Jericho Was Superstar of the Year Before Slammy’s

If you saw Monday Night RAW last week, you already know that The Wrestler Formerly Known as “Y2J”, Chris Jericho, won the coveted “Superstar Of The Year” over Batista, Edge, John Cena, Shawn Michaels, Jeff Hardy, and political favorite HHH.

However, this award really doesn’t do justice to the brilliance wrestling fans have become accustomed to for nearly two decades.

Ever since Chris Jericho set foot on WCW’s Monday Nitro on Aug. 26, 1996 to generic theme music usually used for basketball highlights, there was something special about him. His look, his attitude, and skills piqued my interest, but his debut match against Mr. J.L. (ECW’s Jerry Lynn under a mask) almost destroyed his Stateside career in what he aptly calls the “Jericho Curse.”

He quickly rebounded by becoming the first wrestler to defeat an NWO member for a title when he defeated Syxx (X-Pac and the 1-2-3Kid in WWE) for the Cruiserweight title on June 28, 1997 in Los Angeles. However, the WCW brass only made him into a generic face (good guy) with no character or direction.

In early 1998, Jericho would receive some good fortune in the form a nicely executed heel turn in which he’d throw a temper tantrum and then destroy the jacket of ring announcer David Penzer, only to apologize, present him with a new one, and then destroy it all over again in another fit of rage.

Week after week Jericho, without any direction from the booking staff, turned from a faceless wrestler to entertaining character that was more interesting than the increasingly stale and repetitive NOW and overall WCW product.

One week, he would come out with his hair in a ponytail that stuck straight up on his head and then another he’d wear a items collected from wrestlers he defeated such as Juventud Guerra’s mask after being him in a Mask vs. Title match at Superbrawl VII.

He was an obnoxious jerk you wanted to see get what was coming to him, but at the same time you watched to see how entertaining he was going to be. During this time he coined such phrases as “Paragon of Virtue”, “The Ayatollah of Rock 'n' Rolla”, and the now-classic “Jericholic.” Some would argue that he was WCW’s MVP and top heel of 1998 and 1999 with his entertaining antics and feuds.

Sick of the politics that infested WCW’s backstage, he jumped ship to WWE on Aug. 9, 1999 and made the most spectacular debut as “Y2J”, the WWE’s Millennium Man, verbally jousting with The Rock after interrupting his promo.

The promo Jericho signaled the start of a newer, improved Jericho that gave fans hope that he had finally hit the big time, but that dreaded “Jericho Curse” reared its ugly head once again in his first with “Road Dogg” Jesse James as he wasn’t yet used to the WWE style of wrestling and the flimsy ropes of the wrestling ring.

He would rebound soon enough with great matches with Chyna, Kurt Angle, and Chris Benoit. On the night of Dec. 9 at Vengeance, he became the first-ever Undisputed WWE Champion when he defeated The Rock for the rechristened World Championship, and Stone Cold Steve Austin for his WWF Championship. He would lose the title to Triple H at Wrestlemania X8.

At Wrestlemania XIX, he and Shawn Michaels stole the show. Even though he ended up on the losing end, the match was a very memorable bout that was one of the very best Wrestlemania matches ever.

After losing to John Cena at Summerslam in August of 2005 in a “Loser Gets Fired” match, he would take a self-imposed hiatus, due to burn out, from the sport he loved so dearly to act in plays and films and tour with his band Fozzy.

Many fans wondered when he would set foot into the square-circle again until Nov. 19, 2007 edition of Raw, where he interrupted Randy Orton during Orton's orchestrated "passing of the torch" ceremony.

Jericho revealed his intentions to reclaim the WWE Championship in order to "save" WWE fans from Orton. Jericho wrestled in his first match in over two years on the Nov. 26 edition of Raw, debuting a new finishing maneuver called the Codebreaker, to defeat Santino Marella.

His first pay-per-view match against Randy Orton was a lackluster affair and so was his match at the Royal Rumble with John “Bradshaw” Layfield. However, he captured the Intercontinental title for a record eighth time from Jeff Hardy.

On June 9, during RAW, something went off inside of Jericho’s brilliant mind. He turned heel in a way that only he could when he slammed Shawn Michael’s face through a television screen during his Highlight Reel segment, kicking off three month feud reminiscent of the glory days of the '80s and '90s and was the most interesting feud of this year. This kicked off a new Jericho that fans had never seen before.

He no longer smiled, posed on the ramp way during his entrance, or made funny pop culture references. He even stopped referring to himself as “Y2J”, started wearing wrestling trunks instead of his trademark tights, and wore suits when he wasn’t wearing his wrestling gear.

For the next few weeks, we saw Jericho peeling back the many layers we all knew he had like an interesting character on a well-written television drama. His promos were very well spoken and made you want to hate him, yet what he was saying was so interesting that you had to listen.

At Unforgiven, he subbed in for an injured CM Punk and at the last second won the World Heavyweight Championship in a scramble match before losing it to Batista at Cyber Sunday. He would win it back from Batista after an exhausting cage match.

His ladder match against Shawn Michaels at No Mercy this past October saved an otherwise lackluster pay-per-view and was on par with their Wrestlemania XIX match. The match was so brutal that he even lost one of his front teeth for his troubles.

At the Survivor Series, a returning John Cena was able to beat Jericho, but this didn’t diminish the impact that Jericho made this past year as he was rightfully voted “Superstar of The Year” at Slammy Awards, which made its return after a near 20-year absence.

The Jericho fans are seeing now is Chris Jericho in his prime and one so great that it would be a shame to waste him in boring matches and feuds when it’s clear that he belongs at the top alongside the likes of Triple H, John Cena, Batista, and Edge.

Hopefully, 2009 will be an even greater year for the former Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla.