Chris Jericho Reveals His First Wrestling Name

Chris Jericho is the master of reinvention. Over the course of an almost thirty year career, he’s gone from long-haired Canadian cowboy to obnoxious rockstar to self-appointed saviour to brown-nosing best friend – just to name a few of his incarnations. He’s been a celebrated face, a reviled heel and everything in between.

One invariable throughout that run however, has been his ring name. From his very first match, Chris Jericho has always been, well, Chris Jericho.

But for the guidance of a good friend though, that may not have been the case.

During an interview on The Dan Le Batard Show on ESPN Radio to promote his new show Hunting Monsters, Y2J spoke about a wrestling name that didn’t make the cut. When asked about names that were rejected at the outset of his career, Jericho revealed the following:

“I think the one that I was dabbling with was Jack Action. I thought that was a great name.”

Prompted to share why that name didn’t stick, the former nine-time Intercontinental Champion recounted a fairly amusing story featuring an unlikely hero:

“I was practicing signing my autograph on my binder, and so Jack Action and the ‘n’ led into a star like Paul Stanley. You know, Jack Action! And the guy that I was training with, his name was Lance Storm, he said ‘what is Jack Action? Is that gonna be your name?’

And I was like ‘I don’t know’. He goes ‘because that’s a stupid name. That’s a really stupid name.’ And I was like ‘I know. I’m not gonna use Jack Action, that’s stupid’.”

Thankfully, shortly after this exchange and in desperate need of wrestling name, Jericho popped in a cassette tape of a band called Helloween while on a long road trip. The name of the particular album he was listening to? Walls of Jericho.

And the rest, as they say, is wrestling history.

So the next time you see Lance Storm, I hope you’ll stop and thank him for ensuring that ‘The Man of 1,004 Holds’ only ever went by one ring name. And it wasn’t Jack Action.

Do you know of any other wrestlers who almost chose embarrassing names? Share them with us in the comments below, on Twitter or in our Discord server.

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