Folks, it's official: Chris Jericho of AEW is The Bride on Fox's The Masked Singer.
…what? But… but how? How can “The Ocho” be on Fox at 8 pm Eastern singing in a giant dinosaur/dragon costume with a wedding dress over top when he was also working a match alongside Sammy Guevara, Claudio Castagnoli, and Bryan Danielson on TBS? Well, watch his/her/its most recent performance on the show and tell me that isn't “Lionheart.”
To paraphrase the theme song of his podcast, “Bride is Jericho, baby, Bride is me (Chris Jericho).”
What? You still aren't convinced? Well, if you channel-surfed over to Fox during a Dynamite lull – if such a thing exists – you might have noticed that The Bride actually lost and was unmasked shortly before Nick Cannon spoke the show off the air and kicked things over to Will Arnett and his Lego Masters.
Yup, there you go; unlike the judges, who believed The Bride was either Flea, Matthew McConahey, or fellow former WCW Champion David Arquette, anyone who has watched a mainstream wrestling show over the last 25 years was vindicated in their beliefs that Jericho was inside the pink monstrosity, especially since the show is pre-taped and thus could have been filmed at any point before Dynamite went on air. The mystery is solved, the story is over, and unfortunately, fans won't get any more funny, viral-friendly videos of a weird pink thing semi-dancing around while the voice of “The Ayatollah Of Rock'n' Rollah” bellows from inside.
*sigh* oh well, at least fans have this video to forever remember the weird, weird segment of cross-channel wrestling history.
Le Champion of AEW opens up about why he'll forever respect an ex-WWE rival.
Before Jericho was dancing around inside of a giant pink monster costume, he was a member of the WWE Universe, where he worked for the better part of two decades. Over his time in The Fed, “Y2J” worked hundreds of matches up and down the card, won darn near every title on the books, and even became the first-ever Undisputed WWF Champion when he defeated Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin at Vengence 2001. Discussing his time in Vince McMahon's former promotion, Jericho told a very interesting anecdote about how Paul “Triple H” Levesque earned his respect during their time together on his aforementioned podcast Talk is Jericho, as passed along by Ringside News.
The finish of the match was going to be that a bunch of different things happen. I end up hitting (Steve) Austin with the Lionsault, Triple H comes in with a sledgehammer, I move, he hits Austin with the sledgehammer, I take Triple H out, (Chris) Benoit does a diving head butt, 1-2-3, we win, and this was going to be our coronation to the next level. But then Triple H tore his quad moments before going into the end of the match.
Suddenly he’s gone. And when that happens, you know ‘uh oh, something’s not right here,’ because these are four pros amongst pros, you don’t forget spots or you don’t do stuff. I went onto the floor and he’s just laying there, not even screaming, he’s there saying like, ‘I think I tore my quad.’ And I was like, ‘What?!’
I am not Triple H’s biggest fan, but this guy earned my eternal respect by just how tough he was to go through that.
Excluded from the aforementioned quote is the actual finish to the match, which took place on RAW back in May of 2001; despite having a torn quad, Levesque returned to the ring and ultimately allowed his opponent to put him in his finishing submission move, The Wall Of Jericho, on top of the announcers' table despite said move putting serious pressure on the very tendon that he would have surgery on shortly thereafter. Levesque didn't audible out of the maneuver or call a new spot on the fly; he took the L outside of the ring from Jerico, then rolled back into the ring to take a flying headbutt from Benoit, and then went on the shelf until 2002, when he returned on house shows before returning to the television and eventually the Royal Rumble in January.
Wow, that is a tough interaction indeed. While Jericho and Levesque are currently part of rival companies, and the former has absolutely no reason to put over the latter if he doesn't want to, it's nice to see that the 44-time (seriously) champion and current AEW star is still willing to respect game, especially when it comes to “The Game.”