Chris Jericho does not think today’s wrestling is short on talent. He thinks it is short on draws.
Asked why the late 1990s and early 2000s are remembered the way they are, Jericho pointed at the number of people who could sell a building on their own.
I think the biggest difference between this era and that era, and I think if you throw in the 86 expansion, those are probably your three biggest eras for pro wrestling in North America.
Then he started counting.
Let’s say we want to call it the Attitude Era, although it was kind of a little bit maybe the Ruthless Aggression, whatever you want to call it. When I got to the WWE, there were legit, I’d say, 12 legit top-drawing main event stars. Not just guys who worked in the main event, top draws. Rock, Stone Cold, Undertaker, Mankind, Triple H, Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, and that’s just off the top of my head. Kane, there’s nine right there off the top of my head without even really thinking too much about it, and there’s probably three or four others that I could throw in there. Big Show, there’s 10 right there.
The distinction he keeps drawing is between working in main events and drawing money.
There’s a lot of great talent in wrestling today, but main event stars, main event draws, main event, like, almost iconic characters that are still super popular today because of that timeframe, we don’t have that now. You have a lot more eyeballs on it, maybe, because of platforms and streaming. But if you look at the main event names then, they can’t be touched.
That’s probably why that era is so critically acclaimed and so positively remembered, because of just the name value of those stars that were all there at the same time.
Jericho arrived in WWE in August 1999, interrupting The Rock on his first night.
He has a title match in front of him this week. Jericho challenges Kevin Knight for the TNT Championship on Wednesday’s Dynamite from the Pearl Theater in Las Vegas, for a belt he has never held. The match exists because Jericho hit Knight with the Judas Effect at Grand Slam Mexico, wrestling as Corazón de León, which let Darby Allin pin him.
Knight wants that off his record before he deals with Allin, who has asked for a falls count anywhere rematch at All In: London on August 30.
