Chris Jericho was apparently closer to staying in WCW than people realize — until Goldberg became part of the equation.
Perry Saturn mentioned on his podcast that Jericho already had the framework of a new WCW deal worked out, but he hadn’t signed anything yet. Then Eric Bischoff told Jericho that Goldberg didn’t want to work with him. Considering Goldberg was one of the biggest stars in the company, Jericho’s reaction was basically: why the hell am I staying here?
“Chris says they have a deal worked out in principle for him to stay in WCW, but he hasn’t signed it. Eric tells him he can’t work with Goldberg. Goldberg doesn’t want to work with him. So Chris very fucking reasonably thinks, ‘Well, fuck it. If the top guy won’t work with me, why am I here?’ So he, however he got ahold of Vince and all that shit, that’s his business. I never asked him that.”
From there, Jericho decided he wasn’t signing the WCW contract and was heading to WWF instead. Saturn says Jericho broke the news to Bischoff himself, and Bischoff absolutely lost it.
“Chris told Eric that he wasn’t going to sign his WCW contract, that he was going to go to WWF. Eric went fucking berserk. He was fucking pissed.”
Bischoff didn’t just want Jericho gone when his deal expired either. Saturn says Bischoff wanted him pulled from television immediately so WCW wouldn’t spend months making a guy look good who was about to show up for the competition.
“Eric wanted to fucking receipt Chris. He tells him, ‘That’s it, you’re off fucking TV.’”
Bischoff’s thinking was pretty simple: he wasn’t interested in using Nitro to help Jericho build momentum before walking into WWF.
“He goes, ‘You won’t be on TV. You’re not going to be on TV and then go up there. I’m not going to use my TV to get you over and go up there.’”
Saturn thought that was a terrible idea. Instead of letting Jericho sit at home for months, he convinced Bischoff that WCW should actually get something out of him on the way out.
“I convinced Eric that it’s fucking stupid to take Chris off the TV. I go, ‘Let me work with him and let him put me over in the end, and then I get something out of it and then we get something out of him leaving.’”
That eventually turned into Jericho’s program with Saturn, but the biggest part of the story is what happened before all of that. According to Saturn, Jericho had a WCW deal sitting there and still hadn’t completely closed the door on staying. Then he found out Goldberg wasn’t going to work with him.
Jericho left WCW in 1999, showed up in WWF, and never looked back. If Saturn’s version of events is accurate, WCW telling Jericho that one of its biggest stars had no interest in working with him may have been the final shove he needed to walk straight out the door.
Do you think Chris Jericho would have stayed in WCW if Goldberg agreed to work with him, or was he always going to end up in WWF? Drop your thoughts in the comments below.
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