‘What is your problem?’ – WWE star landed in hot water just days after signing $450k contract
Chris Jerichoâs WWE debut was loud, expensive, and almost instantly disastrous.
Within days of walking into the company, heâd irritated The Undertaker, earned a frosty warning from Shawn Michaels, and been torn to shreds by Vince McMahon in an expletive-laden dressing down behind closed doors.
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Jericho’s arrival in 1999 caused some major waves in WWECredit: WWEIt started with a promo. Jericho had been told to interrupt Undertaker during a Raw taping in Milwaukee â only his second night in the company â and decided to open with a jab.
âHe was calling himself the Personification of Evil at the time,â Jericho explained in his autobiography, âso I began my promo by calling him the personification of boring and proceeded to tell the crowd how bland and mediocre he was.â
The segment bombed. âMaybe this wouldnât have been such a problem,â he added, âif Taker hadnât just cut a fifteen-minute promo about how he and Big Show were riding their motorcycles in the desert and they ran out of gas and Big Show picked up a scorpion and ate it or something⊠a promo that really was incredibly boring.â
Even so, the locker room didnât take kindly to the insult. âHe knew it was boring, the crowd knew it was boring, Vince knew it was boring, Funaki knew it was boring,â Jericho said.
READ MORE WWEâSo when I came out and called him on it, I made things even worse because I was kicking him when he was down.â
Backstage, the repercussions began. Shawn Michaels, another WWE icon of the day – and some time either side of it – shot Jericho a look that could kill on its own, before blasting at the Canadian: “The next time you cut a promo, maybe you want to avoid calling the biggest star in the company and the leader of the locker room boring.â
Jericho admitted, âI canât believe the lack of respect I showed him and so many of the other guys in the locker room during my first month in the company⊠I was so caught up in trying to be revolutionary and controversial that I forgot.â
It didnât take long for the rest of the roster to turn cold to the upstart from WCW, who himself confessed to racking up more backstage dislike ‘than Al Pacino and Robert De Niro combined.’
Things got worse. Not long after the Undertaker promo, Jericho was summoned to Vince McMahonâs office, where the tone was far from fatherly.
âVince looked me in the eye and said, âWhat is your problem?ââ Jericho recalled. When he replied that he didnât understand, McMahon erupted: ââWhat the f*** is your problem?ââ
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Things went downhill for Jericho after an in-ring encounter with ChynaJericho had just worked a match with Chyna, the company’s top female star who, at the time, was busily involved with storylines alongside male athletes, where things would get physical.
At the request of his boss and countless others, Jericho hadn’t held back and treated her in the ring as he would any other opponent – and soon paid the price after she was left with a black eye.
âYou gave her a black eye. You were stiffing the s*** out of her. How could you do that?â Vince is said to have asked asked. âHow could you do that, man? Sheâs a woman!â
Jericho tried to explain. âIt wasnât intentional, Vince. Itâs just part of the job sometimes. You know that.â But the response was as cutting as anything heâd ever heard.
âYou donât have a f****** clue what youâre doing out there,” his boss is said to have continued: “Youâre as green as grass and itâs embarrassing. I was sold a bill of goods in bringing you in here and youâre not worth the paper your contract is printed on.â
The weight of that line wasnât lost on Jericho. WWE had handed him a guaranteed $450,000 deal â a serious investment at the time â but in Vinceâs eyes, he was already falling short.
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Years after his precarious start, Jericho won all of WWE’s top titlesCredit: WWE
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Jericho was left in no doubt about Vince McMahon’s feelingsCredit: WWE/Getty
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Few wrestling stars have repackaged themselves as many times as JerichoCredit: WWEâYou have no respect for anybody here… Youâre an elitist, you think youâre better than everybody else. But youâre not. Youâre the drizzling s****.â
That night, Jericho was given a final chance to prove himself â a match with X-Pac. Vince had told him, âIf you canât have a good match with Pac, you canât have a good match with anybody.â
He passed, just about, in a testament to what were his undoubted qualities but also those of another legend in Sean ‘Pac’ Waltman. âMy career was hanging by a thread,â Jericho admitted. âNeedless to say, it was the most important match of my life.â
Looking back now, itâs hard to believe how close Chris Jericho came to losing everything before it even began.
He would go on to become a multi-time world champion, locker room leader, and one of the most respected performers in the history of the industry.
But on day two, he was the ‘drizzling s****’ as McMahon put it â and the Walls of Jericho were already cracking.
WWE gave legend brutal two-word reply after snubbing Hall of Fame offer
Y2J neednât have worried, of course. Come 2025, heâs still wrestling at age 54 and counts more than 35 championships across major promotions to his name, including six world titles in WWE alone.
Read More on talkSPORTHeâs headlined WrestleMania, helped launch AEW, and reinvented himself more times than arguably any performer in history.
He was nearly written off as a petulant outsider. Instead, he became one of the greatest of all time.
