WWE News: Chris Jericho Reveals Who Really Came Up With The List Of Jericho
Chris Jericho has once again reinvented himself as a character with the WWE, and possibly the best thing he is doing right now has to be the wonderful “List of Jericho.” Jericho is known for reinventing himself over the years. Each time he comes back, he always tries something new, so the current version of his character is fresh and fits in with the times. The major issue he had coming back was that he was just not as good as he was previously, so he needed a new version, and he needed it fast.
Enter the current version of Chris Jericho that got so over that WWE is now considering a face run in the main event scene. That takes a lot for WWE to do that with someone who is an older performer in the business and was brought back mostly to help other talent get over. To be fair, he is doing just that with Kevin Owens, as he is currently working with him as his “best friend.”
Due to the fact that Kevin Owens is the current WWE Universal Champion and a current generation star, it makes total sense for Chris Jericho to help him out considering the need to balance what the WWE wants from Jericho and what he is best at doing. However, he has found a way to get over even more than KO, and it all started with the list. Some assume he came up with it by himself, but Jericho came clean about it during an appearance on The LAW podcast.
He would go on to tell them that it was actually a former ROH Wrestler turned WWE Writer named Jimmy Jacobs who came up with the idea.
“I think when I turned heel and it seems like such a long time ago, it might almost seem that I’m not telling the truth but go back and watch when I turned on AJ Styles and I talked about giving him the Gift of Jericho, drink it in man, that got huge boos. Big, big boos. The scarf, when I started wearing the scarf before I turned heel, people were hating it, that’s so stupid, what is he doing? He looks ridiculous. The stupid idiot, when I said stupid idiot, that used to get major heat but what happens is those things become so entertaining that people start embracing it to where now stupid idiot is a term of endearment. The gift of Jericho, drink it in man, gets a huge response.”
“So what happened was the gift of Jericho and I wish I could take credit for saying I came up with it but Jimmy Jacobs, who has become a writer in WWE, his name is Chris Scobille but his wrestler name is Jimmy Jacobs, no stranger to anybody who is a fan of Ring of Honor or any of those big independent companies. He said I’ve got this idea of the List of Jericho and you put a couple names on it. Oh yeah, that’s a great idea and we did it. Of course you do it once and it was kind of funny, that’s pretty funny, let’s do it again.”
“So we do it again the next week, it gets a little bit of a buzz and then I go to the props truck and say can you make me big, thick list in case I want to use it to hit somebody over the head with and engrave something on. Then, they just put a red piece of paper on it that said the List of Jericho. Meanwhile, this thing is growing. Then, the one week where I said you just made the list and people cheered, it’s like holy (expletive) this is not what we expected. Then, the week we were in there with New Day and I put all three of them on the list, I said the secret is when I put you on the list, you have to sell it like it’s a horrible thing and Woods was great. If people are laughing at it, then it doesn’t get over but because it’s a serious thing, to be on the list is horrible then suddenly we have this whole new world of stuff to deal with.”
The list has been insanely successful, which makes sense when you see how good it has been. The problem people had all along with Jericho’s original return was that he didn’t seem different. Finally, when things got going, he literally could do no wrong. Combining him with KO only helped as the two have been great in promos together for months.
Dating back to the first time they tagged together, there was magic with both men. This is not just on Chris Jericho, as Kevin Owens himself is an amazing performer who can do quite well on his own just like Jericho. Putting them together only increased the fan’s love for both of them because of their amazing performances together. It seems everything they have done has been gold, and most claim Jericho and Owens might be the only reason to watch WWE RAW per week.
This is big for both men, as the champion is not always a major focus on the show, but Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens have made the title mean a great deal every single week. The plan, as of now, is to turn Jericho face by the first of the year, which would result in a match between Chris and his best friend. The plan was for this to happen all along, so they are just following the program. However, most probably never assumed Jericho would get this over by now.
[Featured Image By WWE]
