Following WWE’s acquisition of WCW in March 2001, wrestlers from WCW and ECW famously joined forces in an effort to take over WWE for a storyline called The Invasion. It was also during this time that Chris Jericho and The Rock, two stars of WWE, laid the groundwork for a feud involving the WCW World Championship.
Speaking with GamesHub, Jericho reminisced about the latter storyline, which he considers as one of the most underrated in his in-ring career. “A really great one that I think deserves more recognition is Jericho versus the Rock,” he said. “We could go toe to toe in the ring, and Rock was a great wrestler. Rock liked to talk things through in promos first, which I can do too, but there were very few people who could genuinely stand up to him on the mic.
“To have a great dragon slayer, you need a great dragon, and I think we were very good from that aspect. There was a whole run where he accused me of not being able to win the big one — and then I went ahead and beat him for the Undisputed Championship. We were even tag team champions together at one point, for about two weeks … Every time we were in the ring together or did a promo or a backstage segment, it was excellent.”
After Jericho dethroned The Rock as WCW World Champion at WWE No Mercy in October 2001, the two briefly aligned to capture the WWE Tag Team Championships over The Dudley Boyz. As Jericho alluded to, though, this tag reign didn’t last long as their on-screen tension only heated up, leading to a rematch for the WCW world title, with Rock emerging victorious.
“Y2J” quickly regained the WCW World Championship by defeating The Rock once more at WWE Vengeance that December. The same night, he cemented himself as the first-ever Undisputed WWE Champion by also besting “Stone Cold” Steve Austin for the WWE Title.
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