Ask Chris Jericho

WWE star Chris Jericho was online Wednesday, Nov. 28 at 2 p.m. ET to take your questions about his career as a professional wrestler and his new book, "A Lion's Tale: Around the World in Spandex."

The transcript follows.

____________________

Chris Jericho: We're ready to rock it.

_______________________

Falls Church, Va.: Chris, was it disappointing to you at all that your return probably was the worst-hidden secret in the business in the past five years? Or that it took place in South Florida, where fans really don't cheer for anything (and have nothing to cheer for ... I went to school in Miami, I can say this)?

Chris Jericho: No, not at all. I think that it was very cool. It wasn't intended to be much of a secret. That's why we gave them clues and basically told them the week before that it was me. I likened it to a movie trailer. And as far as the fans, I thought they were awesome, jumping up and down. Not everyplace can be Chicago, which is the best city. But I was happy with the way everything came out.

_______________________

Washington: It was great to see you back on RAW last Monday. About your bio: What made you decide this was a good time for you to share your story?

Chris Jericho: It was one of the things I wanted to do for a while and when I decided to take a break from the WWE I thought it was a good time. And even more importantly I thought it was a unique story of a guy who traveled the world and went to Japan and Germany through wrestling. I knew it was going to take time to do and I wanted to put 100 percent of my effort into it, so that was one of the things I wanted to do when I left the WWE.

_______________________

Portland, Ore.: Chris, I stopped watching wrestling a while ago, but I am still a major Jericholic. I've always wondered about that hilarious series of challenges you laid out to Bill Goldberg on Nitro. Given that there was never a match, were your comments scripted/approved, or were you winging it? Also, where did they dig up Ralphus? Long live the Man of 1004 Holds!

Chris Jericho: You should check out "A Lion's Tale," which has that whole story written in detail. Nothing was ever approved back in the WCW days, you just were given an angle and I made up the rest myself. He hated every minute of it, but that's just how it goes, I was just doing my job. As far as Ralphus was concerned, Goldberg was bringing in security guards, and I wanted some too, but I didn't want tough guys, I wanted goofy looking guys, and he was a truck driver for the company, and I saw Ralphus standing around and asked him if he wanted to be my security guard, and he said "sure, no problem." And that was basically how it all started.

_______________________

Baltimore: How did you happen to become a pop culture guru that VH1 so heavily relies on? Are those "I Love the '80s" shows as fun as they look?

Chris Jericho: I don't know, I just have this superpower/curse to remember everything that's irrelevant, just all this useless trivia stored up in my head. I never knew what to do with all this useless knowledge, but somehow I got booked for one of those shows and suddenly they started booking me on all of them. So I don't know exactly how it happened, I'm just glad I get to use my useless powers for good.

_______________________

Arlington, Va.: Hi Chris. I saw your "Me Want Title Match" graphic on Monday's RAW, and I was curious, did the WWE have to get permission to use that image of Cookie Monster? Also, what's the deal with your new metallic vest?

Chris Jericho: Nope, we just used it. Jim Henson can come back and sue use. Think it's kind of public domain.

The metallic vest comes from the same fashion era as the checkerboard outfit I wore and all the sparkly jiffy-pop outfits. You wouldn't understand.

_______________________

Washington: Have you changed your style at all (eliminated chair shots, etc.) after the studies about concussions? How seriously are wrestlers and the WWE taking that?

Chris Jericho: You have to take it very seriously and protect yourself. I don't think you'll change your style and not take chair shots part of the show is to use angles that make it 100 percent safe. There are guys who weren't doing that, and that was stupid. I've never taken a chair shot to the head because there are ways to avoid that.

_______________________

Wantagh, N.Y.: Hi Chris, we've just passed the 10 year anniversary of the infamous Montreal Incident. I was wondering how it impacted you as a Canadian wrestler and a former Dungeon student. Has it informed any of the decisions you continue to make?

Chris Jericho: Not really, no. That's such a legendary story, but it's not like the entire industry was up in arms about it. I was in WCW and I knew about it, but everybody has opinions and think they know the whole story, but really only Vince, Shawn and Bret do, and they'd be much more able to answer that question. To me it was interesting, but it didn't really have anything to do with me.

_______________________

Walls of Jericho: Chris, Triple H suffered his well-publicized torn quadriceps injury in a match involving you. Did you know of his injury during the match? If so, would you have applied your signature move, the "Walls of Jericho," which puts considerable stress on the quadriceps?

Chris Jericho: I knew he was hurt, because he told me so, and I asked if he still wanted to do it, and he said yes. When the match is going on, the show must go on. He wanted to continue on with it and we did it, and I don't know if it made things worse or not. You can't really know those things in hindsight. He felt very strongly about doing it, so we did it.

_______________________

Washington: Have you found any real differences in either the locker room or in working in front of the crowd since your return? Or does it feel like you never left?

Chris Jericho: Pretty much feels like I never left. Obviously there's some new faces, some guys I've never met before, but wrestling's like a big family and you get to know people pretty deeply when you're around them all the time. And the crowds are he crowds, they're excited, they're great, and some cities are more into it than others, but they're always there to have a good time. That never changes.

_______________________

Washington: Hey Chris. I've tried to keep up with wrestling lately, but I think sometimes a lot of the performers sometimes take themselves too seriously, and seem more like determined pro football players than "entertainers." How do you keep the balance between being an engaging personality and a wrestler whose abilities are respected?

Chris Jericho: I think you can be entertaining both inside and outside the ring. You have to connect with the crowd in as many ways you can, both during the match and outside of it.

_______________________

Falls Church, Va.: Early in your career, your "Lion Tamer" submission move was similar to the Boston Crab, but your move included putting your knee to someone's head. As you evolved, the Lion Tamer became the Boston Crab. Was the original submission hold considered too dangerous?

Chris Jericho: No, it was just hard to do to really big guys. I used to do that move to smaller guys, but to do that with a guy like Kane or Big Show or Triple H, it was just to hard to move around that way. I wanted to change it so that it would look the same no matter who I was doing it on.

_______________________

Seattle: Chris, what are some of the major difference between the wrestling landscape of today, and when you started your career? Also, how integral was your time spent in Japan to your development as a pro wrestler?

Chris Jericho: I think spending the time in Japan that I did was very beneficial, because you were learning a different style and culture, both inside and outside the ring. It really gave me a lot of respect for what I was doing, gave me a lot of discipline, and made me come to terms with myself with regard to whether this was what I really wanted to do. Spending 10-week stretches in a foreign country really let me figure out that this is what I wanted to do in my life. It was really fortunate to go to a Japan and get paid to be there. There are people who save for years to do something like that, but at 19 years old I got to go and make my living there and do what I wanted to do.

_______________________

Potomac, Md.: Any sense of irony, given that all of the things Y2J said about saving the company in 1999 seem to apply about 100 times more now?

Chris Jericho: Yeah, it's interesting. That is kind of the reason I came up with the "Save Us Y2J" idea. I'm not implying that the company needs to be saved, but I think it needs to be shaken up by someone forthright and creative. I think it is a beneficial situation for everybody to have a character like Jericho involved.

_______________________

Claverack, N.Y.: Welcome back, Chris. We missed you. Obviously the business has been rocked with some unspeakable tragedies recently, culminating in the horrible loss of Chris Benoit just this past summer. I think you were matched with the Wolverine in your first pay-per-view; could you share with us a bit about what working with him was like?

Chris Jericho: He was probably the best actual technical wrestler I worked with, a tremendous performer and a machine training and a positive influence on me careerwise. I knew him personally for 15 years and he was one of my best friends. Something I deal with every day.

_______________________

Chris Jericho: That's about it, gotta split. I'm really impressed with the amount and diversity of questions, and that's why Jerichoholics are the best fans in the world.

_______________________

Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties.