Who is Chris Jericho? Everything You Need to Know

Quick Facts

Canadian Celebrities Born In November

Also Known As: Christopher Keith Irvine

Age: 52 Years, 52 Year Old Males

Family:

Spouse/Ex-: Jessica Lockhart (m. 2000)

father: Ted Irvine

mother: Loretta Vivian Irvine

children: Ash Edward Irvine, Cheyenne Lee Irvine, Sierra Loretta Irvine

Born Country: United States

WWE Wrestlers American Men

Height: 6'0" (183 cm), 6'0" Males

Ancestry: Scottish Canadian

Notable Alumni: Red River College

U.S. State: New Yorkers

More Facts

education: Red River College

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Childhood & Early Life

Christopher Keith Irvine was born on November 9, 1970, in Manhasset, New York to Loretta Vivian and Edward Amos "Ted" Irvine. His father is a retired NHL hockey player who played for the Boston Bruins, Los Angeles Kings, New York Rangers, and St. Louis Blues between 1963 and 1977. Irvine is of Scottish descent from his father’s side and has a sister named Vanessa.

He grew up watching wrestling matches on television. Besides Owen Hart, Jericho also cites Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat and Shawn Michaels as his childhood inspirations. He had his first exposure to the workings of a wrestling promotion when he was hired as a ring-crew member for the newly opened Keystone Wrestling Alliance promotion. Jericho attributes much of his initial understanding of the business to his experience with the KWA.

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Wrestling Career

Christopher enrolled at the Hart Brothers School of Wrestling at the age of 19 and received training from Ed Langley and local Calgary wrestler Brad Young. On October 2, 1990, he made his wrestling debut at the Moose Hall in Ponoka, Alberta as "Cowboy" Chris Jericho.

In the initial years of his career, he wrestled for Canadian National Wrestling Alliance (CNWA), Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) in Mexico, and Genichiro Tenryu's Wrestling and Romance in Japan, among other promotions.

After a brief stint with Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), he made his first appearance on a World Championship Wrestling (WCW) program on August 26, 1996. He would go on to spend the next three years with the promotion, having memorable matches with the likes of Goldberg, Dean Malenko, Marty Jannetty, and Booker T. During this period, he also worked for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW).

For World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment which he joined in 1999, he assumed the image of a self-assured cultural icon who dexterously walked the thin line between a heel and a face and could easily take up either role with the minimal shift in the storyline. Jericho has been involved in the writing process of most of his storylines, actively contributing to his character’s development.

His first tenure with WWF/E lasted till 2005. He made his first return in September 2007 and left again in 2010, only to return once more the year after. In 2017, he bid farewell to the WWE world for the third time. After this, there has been a lot of speculation whether he is a free agent or not.

Jericho and industry-legend Shawn Michaels have collaborated several times over the years. In June 2008, a storyline started to build up with Michaels as the face and Jericho the heel. The feud culminated in a grand finale in a ladder match at the 2008 No Mercy Pay-Per-View event, with Jericho winning the bout and retaining his WWE Heavyweight Championship belt. The storyline was named the Feud of the Year by both Pro Wrestling Illustrated and the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and the No Mercy match was chosen as the Match of the Year by the latter outlet.

There are only a few wrestlers who have managed to successfully reinvent themselves in the history of the business. Jericho had his second return to WWE in 2011, and gradually over the next five years, developed a character depicting the middle-aged version of the arrogant, rock-star in-ring personality of his early days in the promotion, but with layers of self-deprecation. In 2016, he teamed up with Kevin Owens to tell a humorous, well-written, well-acted story that enthralled critics and fans alike.

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Other Ventures

Chris Jericho is the co-founder of Fozzy, a heavy metal band. The band released their first studio album, which was self-titled, in 2000. The group has since put out six studio albums ‘Happenstance’ (2002), ‘All That Remains’ (2005), ‘Chasing the Grail’ (2010), Sin and Bones (2012), ‘Do You Wanna Start a War’ (2014), and ‘Judas’ (2017); two video albums ‘Unleashed, Uncensored, Unknown’ (2003) and ‘Live in the UK’ (2008); and a live album named ‘Remains Alive’ (2009).

In 2006, he debuted on stage with the production of the play ‘Opening Night’. Jericho has also played various roles in films such as ‘Android Apocalypse’ (2006) and ‘Albino Farm’ (2009).

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Jericho co-authored the non-fiction books ‘A Lion's Tale: Around the World in Spandex’ (2007), ‘Undisputed: How to Become the World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps’ (2011), and ‘The Best in the World: At What I Have No Idea’ (2014) with Peter T. Fornatale. In August 2017, he published his fourth book, ‘No Is a Four-Letter Word: How I Failed Spelling but Succeeded in Life’.

Since December 2013, he has been hosting his own podcast, ‘Talk is Jericho’. On television, he hosted the reality series ‘Redemption League’ (2008), ‘Downfall’ (2010), and ‘Robot Combat League’ (2013). He also anchored the 2015 edition of ‘WWE Tough Enough’.

He established Chris Jericho’s Rock ‘N’ Wrestling Rager at Sea, a cruise that brings together the worlds of rock and wrestling to offer a once in a lifetime vacation experience, in 2017. He is also one of the owners of D1 Sports Training and Therapy in Tampa.

Awards & Achievements

Talented and charismatic, Chris Jericho has been the Undisputed WWE Champion once (December 9, 2001), World Heavyweight Champion three times (September 7, 2008; November 3, 2008; and February 21, 2010), and WCW/World Champion twice (October 21, 2001 and December 9, 2001).

He was conferred with three Slammy Awards: Superstar of the Year (2008), Tag Team of the Year with Big Show (2009), and Extreme Moment of the Year (2014).

In 2010, he was inducted into the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame.

Personal Life

Chris Jericho met Jessica Lockhart in Tampa, Florida through fellow wrestler Disco Inferno (Glenn Gilbertti), who is a mutual friend. They married on July 30, 2000 and are the parents of one boy, Ash Edward Irvine (born 2003) and identical twin girls, Sierra Loretta "SiSi" Irvine and Cheyenne Lee "Chey" Irvine (born 2006). The family of five currently resides in Tampa, Florida.

In 2012, at a WWE live event in São Paulo, Brazil, Jericho, who was a heel at the time, crumpled and kicked the Brazilian flag during a match against CM Punk. As it is a criminal offence in Brazil to disrespect the flag, he faced arrest and possible jail time. WWE acted immediately and flew him back to the US via Guatemala. He issued a public apology and was slapped with a 30-day suspension and five-figure fine to placate the government of Brazil where the promotion has a huge fan base.

He is involved with multiple charitable initiatives including several organisations that work with underprivileged children. For that, and his contributions to wrestling, he received Manitoba's The Order of the Buffalo Hunt on July 5, 2004.

In 2009, he was falsely accused of punching a female fan but the charges were later dropped.

Trivia

The two finishing moves that Jericho currently uses are “Codebreaker” (Running Double Knee Facebreaker) and “Walls of Jericho” (Elevated Boston Crab).

Chris Jericho Biography