Chris Jericho, also known as The Ocho, recently revealed where his now-world famous name came from.
The former WWE Champion chose the name Chris Jericho for himself 32 years go when he began his career, when he learnt to wrestle alongside Lance Storm at the birth of both their legendary runs in wrestling.
In a recent episode of Talk is Jericho, the ROH Champion revealed how he came up with his iconic ring name.
In the episode entitled “The Origin Of Jericho“, he revealed which famous band inspired him to pick the name “Chris Jericho”, and which awful names he was dissuaded to chose by an unimpressed Lance Storm.
“When I was in high school, in my backyard wrestling federation, my idea was to be Christian Chris Irving,” Jericho recalled.
This wouldn’t come to fruition as Jericho didn’t want to use Christianity as a gimmick. After names like “Jack Action” and “Shawn Skywalker” fell through, the right inspiration finally struck.
“Helloween … has a record called The Walls of Jericho… I just saw Jericho. Chris Jericho sounds cool.”
Earlier in the podcast he revealed that his original idea was to be a Christian-based wrestler, but soon rejected that idea once he had started his training and wanted to be a different kind of character altogether.
Why Is Chris Jericho Called The Ocho?
Chris Jericho began calling himself “The Ocho” after winning the Ring of Honor championship. The former WWE Champion has been known by many names over his career, from “Lionheart” to “Y2J” to “The Ayatollah of Rock ‘n’ Rolla, and many, many others which have been sold on t-shirts all over the world.
He started calling himself The Ocho after defeating Claudio Castagnoli for the ROH Championship at AEW Grand Slam 2022. The future WWE Hall of Famer won his first title outside of AEW and WWE in 20 years with the victory.
The ROH Championship was Chris Jericho’s eight World Championship in his career (6 in WWE, 1 in AEW and 1 in ROH). “Ocho” means Eight in Spanish, and given that he travelled to Mexico to wrestle early in his career (where he was known as Corazon de Leon to the Mexican fans), he chose the Spanish name for the number as his nickname.
The name could also be a reference to the Vince Vaughn movie “Dodgeball“. In the film “The Ocho” is ESPN 8, the TV station which broadcasted obscure sports, like the titular dodgeball tournament the film is based around. Jericho has been known to take bits of pop culture to add to his character, so it would make sense he would be inspired by one of the best sports comedies from the 2000s.