was always told he was too small. He traveled all over the world to hone his craft and did all he could to prove size didn’t matter. He learned early this is what he wanted to do because he loved it.

-Feb of 1996 and the War continues with each side trading wins. At that time Jericho had just debuted in ECW. They discuss ECW and how they featured hardcore style, but also cruiserweights. Heyman says anyone in ECW that worked in Japan kept putting in good words for Jericho and wanted him in ECW. Styles talks about how Jericho’s style was an instant hit with the ECW fans. Dreamer now and he talks about the buzz Jericho had and they cover him winning the TV Title from Scorpio. Jericho mentions he had only worked 22 shows in ECW.

-The summer of 96 and Nitro is steamrolling RAW thanks to the greatness of the n.W.o. Another part of the success of Nitro was the cruiserweight division. Stock footage of Bischoff saying he wanted to do all he could to be different. Heyman tells story of Jericho being ECW TV Champion and doing a show in LA that Bischoff was attending and Heyman told everyone that he knew they were going to lose Jericho.

-Sure enough Jericho signed with WCW even though his ultimate goal was still getting to the WWE. He figured being in WCW would get him noticed by Vince McMahon. Jericho debuted as a smiling, happy babyface, and everyone knew he could hold his own in the ring. Flair and Booker T put over Jericho. Jericho himself puts over the undercard as a big reason Nitro was beating RAW.

-Now they talk about how the n.W.o was overshadowing everything else, and Jericho got very little air time. He talks about how in the early days he didn’t have a character and with the n.W.o being the heels that were cheered, he had to settle for being a clean, cut babyface. Bryan talks about how he thought Jericho was charismatic, but also thought he was kind of lame.

-He buries WCW for how every week he had no purpose and was basically just a body to have in the ring. Terry Taylor finally comes up to Jericho and asks him if he is ready because they are turning him heel. Jericho was thrilled to hear the news and talks about how he can be a dick when he needs to be. No censoring there which was kind of jarring after having nearly everything bleeped out on RAW.

-Jericho is awesome as a heel and coins the phrase “Monday Night Jericho” when he talks about having the show named after him. DDP says Jericho was great at irritating people and it worked wonderfully for him. Some of the heel stuff they show here is awesome as he mispronounces the names of other wrestlers and even the towns they are working.

-Bryan says Jericho was never supposed to be the star that he was. Jericho says he always asked for promo time and Bischoff gave it to him, but told him to keep it short. That is where Jericho learned to cut short promos because if he had a minute then he had to make sure it was memorable.

-They discuss the Malenko feud, and it was fantastic. Basically Malenko kept coming up short when trying to take the CW Title for Jericho and decided he needed to go home. So while he was off TV, Jericho carried the feud by burying Malenko and his family week after week. Malenko got more over during that stretch and all culminated with Malenko winning CW Battle Royal at Slamboree (masked as Ciclope) and beating Jericho for the title to a thunderous pop. Lost in the awesomeness of the angle was Jericho’s hilarious introductions of all the guys competing in the battle royal.

– They cover how Jericho topped Malenko by having 1004 holds instead of 1001. The running gag of ARMBAR is still tremendous to watch. Truly one of the funniest segments on Nitro and Jericho says he was left alone by the top tier guys in WCW so he got to do what he wanted.

-Over on RAW they were getting Attitude and they finally get a ratings win. Jericho says he was still focused on
getting to the WWE, but he was 100% trying to help WCW win the war. They cover Jericho winning the TV Title and Rey says Jericho was probably the first one to break through the CW stigma.

-We move on now to the feud with Goldberg. They show the Fall Brawl angle with Jericho beating a fake Goldberg, and Jericho himself talks about how they stumbled into the angle. Years later The Miz would use a lot from this angle in his feud with Cena. The stuff Jericho did during the feud was tremendous as he mocked everything about Goldberg, but did so in a way that we constantly laughing at Chris. The thing was built up so well that you just wanted to see Goldberg smash Jericho.

-The problem was that Goldberg hated the angle, and Jericho also mentions that Hogan and Bischoff hated it as well. Goldberg himself says he thought it was good, but his problem was that he didn’t think it was believable basically due to the size difference. Bischoff talks about how he never saw Jericho in a Main Event role because of the stacked roster they had at the time. I could be wrong, but I thought I read in Jericho’s book that he wrote Hogan was ok with the Goldberg feud.

-Jericho says that nobody was listening to him and he wasn’t listening to them so he just did what he wanted. WCW finally caved some and had Goldberg confront Jericho and spear the piss out of him, which Jericho sold like he was hit by a tank. Jericho was pissed at the way they fought the angle and he thought it was something that could have been used on PPV instead of getting no real pay off. That is when he felt it was time to go. Punk shows up and says Jericho was a WWE guy wrestling for WCW.

-By Jan of 1999 RAW was smoking Nitro in the ratings week after week. Billy Gunn and Russo put over how awesome the WWE was at the time and how every segment was a home run and how they were selling out arenas all over the world. Jericho knew he had to get out as in the WWE everyone had a character and had a story.

-Jericho went through Russo to broker a meeting and he flew out under the name Mr. Stevenson. Vince jokes that Jericho got on all fours and begged him. He went to Vince’s house as a contracted WCW guy and they were having a meeting to book RAW. They tossed out stuff to Jericho and asked how it sounded. They talk about how they got around Jericho being a contracted WCW guy as Vince never said they wanted him. Bischoff says that Jericho was upfront about wanting to leave and to punish him they took him off TV, but let him do house shows and paid him as normal. Bischoff says he was sorry to Jericho leave, but knew he had better opportunities.

-Jericho talks about the Countdown to the Millennium Clock and it was Jericho’s idea and he pitched it to Russo. I remember seeing the Countdown for the first time and at first legit thought it was counting down to Jan 1, 2000. Jericho mentions when the Countdown debuted he was still contracted to WCW and then Russo informed him the clock would end in the middle of a Rock promo.

-In August of 99 RAW takes place from Chicago in a white hot crowd, and the clock ran down in the middle of a Rock promo on the Big Show. The debut is still one of the greatest moments in the history of RAW and still gets me pumped to this day. They show the unedited version here with the original song and the pop from the crowd is fucking nuts when “Jericho” flashes on the screen. For Jericho it was the culmination of a life goal as everything was a stepping stone to him ending up in the WWE.

-Christian talks about how 10 seconds in Jericho was already a bigger star than he had ever been in WCW. He cuts a hell of a promo and The Rock shows up to give him his props. The Miz and Punk also put over how he was able to hang with The Rock in that setting. Malenko talks about how a lot of WCW guys watched Jericho’s debut in the back while at Nitro and they were happy to see someone get out of WCW and do big things.

-The debut was one of the greatest ever, but everyone wanted to know if Jericho could cut it. Thankfully they do discuss how Jericho’s early run in the WWE wasn’t great. Jericho says it was because he was a WCW guy and that because of the War, he wasn’t welcomed at first. He calls himself a lone wolf and a lot of people were waiting for him to fail. Jericho mentions he gave them reason to think he would fail and talks about how matches were different and he didn’t adjust well.

-We reach No Mercy 1999 where The Hardys and Edge/Christian tore down the house with their ladder match and Jericho was a healthy scratch. Only 2 months ago he had greatest debut ever and now he couldn’t even get on the card. He blames himself for not taking advantage of some of the chances he was given.

-RAW was still dominating though and now we get to bury WCW for a bit. They talk about how Nash and Hogan were killing things with creative control. Guess they just had to throw a little jab in there.

-By the end of 1999 things were looking up for Jericho as he just ended Chyna’s reign as IC Champ, and he stared to gain favor with the fans once again. His success led to others from WCW jumping ship and specifically they mention the Radicalz. Again some of this is just retread from the CW episode from a few weeks ago.

-Now up to Feb of 2000 and RAW had a ratings lead of 6.5 to Nitro’s 2.1. Damn! This was the period where Jericho started his war with Stephanie and hot damn did I forget how good she looked in those early days. That will always be the Steph I prefer. I mean she is still good looking, but always something about the late 99, early 2000 Steph that I dug.

-Jericho goads HHH into putting the WWF title on the line on an episode of RAW, and Jericho wins the thing to one of the loudest reactions you will ever hear. Dolph talks about how he kept waiting for someone to screw things up for Jericho and then was stunned when he actually won the title. Sadly, the win was erased from the record book, but made for a hell of a moment. Cena talks about how it proved that if you were entertaining enough and good enough in the ring you would get your shot.

-Jericho talks about the storyline and how he was kind of puzzled that the story called for him to give the title back. Vince told him that he would have it again one day, but the story called for him to win it and then give it back. You can tell Jericho was rather confused, but went along. They credit that night with making Jericho another Main Event star, which is kind of laughable as he really wasn’t pushed to that level until months after WCW shut their doors.

-Speaking of which, WCW closed down in 2001 and their assets were bought by Vince. This leads to a quick conversation of Vince also owning the WCW Title and they decided to unify the two titles at Vengeance in Dec 2001. Jericho says he had no clue he was winning, but he naturally thought it was pretty cool to be the first undisputed champion. Heyman talks about how Jericho was the last guy of the 4 that you would have expected to win the mini tournament. They talk about how it was such a surprise, but I remember a lot of people thinking Jericho was winning because it made most sense considering Mania was only months away and needed a heel heading into it as Champion.

-Vince says Jericho was the right guy and that it was his time. It gave Jericho something to brag about for the rest of his career now as he beat Rock and Austin in back to back matches on the same night to become the 1st Undisputed Champion. They put over how he was the first Undisputed Champion and Jericho says it will be on his gravestone when he dies (so to speak).

-The talking heads wrap things up by putting over how great Jericho is. Kofi calls him the secret weapon to winning the WAR and says he gave RAW the edge. Huh? Jericho says he was a guy that make Nitro worth watching and that’s pretty much it for this one.

-The preview next week’s episode and some screwed up as they just show the preview for this Jericho one. So I guess we will just have to wait until next week to see who gets an episode of their own.

Extra Thoughts: Again, not sure Jericho deserved his own episode as if that is the case then Big Show, Booker T, Flair, Sting, Rock, and others all need their own episode. This was basically a cliff notes version the Jericho DVD though they used a good amount of new commentary (outside of the Bischoff stock footage). It was an enjoyable episode and one of the few where they didn’t credit the n.W.o for only being successful because they were former WWE stars. I do think Kofi’s last comment before the episode closed was kind of insane as the war was basically over from a competitive standpoint by the time Jericho ended up in the WWE.