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This is 45: Chris Jericho has never been better
Chris Jericho is still thriving in the WWE at the age of 45. Gabe Ginsberg/Getty Images

This is 45: Chris Jericho has never been better

On the Aug. 29 edition of Monday Night Raw, Kevin Owens won the recently created WWE Universal Title. He was the surprise winner of a fatal four-way elimination match by way of a surprise ending, as real-life WWE COO Triple H appeared out of nowhere to attack longtime foe Roman Reigns and betray former pupil Seth Rollins — all while wearing a suit, no less. 

The surprise on Owens’ face presumably mirrored that of fans across America. Rollins and Reigns are the more established names, and even Big Cass, the fourth competitor, seemed to have a snowball’s chance at winning. The match, especially the ending, added a tasty air of unpredictability to the pro wrestling world. The feeling that anything can happen is a powerful tool when used correctly. Owens became the most recent on-screen beneficiary.

The Internet was abuzz with delight after the match. Fans praised “Based Haitch” (a sort of meta-alter-ego for Triple H’s behind-the-scenes persona) for delivering the championship to Owens, a longtime star on the independent circuit. A pleasantly surprised wrestling Internet is a very happy place because, generally, even when things go well on screen, there’s always something else to complain about. Much of wrestling fandom is hoping in vain for something else to happen. On the rare occasion that everything hits just right, everybody is ecstatic. Imagine, if you can, Browns fans after a victory.

But I’m not here to talk about the Browns or Triple H or even Kevin Owens. I’m here to talk about another man worth celebrating. I’m here to talk about Kevin Owens’ tag team partner, the man who has his back, his onetime foe turned kayfabe best friend: Chris Jericho, the 20-plus-year veteran, who has been putting in some of the best heel work in the business over the past six months.

Jericho's work on the mic and in the ring are what set him apart, but to understand this iteration of Y2J — he’s still using the millennium-based nickname from when he made his WWE debut in 1999 — you need to start by looking at the man. He’s 45 years old, well into the dad-bod phase of his career, and he isn’t responding by covering up. On the contrary, he’s using his physique to maximize his heat-generating capabilities. He struts proudly with his slight paunch, refusing to wear anything lengthier than briefs. He walks with his arm bent up at the elbow and his wrist hanging limp. He sports a scarf and a vest, but no shirt. He has cultivated a goatee that begs to be hated. When surveying the crowd, he wears a disgusted sneer. You can’t beat Father Time, but you can sure as hell take the piss out of him.

It seems that everything he says becomes a catchphrase, and that’s a big deal. Getting catchphrases to catch on is an important part of being a pro wrestler. If you call and get no response, you seem like a dork. The stuff you say doesn’t even need to make sense — what is it that The Rock was cooking, exactly? — it just needs to be good enough for people to say it along with you. If you have the right delivery, you can get any old phrase over. Jericho has the requisite delivery and charisma, and thus he has a briefcase full of buzzwords for every occasion.

If he’s interrupting somebody, he’ll hit him with a, “Would you please, shut...the… hell… up!” If he needs to burnish his own legend, he will matter-of-factly state, “I am the best in the world at what I do; do you understand what I am saying to you right now?" If he wants to rile up the crowd, he’ll repeatedly tell it to be quiet; it starts as a whisper — “quiet" works its way to a mumble — “quiet" — and eventually turns into a shout — “QUIET!" His go-to insult as of late has been genius in its simplicity: He just calls everyone a "stupid idiot." It’s all so petty, so childish, so perfect.

A recent pet phrase of Jericho’s is based on the idea that his very presence is a present, something you could bring to a wedding or a bar mitzvah. He’s taken to referring to himself as the Gift of Jericho. “Drink it in, man,” he says, while spreading his arms and looking toward the heavens. In time the “man” portion of it has become drawn-out such that it sounds more like “maaaaaan,” with Jericho taking on an effect that is part Matthew McConaughey and part Cheech Marin. He could read the phone book and still get a reaction out of it.

Jericho and Owens, the aforementioned champ, recently formed an on-screen friendship and tag team. It’s a mutual admiration society through which they get to insult people, hassle interviewers and extol Canada’s greatness. (Jericho is from Manitoba, Owens from Quebec.)

Owens is less experienced on the biggest stage, but he has many of the same qualities that make Jericho so good. They ad-lib lines on the fly and aren’t rattled by going off script. They talk trash during matches while staying completely in character. They just get it, which is basically to say that they’re really good at being pro wrestlers.

They get it to such a degree that they have made the word “it” a trope in itself. It started months ago when Jericho and Owens were uneasy partners in a three-on-three match shortly before Money in the Bank (a pay-per-view that would see them compete in a seven-man free-for-all). After a pre-match strategy session, Jericho ended his backstage promo by telling Owens he better watch it. “Watch what?” Owens asked. Jericho replied without missing a beat: “It.” 

It’s a clever bit of wordplay that fits beautifully in a wrestling heel’s mouth. Jericho foes will be warned that they're going to "get it," Jericho teammates are encouraged to "do it," and those in the middle are cautioned to "watch it." Jericho has since let “it” breathe and grow to the point that crowds holler “it" if he so much as alludes to "it.” To turn a two-letter word into a catch phrase is to prove that you can make lemonade out of even the most rancid citrus. I'm not necessarily saying that this is the best Chris Jericho has ever been. I just don't think he's ever been better.

Much of Jericho’s real-life appeal is that he’s such a veteran, such a pro, such a man of the business. He’s wrestled in ECW, WCW and WWE, all of the major contemporary American companies. He’s wrestled in Japan and Mexico, nations with their own proud wrestling traditions. He’s been a Cruiserweight champion and a Hardcore one. He took a slam onto a pile of thumbtacks — as hardcore a move as there ever was — this year. Again, the man is 45 years old.

He invented the Money in the Bank ladder match, which has since become a staple event. He made his WWF debut by interrupting The Rock at the peak of the People’s Powers. He’s been around so long he once made a timely “Mmmbop” reference on Monday Nitro. He dabbles in other interests — he founded a metal band, hosts a podcast and did Dancing With the Stars — but he’s always been a wrestler first, and that gets respect.

He’s had storylines over the past nine months with Kevin Owens, Dean Ambrose, AJ Styles, the New Day, and Enzo and Cass. Owens, Ambrose and the New Day currently all have championship belts. Styles is making a case to supplant John Cena as the face of SmackDown Live. Enzo and Cass are the hottest tag team in the company. This isn’t to say that Jericho alone got all or any of them to where they are, but it sure makes him look good by association.

If you're a wrestler seeing your star grow higher and brighter, it can be tempting to go into business for yourself — that is, to put your interests ahead of the company’s and/or to make yourself look good but refuse to do the same for anyone else. It’s something John Cena has been accused of and Hulk Hogan made a career of. Jericho doesn’t have that sort of reputation.

When Brock Lesnar turned Randy Orton’s forehead into steak tartare at SummerSlam, it was initially unclear if it was in the script or if Brock went berserk. There was a puddle of Orton’s blood in the ring. It didn’t look like a work, and apparently no one was told it was a work. So after the match, Jericho, all 5-foot-10 of him, got up in the UFC heavyweight's face and asked him about it. Words were , fingers were pointed. Things reportedly got heated, and they had to be separated. What actually happened isn’t really the point. The point is that Chris Jericho confronted Brock Lesnar backstage in the name of standing up for a fellow wrestler. That means something.

See, the way I understand it, wrestling is like hockey in that it is a self-policing entity. There are legendary tales of Wrestler’s Court, a judicial-cum-hazing system that serves to uphold backstage justice. Sometimes the cases are trivial and the punishments are absurd, like when the Miz was banished from the locker room for six months after eating fried chicken too close to Chris Benoit’s gym bag. But sometimes the cases are more serious. 

As one legend goes, for instance: Circa 1999, WCW champ Goldberg got into a real fight backstage when tensions between him and another wrestler boiled over. Goldberg was booked as an unstoppable wrecking machine at the time, and he refused to work an angle with the other man unless he could beat him in a squash match. Goldberg, the former NFL defensive lineman and early MMA adopter, went on to lose the real fight. Worse, he was found to be in the wrong in the preceding disagreement by his fellow men. He was forced to both apologize in front of the entire locker room and declare that the other man was a superior wrestler. The other man was Chris Jericho.

He was superior then, and he's even better now, nearly two decades later. And at age 45, Chris Jericho has never been better.

Can you name every WWE Triple Crown Champion?

The Triple Crown Champion is defined as the wrestler who has won two individual titles (world and secondary; in this case, WWE World Heavyweight/World Heavyweight and Intercontinental) and a tag team championship. Clue given is the date that they achieved the Triple Crown-title that achieved it (WH: World Heavyweight or WWE World Heavyweight; TT: Tag Team; IC: Intercontinental).

SCORE:
0/32
TIME:
6:00
12/9/80 - IC
Pedro Morales
10/12/92 - WH
Bret Hart
11/26/94 - WH
Diesel
3/31/96 - WH
Shawn Michaels
3/29/98 - WH
Stone Cold Steve Austin
8/30/99 - TT
The Rock
4/29/01 - TT
Triple H
5/20/01 - IC
Kane
12/9/01 - WH
Chris Jericho
10/20/02 - TT
Kurt Angle
2/15/04 - WH
Eddie Guerrero
3/14/04 - WH
Chris Benoit
9/18/05 - IC
Ric Flair
1/8/06 - WH
Edge
6/11/06 - WH
Rob Van Dam
7/23/06 - WH
Booker T
11/13/06 - TT
Randy Orton
12/14/08 - WH
Jeff Hardy
1/19/09 - IC
CM Punk
3/9/09 - IC
John 'Bradshaw' Layfield
4/5/09 - IC
Rey Mysterio
2/15/11 - WH
Dolph Ziggler
5/1/11 - WH
Christian
4/1/12 - IC
Big Show
7/23/12 - IC
The Miz
3/29/15 - IC
Daniel Bryan
8/20/17 - TT
Dean Ambrose
11/20/17 - IC
Roman Reigns
4/8/18 - IC
Seth Rollins
4/7/19 - WH
Kofi Kingston
3/26/20 - WH
Drew McIntyre
4/10/21 - TT
AJ Styles

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