Chris Jericho has had many legendary rivalries in the WWE, but none of his opponents have annoyed him as much as former WWE Intercontinental Champion Chyna.
Chyna made history in the World Wrestling Federation by being the first woman to ever win a male championship, when she defeated Jeff Jarrett at No Mercy 1999. She was also the first woman to take part in the King of the Ring tournament and to compete in the Royal Rumble match – even winning the “Corporate Rumble” in 1999, last eliminating Vince McMahon.
However, whilst she did make history she did not always rub everyone the right way. Known to be difficult to work with at times, she also had the WWE machine behind her, as she became a sex symbol during that time, especially with her playboy cover shoot during her time in WWE. She became a huge star with the company, with her battles with men in the ring making her a feminist icon across the United States,
One person who did not enjoy working with Chyna was Chris Jericho. The former WWE and AEW Champion spoke to The True Geordie on his podcast the discuss why he disliked wrestling Chyna, noting that she was “terrible to work with”.
Speaking on the True Geordie Podcast
“Terrible, she was terrible to work with. She wasn’t good but she thought she was. And she was also in a position where she was being pushed really big so she could beat up guys. She couldn’t, and like I never got that credit. No one ever said I made her look good, it was the other side of the coin.
“I got in big trouble because at one point when I first started working with her, Vince said to me ‘Don’t treat her like a woman, treat her like a wrestler.’ And she was really stiff too, worked very strong. I’m not talking bad about her it is just the truth.When we worked together, it was a solid fight in many ways.
I remember one time she got a little bit of a black eye from me, and you would have thought that I cut her arm off with a chainsaw. I’m like f**k, I didn’t do it on purpose. But what do you expect? It was a tough position for me to be in, it was my first real angle in the WWE, but I did the best that I could. I hope that I proved some things, but there were a lot of issues with working with her.”
Chris Jericho Had Beef With Chyna During His Feud With Triple H
This is not the first time Chris Jericho has spoken about having trouble working with Chyna. He noted that the former WWE Intercontinental Champion got in the way of his match with Triple H in 2000, in another example of her being difficult to work with during her time in the WWE.
In his book “Undisputed: How to Become World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps”, former WWE and AEW Champion Chris Jericho revealed how Chyna caused the ending of the Chris Jericho vs Triple H Last Man Standing match from Fully Loaded 2000 to be changed, in a way that could have caused serious injury to Chris Jericho.
In his book, Chris Jericho writes:
“Sounds great, right? Well, in theory it was, until my old buddy Chyna screwed the pooch and messed it up. Earlier in the night she had a match with Perry Saturn where despite the huge signs at Gorilla saying STAY AWAY FROM THE ANNOUNCE TABLES, they slammed into the table that had been specially constructed to break for our finish and broke it first. This was a scant twenty minutes before we were supposed to go on, and I was taping up in the trainer’s room when I saw our table (and our finish) fall apart.
“I told HHH casually, “Chyna and Perry just went through the announce table. We need a new finish.” Such are the trials and tribulations of live TV, folks. You have to go with the flow and roll with the changes, and after we discussed it for about three minutes, I suggested that we could still do the belly-to-back through the table, only start from the barricade right next to it. The problem was we had no idea where I would land.”
“Would I slide right off the table and whack my head on the cement behind it? But it didn’t matter as we had run out of options. It was time to remove all the wheel blocks, there’s no time to waste. So when it came time for the finish, I rammed HHH onto the table and climbed the barricade to moonsault him. He clocked me from behind and away we went.”
“It was a strange and slightly terrifying feeling because I had no idea where I was going to land and couldn’t see where I was anyway. I held my breath and prepared for the worst, but we landed on the table at the same time and it blew apart easily. My head whacked the edge of the table but luckily not the concrete itself. I breathed a sigh of relief as the crowd began chanting, “Holy shit!”—their equivalent of saying, “Nice work, gentlemen, we appreciate the hard work and oh my was that ever impressive.” – SOURCE
Chyna passed away 2016, aged just 46. Her last wrestling match was in TNA in 2011, where she took part in a mixed-tag team match at Sacrifice 2011.