The Best in the World

by Chris Jericho

  Hmmmm, maybe Sourpuss should be my next catchphrase?

  AYATOLLAH OF ROCK ’N’ ROLLAH: Many of my catchphrases were lifted from movies or TV shows, and this one is probably the most popular of those. I nicked this from The Humungus in the movie The Road Warrior. People still ask me to sign this below my autograph and I always say I don’t know how to spell it (I kind of do, but I’m just too lazy to write the whole thing). This one is also noteworthy for pissing off The Iron Sheik, who said he was going to “break my fuckin’ back and fuck me in the ass” because I’m not a real ayatollah. Guilty as charged . . . but the last time I checked, he’s not a real sheik either.

  SHUT THE HELL UP: This one was taken from the movie Happy Gilmore, when Adam Sandler’s sweet grandma asks for a warm glass of milk, and Ben Stiller’s evil character tells her she’s gonna get “a warm glass of SHUT THE HELL UP” instead. One of my most effective catchphrases because it’s the perfect way to interrupt somebody and always gets a great reaction from the crowd.

  PARAGON OF VIRTUE: This one started when I turned heel in WCW and the band Savatage had just released the record The Wake of Magellan, which featured the song “Paragons of Innocence.” I thought paragon was an interesting word, so I looked it up in the dictionary (remember those?), found out it meant “a model of excellence,” and incorporated it into my act. I used the old reverse-psychology bit, claiming to be everyone’s favorite wrestler, their role model, their paragon of virtue. This of course prompted everybody to boo me because I was the exact opposite.

  MONDAY NIGHT JERICHO: WCW’s main show was Monday Nitro and I claimed to be its biggest star, so I changed the title accordingly.

  RAW IS JERICHO: When I came over to WWE from WCW, I brought a few of my bits with me. I wanted Monday Night Jericho to be one of them, but in August of 1999, the WWE changed the name of its flagship show from Monday Night Raw to RAW IS WAR. JERICHO IS WAR didn’t have the same ring to it and made no sense, so I tried RAW IS JERICHO instead and it worked—despite being grammatically awkward.

  GO JERICHO GO: I only ever used this once, during my debut promo with the WWE. I said something along the lines of “all of you people are going to get off your chairs, put your fat little filthy hands together, and chant, Go, Jericho, Go.” Even though that was over fourteen years ago, it still pops up from time to time on signs in the crowd and chants from die-hard Jerichoholics during matches and autograph signings. Guess I should’ve put it on a T-shirt.

  COME ON, BABY!: In 1995 when I was working with WAR in Japan, the leader of my heel group, Team No Respect, was Hiromichi Fuyuki. During a match, he would bump a guy, put his foot on his chest, strike a crab pose, and scream. I always loved the audacity of his actions and started doing it when I turned heel in WCW. But instead of screaming, I decided I wanted to say something that matched the sheer cockiness I was displaying (as if you could ever pin somebody that way). It started as “Yeah, Baby!” then morphed into “Come On, Babayyyy,” and I liked it so much I started saying it during my ring entrance.

  ASK HIM!: During my time in New Japan, Jushin Liger would always say “Ask him!” in his matches at the oddest times, like when he had somebody in a headlock or some other move that he had no chance of winning with. When I started doing the Lion Tamer as my finish in WCW, I said it the same way as Liger because I liked the intensity. Fans started picking up on it, and it became an inadvertent catchphrase. I should’ve put that on a T-shirt too.

  ARMBAR: When I did the famous 1004 Holds promo in WCW in 1998, the majority of the moves I listed were armbars of some sort. I just never know what you fine fans are going to pick up on and this is the perfect example, for it’s still quoted to me all the time. As a matter of fact, I’ll bet when I retire, I’ll forever be known as the armbar guy. Some company did put this on a T-shirt, but I don’t get any royalties from it and it doesn’t count. So don’t buy it.

  SEXY BEAST: This was the name of a movie starring Ben Kingsley that came out in 2000. I thought Ben Kingsley was the most unsexy beast on the planet and that I could do so much better with the name, so I stole it. Christian claims he came up with both this one and Vitamin C but he’s wrong, I did. And while I was never allowed to put Vitamin C on a T-shirt because it was trademarked, it did become the unofficial name of the Jericho/Christian tag team.

  ASS CLOWN: What came first . . . the Jericho or the Office Space? The first time I said this was during a promo with Kurt Angle at a house show in Bakersfield. Not sure if I made it up on the spot or if I subconsciously had heard it was used in the movie Office Space, which I hadn’t seen at that point. My friend and visual timekeeper Ed Aborn told me it had been used already, but I’m taking credit for it until Mike Judge contacts me and fights me for it.

  NEVER EEEVVVEEERRR BE THE SAME AGAIN: One of my biggest hits, this is another one that started in WCW when I was obnoxious Jericho. I had been tearing off the tuxedo jacket of ring announcer Dave Penzer regularly after my matches but was in the ring apologizing and promising to never do it again and decided to stutter the ever just to be an idiot. The pronunciation “agayn” is just how we say the word in Canada (and in England too). Want proof? Listen to how Bruce Dickinson sings it at the end of Iron Maiden’s “Infinite Dreams.”

  HIGHLIGHT OF THE NIGHT: I was looking for a nickname similar to Shawn Michaels’s The Showstopper and thought it was genius when I came up with Highlight of the Night. I was certain it was going to be huge and make me millions, but it didn’t really get over and the T-shirt bombed. It did, however, provide the inspiration for the name of my in-ring talk show “The Highlight Reel.”

  WANNABE: Another one I thought was going to be a tremendous heat magnet but fizzled out quickly. I figured if I accused people of spending their whole lives trying to be like me, they would go banana (Pat Patterson TM) and try to kill me. It didn’t work. But the offshoot of WANNABE, where I suggested all of the ideas I created were being ripped off by the entire WWE roster, was the genesis of the whole “Jericho Invented Everything” shtick that I still see online multiple times every day. (“Jericho invented Mr. T’s mom.”)

  GELATINOUS PARASITES: This was born during my 2008 “Jericho Uses Big Words” phase. I was looking for an alternative word for hypocrites and came up with this. Surprisingly, it got major heat, as did BULBOUS MANATEES, if you can believe that!

  KING OF THE WORLD/KING OF BLING BLING: “King of the world” was taken from the iconic Leonardo DiCaprio line in Titanic, and I said it in the same context when I became the undisputed champion. It eventually morphed into THE KING OF BLING BLING, but my attempts to put that on a shirt were roadblocked because somebody owned the trademark to the term bling bling. My question is WHO? (Just found out it’s Lil Wayne . . . that bastard!)

  BAD MAMA JAMA: I called myself this because I thought it sounded funny. Later on I found out the term is normally used to describe a hot chick. Gotta brush up on my gender-specific street slang next time.

  BEST IN THE WORLD AT WHAT I DO: I first started saying this during the 2008 HBK feud, because I wanted to let people know that nobody in the business came close to my skills. And in reality at that time, I felt (on certain nights) I really was the best. When I had the idea, there was a little hesitation from the WWE writers about me using it because Triple H had recently claimed to be the best in the business. So I modified it to being the Best in the World at What I Do. When I left the WWE in 2010, CM Punk started using a paraphrased version of it, which eventually worked out to be huge for both of us. (That’s called foreshadowing, kids.)

  MONKEYS IN THE TRUCK: This one started when I was about to show a clip on the Obscenely Expensive JeriTron 5000 during an early edition of “The Highlight Reel.” I wanted to give our hardworking techs a little shout-out but didn’t want to be too respectful, so I called them Monkeys. The guys loved it and still scratch themselves and make gorilla noises whenever I go into the production truck.

  GET IT, GOT IT,
GOOD; RAZZLE DAZZLE; APROPOS: Not every catchphrase I used was a success; in fact, a few of them were only used once or twice before disappearing into obscurity. GET IT, GOT IT, GOOD was designed for crowd participation. I would say “Get it” (pause so the crowd could repeat it), then “Got it” (which the crowd would again repeat after me), and finish up with a resounding “Good.” It didn’t get over because I didn’t use it enough times for the fans to learn their lines. Had I said it on Raw ten times, maybe it would’ve done something. Razzle Dazzle sounded froot, but I kind of gave up on that one pretty quickly too. Teddy Long used this a few times afterward. Apropos is another froot-sounding word that I said a bunch of times, but there really wasn’t anywhere to go with it. It’s not like I could sell APROPOS foam fingers.

  The George Harrison of the WWE

  After the less than classic MSG match, the program with JBL was scrapped, leaving me directionless. I pinned him quickly the next month in an Elimination Chamber match (before being eliminated myself) and then at WrestleMania 24, I was one of eight guys in the Money in the Bank match. Now, don’t get me wrong. MITB matches are always fun (hell, I cocreated the damn thing), but to be in one at WrestleMania means you have no relevant angle to speak of. It was almost busywork, a way to just get you on the show. To make things worse, the last Mania match I had before I left the WWE in 2005 was a MITB, so even after all the buildup for my return, I was in the exact same position that I’d been in three years earlier. I was just another (baby) face in the crowd and I was slipping fast. Something had to be done quickly.

  I had to turn heel.

  Over the course of my career, I had the most success as a bad guy, especially in the WWE. It’s not like I wasn’t over as a babyface, because I was, but when I was at my peak as a good guy in the Attitude era, I was like the George Harrison of the WWE. George was one of the most talented and popular musicians of all time, but his only problem was he was in The Beatles with Paul McCartney and John Lennon, the two most talented and popular musicians EVER. As a babyface in the WWE with The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin at their peak, I was in the same yellow submarine as George. It didn’t matter how good or popular I was, there was nothing I could do to become bigger or more over than those two juggernauts. I was always going to be number three. But I found my true niche in the company working AGAINST Rock and Austin, so playing the heel was still where I felt most comfortable.

  My plan was not only to revert back to my villainous ways but to completely overhaul my character in the process. I wanted the stale Y2J persona to metamorphose into something completely different (the larch) and fresh. I was Kiss in 1982 and it was time to take off the Y2J makeup. I wanted to dump all of the things people liked about me . . . the countdown clock, the jokes, the nicknames, “The Highlight Reel,” even my ring gear. I’d worn long tights for seventeen years, but now it was time to switch to the short trunks that I’d only worn briefly (pun intended) in 1992 when I was working for Carlos Elizondo in Monterrey (as documented in the hilariously entertaining A Lion’s Tale available at a garage sale near you). Otherwise, it had always been tights and it was a nerve-racking experience to think about making the switch, to say the least.

  With long tights, you at least have some form of pants on. Tight formfitting spandex pants that let people know what religion you are, but pants all the same. But to change to trunks, which were nothing more than spandex underwear, was an intimidating proposition. What would I look like in them? Did I have the right legs to pull it off? What if there was a wardrobe malfunction and my frank and beans suddenly fell out for all the world to see?

  If you think I’m joking about that, I’m not. . . . I saw it, I saw it, with my own two eyes.

  At a SmackDown taping in Rockford, Illinois, an enhancement guy named Rapid Delivery Rory Fox was working a match with Zack Ryder. Ryder pulled him into the turnbuckle by his waistband and suddenly, for no apparent reason, Rory’s tights exploded.

  Yeah, that’s right . . . they literally disintegrated into a thousand threads of spandex. And he wasn’t wearing any undertights.

  The poor guy, not realizing that his ball bag had just made a rapid delivery into the open air, continued the match and took a nude slingshot into the ropes. He made his way to the corner and covered his junk with both hands, as the camera got a close-up of him mouthing Oh GOD! with a pathetic look of shock on his face.

  Zack pulled him out of the corner and bent the naked Fox over for his swinging neck breaker finish, giving the crowd a bird’s-eye view of the always appealing beanbag/asshole combo. It was by far one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my life, but I have to give the Rapid One credit. After the match, he was walking around backstage laughing about the whole thing, whereas I would’ve run straight out of the arena and never looked back. Rory showed a lot of balls that day . . . both figuratively and literally.

  Poor Rory Fox covers his junk after his tights explode mid-match. Look on the bright side: At least he was now the owner of a pretty rad spandex belt.

  Even with the threat of exposure looming over both of my heads, I was still certain I wanted to make the costume change. So I e-mailed Vince to tell him I was thinking of making the switch and he retorted by telling me to start tanning my legs. But I had a hunch Vince preferred trunks to tights, being that the majority of his World Champions wore them. Obviously, there were some exceptions, like Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, and Undertaker, but the bulk of his top guys wrestled in trunks, and the reason I was creating a new character was to become a legit top guy.

  After I got WWE costume seamstress Julie Youngberg to make me a pair of trunks, I sat in the dressing room in Knoxville, Tennessee, nervously staring at my new duds, wondering if I was really ready to make the change. I brought a pair of my old tights with me in case I was too chicken to go through with it, but I decided it was now or never and put the damn things on.

  It was weird at first to see so much skin exposed, but after a few minutes I started getting used to the look and liked it. But the big question was, would anybody else? There was only one way to find out, so I left the safety of the locker room for the wilds of the arena hallway and ran straight into producer Bruce Prichard.

  Now he looks me up and he looks me down and says, “Hey, man, what be this and what be that and why you gotta look like that . . . because you look great! I can’t believe you’ve been hiding those legs for that long! You should’ve switched to trunks years ago.”

  I’d never been told by a man that I had nice legs. Normally, it would have been awkward . . . and a little naughty . . . but at that moment, I felt pretty damn good about my gams (I wear short shorts). I thanked Bruce and bopped down the hallway with an extra pep in my trunk-clad step. It lasted for about five seconds, until I bumped into Dean Malenko, who asked, “Are you going to wear those out there? You look ridiculous.”

  Wahh wahhhh wahhhhhhh!

  If Dean had been the first person I saw in the hallway, I would’ve run back into the locker room, changed back into my tights, and that would have been the end of it. But because I heard Bruce’s words first, I had the confidence to stick with the new look and run with it. Plus, it was another step toward distancing myself from Y2J and another discernible change from good guy to bad guy.

  Between my haircut and my new outfit, I’d taken a big step toward changing my outer character. But how could I update my inner character into something new and unique?

  That answer came from two different sources.

  The first was when I was sitting in a hotel room in Phoenix, watching the newest Coen brothers movie, No Country for Old Men. I’m a huge fan of the Coens (The Big Lebowski and Fargo are two of my all-time favorites) and I’d been looking forward to seeing No Country since it had won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Picture. It was an amazing movie, but the most brilliant part was the performance of Javier Bardem (who also won an Oscar) as Anton Chigurh, the epitome of evil and a comp
lete psycho who goes on a killing spree in a completely calm manner without a hint of remorse. Never raised his voice. Never made threats. He just spoke what he felt was the truth to his victims in a matter-of-fact way and struck swiftly.

  Chigurh was a new type of villain and I thought this character would be perfect for me. At the time, most of the guys in the WWE were yelling during their promos, making threats, more the typical pro wrestling way of doing things. I thought if I spoke quietly during my promos and drew people into what I was saying and made them really listen, it would come off more realistic. More importantly, it was a direct contrast to the loud and boisterous Y2J way of doing things and therefore was exactly what I needed to make my character fresh again.

  Another thing I liked about Chigurh was that in his mind, the evil deeds he was committing were warranted. He had conviction in his beliefs. I’ve always found that the best heels are the ones who have an element of truth to their boasts and claims. When Ric Flair bragged about flying in private planes, wearing the best clothes, and having lots of money, he said it with total convinction because he really had all of those things, and that pissed the fans off even more. They were sick of hearing what they knew was the truth and wanted him to just shut up about it already.

  The second part of my new character came from the legendary Nick Bockwinkel. The WWE had recently released an AWA retrospective DVD, and while watching it, I remembered how great a heel Bockwinkle was. He wore suits for all his interviews and used ten-dollar words that went over the average fans’ heads, pissing them off markedly. Here was this pompous blowhard using the fancy talk and wearing the fancy suits, claiming to be the best because he was the World Champion, which was the truth. Nobody was doing this seventies-throwback-type heel in 2008 and I knew I could make it work. If you listen to what the man says, what’s old is new, and I was going to push that ancient adage to the max.