Chris Jericho

Laurel and Hardy.

Abbott and Costello. Morecambe and Wise. Ant and Dec. The world of entertainment is rife with great double acts. Two partners, individual identities, and just a smidgeon of playful tension between the two can create a compelling fun dynamic that is a joy to behold.

Phil Austin explains why in the world of sports entertainment, Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho have taken up this mantle.

Back in September’s issue of Total Wrestling Magazine we looked at Kevin Owens and discussed why his rise to the top of WWE has been as unconventional as his look, but what of his best friend Chris Jericho? Is there a reason these two are friends? How has Jericho got to this point in his career? And more importantly is this his best run in WWE yet?

By all rights, Jericho should have grown up a great ice hockey player. As the son of New York Rangers star Ted Irvine, the athletic Jericho would have been presumed to naturally follow in his father’s footsteps (or skate tracks). But at a very young age, Jericho began watching a different breed of athlete, professional wrestlers such as Ricky Steamboat, Shawn Michaels, and Owen Hart.

Enamoured by these high fliers, Jericho enrolled in the Hart Brothers wrestling school, where he met lifelong friend Lance Storm, and he was soon learning the skills that would start him on a career that took him around the world, and a career that would have many different paths for him to travel down.

After touring Canada, it was only a year into his career that Jericho (and Storm alongside him) found himself in Japan for the Fronter Martials Arts Wrestling organisation (yes, the same one with Atsushi Onita and all of those crazy exploding barbed wire death matches). He and Storm would return to Japan in 1994 to work for Genichiro Tenryu’s wonderfully titled Wrestling and Romance promotion.