QOTD #12: Taking stuff for granted

Good morning to the BoD. I hope the Canadian readers aren’t suffering from too big a hangover after a humid Canada Day. Today’s Wednesday, which means we’re headed into Off Topic.

Today’s Question: What did you take for granted as a kid, but you value today?

We’ll check out some of your answers on that tomorrow. For now, we’re going to dive right into yesterday’s question. If you want to start the new discussion, skip ahead or click “comments” to get right into that.

Yesterday, I asked you to come up with forgotten Chris Jericho moments. Y2J has made a career out of great in-ring performances, coupled with quality sportz entertainment. You had a lot of different thoughts on this. Let’s get to it.

Guest: Great Chris Jericho moment was when he & Christian conspired with a misdirection play to kickoff the 2003 Royal Rumble Match, resulting in Shawn Michaels taking a chair-shot to the head, wearing the CRIMSON MASK, and being tossed in no time by the King of the World.

Michaels being eliminated instantaneously was a shocker, and would take a little bit of the suspense away from the winner once he returned to eliminate Jericho himself – but the angle was a nice set up to their eventual Mania showdown.

Porn Peddlin' Jef Vinson: I remember Jericho being chased up the hall by a wrestler (whose name escapes me) on Nitro and stopped running because he thought the segment was over but the cameras were still on and they get a live shot of the guy almost casually catching up to him.

This came right at the tail end of a classic segment where Jericho is absolutely lost trying to find the ring with his personal security force (as part of his one-man feud with Goldberg).

                      

hulksmashadam: Summerslam 1999, interrupting Road Dog. "You wanna impress me? Spell 'lugubrious.'"

BooBoo1782: I love the whole improvised feud with Goldberg where he kept claiming "wins" over Goldberg that the big guy never showed up for. It was a great example of Chris taking something goofy, running with it and getting it over. Reading in his first book about what was going on behind the scenes and how Chris fought to give it something resembling a blowoff makes the whole thing even better, IMO.

The angle was brilliantly handled, and it was almost shocking to learn why we never really got a proper ending upon reading the book. The story goes that apparently Goldberg wasn’t fond of the angle, he didn’t get it and felt Jericho was trying to syphon off his heat, or make him look weak. Jericho did his best to explain to Goldberg that the point was for the fans to see him want to kick his ass, and suggested maybe doing something at World War 3 as a full fledged squash. Goldberg’s response? “I’m supposed to be off during the next pay-per-view!” WCW, ladies and gentlemen!

Jon Eks: Gotta be Jericho introducing all the participants of the Cruiserweight Battle Royal at Slamboree 98.

"This guy used to be a great bartender, but it hasn't translated to his wrestling skills. He's the scourge of the illustrious Guerrero family, he is Chavo Guerrero, Jr!"

"Now we got Damian. He can't afford a mask, so he uses paint... but sooner or later, he's gonna buy a mask. I guarantee you that."

"The winner of the Lou Ferrigno look-alike contest, he's also from Mexico, El Daaaandy!"

"He's a former champion in many countries... He's gonna rock, rock til he drops. Rock, rock, never stop! Marty Jannetty, ladies and gentleman!"

"This guy is Silver King. He wins 12 more matches, he'll be upgraded to Golden King."

Just thinking about this still makes me laugh.

For anyone who hasn’t seen this play itself out, do yourself a favor and watch this on the Network as soon as you can. Between the entrances, the match itself is another brilliant layer to one of Jericho’s finest feuds.

Mike_N: Probably not forgotten, but definitely the ultra-serious rage-filled promo against the Rock ("I am not a joke!") when he shut the Rock up mid-catchphrase and delivered the goods. Definitely a side of him we'd never seen before.

Extant1979: I'm going to go with the shenanigans leading up to his WrestleMania match with Commissioner William Regal. Pissing in his teapot and sending Kamala into his office. That may be more for Regal's facial expressions for the interactions, but Jericho seemed to have a lot of fun with it.

“Which of Lord Regal’s faces do you find the funniest?” has potential as a future QOTD. I call dibs on him taking a Pity City from Brian Knobbs, and his subsequent vomit-face.

MrJustinB: Breaking the Jeritron 6000 on Shawn Michaels' stupid face.

Basscase: When he won a cage match against X-Pac by giving him one of the most insane ballshots in history, when X landed crotch-first on the open door.

X-Pac wasn’t even supposed to be part of that match; now THAT’S a bad day.

Petrock: Fan: Go back to Toronto!!

Jericho: I'm from Winnipeg you idiot.

Such an awesome improvised little moment.

Bill Ray: Talking to the crazy conspiracy theory lady in Washington DC:

"Are you a Jericholic?

"I don't know what that is."

Jericho’s entire trip to Washington in an effort to see the President because of JJ Dillon was something else to watch. His delusional grandeur and narcissism couldn’t have been played better.

Dirty_Dave_Delaney: One of my favourite Jericho moments is the entrance Jericho makes through the crowd for his match against Rey Mysterio at Extreme Rules 2009 whilst still cutting a promo only to pause several times in order to warn fans to not touch him, "Don't you touch me again, I'll knock you out junior!"

WILLYOUSTOP?!?: I always loved Jericho's quasi-heal turn on the Rock in late 2001. They just lost a tag match and Jericho was busted open. Rock checks on Jericho in the trainer's room to see if he's okay and makes some smart-ass remark. Jericho mutters something like, "What the hell does he want from me? I was trying to win the match." Rock overhears it, comes back in, and demands Jericho repeat it, which Jericho does about two inches from Rock's face, which then leads to a gigantic brawl and Jericho eventually winning the unified titles in December.

This was a nice change of pace. Jericho, to this point, was always known as the snarky wise-cracking Canuck – and the transformation he underwent in late 2001 really highlighted the importance of the big gold belts, and allowed us to take him a little more seriously as a main event threat.

Kbjone: (See video below) Who said Jericho couldn't make the WWE money? I'm sure a lot of "DX Glowsticks" were sold that night.

It’s reasons like this I asked the question – I’d never once seen this before. Granted, it’s only glowsticks, but it’s refreshing to see a modern wrestler not worried about the barriers between himself and the fans and putting himself in the line of fire to draw heat. And speaking of stuff I didn’t know…

Marv Cresto: My real favorite Jericho moment is his appearance on Opie and Anthony to promote that very album. He showed up as Moongoose and proceeded through a 30 minute interview refusing to break character and annoying the living hell out of the hosts and every listener. It was his very first appearance and it was years before they invited him back he had annoyed them so badly. Now they're all great friends and do spectacular radio together (as Jericho does generally)

This is such classic Jericho. The guy is an entertainer through and through. For the fans, for the wrestlers backstage, and in cases like this, for himself.

Starscreamlive: I always hated Jericho until he started doing the whole tantrum and tearing up David Penzer's suit up each Monday night, coming back next week to apologize, and then wind up ruining another suit. That made me a Jericho fan.

Don’t forget however, that Jericho bought him the new suit and promptly destroyed it again. That made it all the funnier.

Michael Weyer: I always loved after he loses the Cruiserweight title to Malenko, he comes on "Nitro" to read a letter he got from Ted Turner responding to his many protests. It starts off with Turner agreeing with Jericho's position and the title should be returned and he cheers and gloats. He then goes on reading as the letter changes to Turner sick of Jericho's whining and complaining and so upholds the ref's decision. Jericho is almost sobbing as he finishes the letter "your little-known law will be unused, undisclosed and unfortunate, similar to your wrestling career, signed Uncle Ted Turner?!" Hysterical.

Tons of answers related to the Malenko feud. Honestly, I’m shocked nobody managed to bring up the fact he turned Dean into the biggest babyface in the company with the use of an easel holding Malenko’s photo as a PLOT DEVICE. That was the minute I personally was sold that the guy was going to be a big, big star.

Fantastic answers all around. From 1998-2002, Jericho was in his prime and hitting on all levels. It’s a shame so much of it was wasted toiling in WCW’s midcard. I can only imagine the fits he would have given the top stars if they’d had the guts to run with him in a highlighted role.

Amongst forgotten moments, there was one that came to mind when I got the inspiration to run with this question. For some reason, I was reminded of an interview he did with Terri in late 2002. There truly was no rhyme or reason for how the interview went down, but Jericho hit gold, as he always does. Watch, and enjoy. I’ll see you tomorrow.