Professional wrestling Legend Jim Ross who is currently working in the All Elite Wrestling as an announcer recently talked about the first contract negotiation with Y2J Chris Jericho who joined WWE in 1999 and worked in the promotion for nearly two decades.
Chris Jericho was founded by WCW and he worked in the promotion as an active member of the famous cruiserweight division. WCW’s cruiserweight division was extremely popular and TNA tried to repeat the same thing with their X Division. But in spite of being vastly talented, Jericho was never seen as a main event star in WCW.
Jim Ross On Contract Negotiations With Chris Jericho In 1999
He joined WWE in 1999 and his debut in WWE is considered as one of the best debuts in the history of professional wrestling. Most of the fans believe that his debut is the best ever debut next to the debut of the Big Red Machine Kane. Some fans even believe that his debut is even better than Kane and it is the best ever debut in the history of professional wrestling.
It took nearly three years for him to become one of the biggest stars of the promotion. After only 3 years of making his WWE debut, he main evented Wrestlemania. In the main event of Wrestlemania X8, he was challenged by Triple H where he defended the WWE Undisputed Championship.
In his nearly two decade long WWE career, he won a lot of championships including the WWE World Championship for a total of six times. In 2019 he joined the Rival promotion of the WWE, AEW.
Jim Ross who is currently working in the All Elite Wrestling as an announcer recently spoke on his Grilling JR podcast where he talked about the first contract negotiation with Y2J Chris Jericho who joined WWE in 1999 and worked in the promotion for nearly two decades. He said;
“It was secret only from the standpoint that we wanted to keep the official romancing off the radar. If we can bring him in, and bring him in as a surprise, it would be even better for him, and that’s what happened in Chicago with that countdown clock. I didn’t know what to expect when we met.
“I knew that the groundwork had been laid. Vince was just fine with the meeting we had in Tampa. I wanted to sit down and ask Chris, ‘What did you think of the meeting? How can we make this work? What can we do to get you on the team? What do you need, because I’ll tell you I can’t pay you what they’re (WCW) is offering.
“There’s no way in hell. We can sit here and talk all day long. We can have breakfast, lunch, and dinner here, and it’s not going to change.’ The issue is that the offer we gave him was a lot of money.
“$450K is a good starting salary. I thought we were being very fair. The key component of that was convincing him that our incentive program, in other words, getting paid on the house, old school, commission so to speak, payoff, was real. Without naming names, I gave him some illustrations of, this guy has a $300,000 downside, but last year, he made $1.8 million.
“At one time, we had 20-something guys on our roster that were making over a million. That’s incredible. They got that million dollar number by productivity. They sold tickets, PPVs, and merchandise. I think that was part of the only hurdle we had to overcome that it was really a true payoff system.
“We had a great meeting, he, Jerry (Brisco) and I. He was a fan of the Briscos and a student of the game. We both loved him. We both thought he can work heel or babyface. I love the fact that he was durable. It was a great meeting. Soon thereafter, guess what? We signed him. When his contract was over, and he didn’t renew there at WCW, we closed the deal very quickly.”
H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription