The Post Y2J Crisis: What Happened After Chris Jericho Made His WWE Debut - Part 2

For those who missed it, part one is here.

When we last left Chris Jericho's run in WWE, he had just ended Ken Shamrock's career on a random episode of Smackdown. That was his most notable feud as he had also injured Road Dogg earlier in his run, but he had already gone a long ways down since going toe-to-toe with The Rock. Sadly, things were about to get a whole lot worse before they were going to get better.

First off, he went to Unforgiven, and since he had ended Shamrock's career, it was time to move on, so he fought X-Pac. Jericho lost when the Road Dogg came out to help out X-Pac.

The next night he took a giant step up in competition when he faced Big Show. But he lost by disqualification when Prince Albert interfered. Yep, Jericho was a side character in a Big Show/Prince Albert feud. On top of that, Jericho did the most painful move in pro wrestling to Big Show behind the ref's back, the low blow, and Big Show shook it off three seconds later. The low blow is enough to knock out Brock Lesnar, and Jericho couldn't even take Big Show off his feet with it. That's bringing incompetence to a new level.

Later that week, Jericho and Hughes took on the New Age Outlaws, and yet again, they were just there to set up the Outlaws for their illustrious feud with The Super Heavyweights, Crash and Hardcore Holly.

But Jericho flashed again with main event talents, as he interrupted The Rock n' Sock Connection.

Outside of dropping a hard R on Mankind, this was the most entertaining thing that Jericho accomplished in his early run in the WWE. It even had The Rock dropping shade on Juventud Guerrera, which may have sparked him to turn into Juvy Juice. But it set up a match between The Rock and Y2J, which at least made Jericho seem important again. Unsurprisingly, The Rock won, and also unsurprisingly, this match was more done to further the feud between The Rock and the British Bulldog as the Bulldog immediately ran down at the conclusion of the match. Yes, yet again, Jericho was the third wheel in a feud for two.

but Jericho would not stay down for long as he tagged with his new best friend, Curtis Hughes, to take on the newly reformed Headbangers. I thought about embedding the link to this match, but it was awful. Jericho got mad at Curtis Hughes, left the match, and the Headbangers had their triumphant return.

Finally, Jericho's attitude caught up to him as he brawled with Curtis Hughes in the locker room at the next Smackdown. They then had a match where they brawled some more, but Jericho got the upper hand when Howard Finkel distracted the ref so Y2J could hit him with a chair. Since Jericho is such a gracious winner, he gave Curtis Hughes a consolation gift after their match, the services of Harold (Jericho could never remember his name) Finkel. And most importantly, Jericho was back in the win column and would surely use this for unstoppable momentum.

At the No Mercy pay per view that week, Jericho stole the show by...not appearing or even being mentioned. He was instead downgraded to a Sunday Night Heat match against D-Lo Brown. Y2J did not win.

Somehow, someway, Jericho made it through all of this and would begin his first run to a title, but we'll get to that next time. 

The Quintessential Breakdown of Brawl For All - Part 2

Brawl For All was one of the most fascinating ideas in WWE history. It's when the WWE took the reality era to a logical place, having real fights, under extraordinarily stupid rules. You may think the WWE did this to capitalize on the popularity of the UFC, and I'm sure that was kind of the case, but there was just one problem. WWE is always like five years behind on things, so instead of the UFC being fresh and exciting, it was actually at its lowest point in popularity since starting in 1993. It was literally the worst time to have Brawl For All, but as it turned out, there was never going to be a good time to have Brawl For All.

The rules allowed punching and takedowns with most punches landed in a round worth five points, each takedown worth five points, and a knockdown being worth 10 points. The entire fight was three one-minute rounds with 30 seconds rest between each round.

We left after the first four fights of the first round. I should point out that the referee from the first four fights, legendary wrestler and shooter, Dan Hodge, is no longer refereeing, probably because he's embarrassed to be watching this. But I'm not embarrassed, so let's continue the action of these glorious first round battles.

Round 1: Bart Gunn vs. Bob Holly
Bart Gunn was one half of the Smoking Gunns until his teammate, Billy Gunn, decided to become a new-aged Honky Tonk Man known as Rockabilly, and eventually would move on to Degeneration X. Bob Holly started off as Thurman "Sparky" Plugg, a NASCAR themed pro wrestler, and he just slowly moved away from that but was still completely inconsequential at this point. The most interesting aspect of this was that these two were currently tag team partners but would have to square off in Brawl for All. It started off great as Bob Holly gave a shove to Bart Gunn's back before the match started. Then the fight started, and it was by far the cleanest fight that I had seen up to this point. It wasn't great by any means, but Bart Gunn threw a pretty clean jab, and Bob Holly tried to work inside to attack the body. Unfortunately, Bart was able to do damage with a hooking uppercut that you never see from professional fighters, because it's about the easiest angle to block imaginable, but it worked fairly well against Holly. Bart Gunn outpointed Holly in every round in what was the most technically skilled fight, but as I mentioned, it still wasn't a great fight.

Oh yeah, and the greatest part happened after the fight when Bart tried to congratulate his tag partner for a hard fight, and Bob Holly threw a sucker punch, and they started brawling. Somehow, this match was one of the few I couldn't find online, so here's video highlights from a hardcore match they had a year later.


Round 1: Dan "The Beast" Severn vs. The Godfather
So, unfortunately, I found the video but can't embed it, but you really need to watch it because the commentary really makes the match. The Godfather had a pimp wrestling gimmick where he came out with "hos" (local strippers) to the ring. He went up against Dan Severn, who earned his "Beast" nickname as a former UFC Champion who was an incredibly high level Greco Roman wrestler. Yep, just a UFC Champion vs. a Pimp in a real fight. The fight went as you would expect, where Godfather actually looked okay on the feet, but he couldn't stop a takedown. Severn clearly had two takedowns in every round, but the commentary is possibly the most clueless bullshit in the history of the WWE, which is saying a lot. Jerry Lawler and Shawn Michaels know about as much about fighting as my aunt. I'm not sure if they have ever seen any form of amateur wrestling in their lives. Every time Severn took him down, both of them were like, "Well, I don't think that's a takedown." Severn was literally pinning Godfather, and they both agreed, "Well, that may be a pin, but that's not a takedown." Also amazing was the fact that the production truck was listening to the guys on commentary for scoring, so they somehow had Godfather up 10-5 after two rounds. The real judges got the score right as Severn advanced with relative ease.

Round 1: Quebecer Pierre vs. "Dr. Death" Steve Williams
I know every review of these fights is, "Holy shit, this one is somehow even crazier than the one before," but holy shit, this one is even crazier than the one before, and it cannot possibly be topped. Quebecer Pierre wore an eye patch to the ring. This wasn't a gimmick eye patch either; he legitimately only had one eye. They let a man with one eye get in a legitimate fight against probably the second biggest favorite in the tournament, Steve Williams. Williams was afour-time All-American wrestler and football player at the University of Oklahoma. He's about as legit of a badass as you can possibly be without being a professional fighter. They matched him up against a one-eyed man. Dr. Death just tooled him with takedowns, which was good because it was pretty clear that ol' Stevie was not too strong with his boxing. Ol' Pierre was completely exhausted about ten seconds into the second round but he continued to take a beating until the ref eventually called a standing knockout with five seconds left since Pierre never fell to the ground, he was just really tired. Also, he only had one eye. Enjoy it in all of its glory.

Brawk For it All 5 by xusername26x

First Round: 2 Cold Scorpio vs. 8-Ball
Brawl for All was so consistently getting booed out of the building that they put this match on before Raw started and just showed about thirty seconds of highlights. 2 Cold Scorpio was a high flyer  who gave up about sixty pounds to 8-Ball who was part of a biker gang tag team. 8-Ball apparently beat on him early but then faded as Scorpio was able to take the final two rounds and win the match. It looked like there were some fun flurries, but since the WWE was worried about their precious ratings, we never got to see this match in its entirety.

But that wraps up the first round. Next time, we will go over the second round, and oh yes, it will continue to be a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

The 3 Best Jobbers in WWE History

There are some times where I will wax nostalgically on the past. This happens most often when looking at the WWE, or the WWF as it was known in the good old days. Watching the early days of Raw long for the days of jobbers. They are nearly extinct when it comes to WWE television, as the closest thing that they have really had were a variety of skinny guys that Ryback would beat up a couple years ago. Some would argue that Heath Slater is a jobber, but he wins occasionally and has a real gimmick where he speaks. That man is a superstar, and I'm looking for true jobbers.

Because of that, I would like to look at some of the best jobbers during the glory days of wrestling. Now there are people who will look at guys like The Brooklyn Brawler or Barry Horowitz, but those guys are way too mainstream and even had some victories. I want my jobbers to be total losers, and none personified the term better than these jabronis.

3. Reno Riggins
Riggins probably has the second best jobber name of all time. That's not just for jobbers; that's for wrestlers in general. Reno Riggins is strong. It may have even inspired Lorenzo Lamas's character in Renegade, Reno Reigns. Although he had a fairly good career in smaller organizations, he was strictly brought in to get beaten down when he made it to WCW and the WWE. Here is the definition of a squash match.

Things we learned in this match:

1. Reno Riggins is not related to John Riggins (helpful).
2. Reno Riggins is also not related to Christopher Columbus (I don't know why I would have thought he was).
3. Mabel is not related to Barney, even though they both wear purple (that's not how relation works).

Commentary in the 80s and 90s was truly a wondrous thing.

2. Tony Roy
Tony Roy had potential as he was in great shape for a jobber. But that hair? That hair is the hair of a full-blown jobber. The most successful person to have that hair is Spark Plug Bob Holly, who always got beat as Spark Plug, and then shaved his head to finally become somewhat relevant. Tony tried the shaved head thing and became Antoine Roy, but you probably don't remember that gimmick either. For relevant videos, I could have gone with something from his WWE days, but this seems most relevant.

Just firing frisbees up into the crowd to get completely over with the crowd. If you're looking for some WWE material, here is an epic match against IRS.

1. L.A. Gore
So this man is the reason that Reno Riggins only has the second best name in jobber history. L.A. Gore is about as perfect as it gets. He is the perfect combination of Hollywood and raw violence. He is all that is man. He managed four matches on Raw in 1993, which may have given him more appearances on WWE's flagship show in that first year than Undertaker and Hulk Hogan combined. Here is his epic match against Mr. Perfect.

L.A. Gore did not do his homework. You simply can't go for a back body drop against Mr. Perfect as it is the easiest setup for the Perfect Plex. Gore took a four year break from WWE before making a one match comeback to lose to Scott Putski.

L.A. Gore, you may have been forgotten by many, but for my money, there's no better jobber than you.