Heartwarming / Chris Jericho

• His 2007 return, which aside from being totally awesome and funny for his attacks on Randy Orton, showed what appreciation and love the fans have for him. Hell, it took him a couple of minutes to get over all the love.
• In his DVD Biography, Breaking Down the Walls, Jericho stated that it was watching the feud between John Cena and Shawn Michaels, who he admitted was a big fan of both, that made him want to return in 2007.
• Combining this with a Tear Jerker moment is his rumba on Week 3 of Dancing with the Stars. The theme was for the contestant to pick a personal song that told a story about them. Chris picked "Let it Be" by the Beatles because it reminds him of his mother. As readers of A Lion's Tale know, his mother was in a serious car accident when Chris was just beginning his career. He was ready to give up wrestling, but his mother told him to stay with it. She died in 2005 and loved dancing - he's said many times she would have loved seeing him on DWTS more than anything.
  • It was the first time in his 20-year professional career he's ever been billed as "Chris Irvine".
• During a very brutal and personal feud with CM Punk, after their match at Wrestlemania 28, Jericho subtley shoots on Punk by ruffling his hair like a big brother. Coincidentally (or maybe not) it happened during a closeup shot.
• During Wrestlemania 28, Mick Foley (who never beat Jericho in a match), noted that the next Wrestlemania was in the New York/New Jersey area and it would have been fun to finally drop an elbow on him at Madison Square Garden. When Foley told this story at the Wrestlemania 29 Hall of Fame Ceremony at the Garden, Jericho ran up on-stage and laid down, with CM Punk following to count a pinfall.
• Every October 2nd, he contacts Lance Storm to wish him a happy anniversary: their first match (against each other) took place on October 2, 1990.
  • On October 3rd 2015, he observed his 25th anniversary in the business with Lance, Don Callis, and former FMW and WAR star "Dr. Luther" Len Olsen at ringside for his match against Kevin Owens at Madison Square Garden.
  • And a few days before their 30th anniversary, Chris had Lance on his Talk Is Jericho pocast, where Jericho revealed Lance had kept a video recording of their first two matches in the Canadian Wrestling Connection, the first of which the two of them watched and commentated on while reminiscing about how they got started in the industry. And despite having a chuckle about how green they still were (although also obviously talented even at that stage), they're both still proud of the match (Jericho personally gives it 2 1/2 stars). After watching the match go to its conclusion (a time limit draw), Jericho talks about how after finishing that match he'd felt a rush like it had been the most amazing thing he'd ever done.
• During his WWE Network interview with Stephanie McMahon, the two naturally start reminiscing about their long running feud. Steph admits that she considered the myriad insults directed at her to be just as much of a Funny Moment as the rest of us do.
• During a match he had against Adrian Neville, Neville accidentally injured his knee while reversing a move from Jericho. Neville informed him that it's hurting bad, which leads to Jericho finding a way to end the match as quick as possible (he ended up getting himself disqualified for pushing the ref for not ending the match intended to get Neville help). Jericho, whether he's a Face or a Heel, if one of his colleagues is legitimately hurt, he won't hesitate to put their health above all else. On his podcast, he apologized to the ref he pushed in the match, Charles Robinson, and they both admit that they were just confused and even professionals make mistake, showing no bad blood over conflict and realize that it was over a good reason.
• 8/1/16 edition of RAW showed him coming to the aid of Charlotte after current WWE Women's Champion Sasha Banks went on a verbally scathing rampage about her benifitting from her lineage and her as a person.
• As mentioned in the Awesome page, backstage at SummerSlam 2016 Jericho grew concerned for Randy Orton after his match with Brock Lesnar ended in TKO when Lesnar busted Orton open the hard way, and an altercation happened backstage with Lesnar that had Jericho backing Lesnar against a wall. Jericho was ready to fight Brock Lesnar if he had hurt Orton intentionally (remember that Jericho legitimately fought Goldberg and, in some accounts, won with a simple front face lock). It really showcases that much concern for a fellow wrestler. He would have probably gone on to do it too, had backstage officials and Orton himself not stepped in to explain.
• Jericho went hilariously all-out for his "Festival of Friendship" tribute to Kevin Owens, from sculptures to artwork, and even dragging Gillberg out of mothballs so Owens could do a mock beatdown of Goldberg (all of which left Owens either bugged out or non-plussed), but what makes this heartwarming and Owens' ensuing No-Holds-Barred Beatdown all the more heartbreaking is Jericho acknowledging that his partnership with Owens is what has made his 2016-present run one of his best:
  Jericho: I apologize that it wasn't what you were expecting it to be, but I wanted to do something to show everybody how much you mean to me as a friend. Ok? For the last year, I gotta tell you, listen, I've had such a great time about working with you and being your partner, it's made this year in WWE one of my favorite years of my career, and a lot of that is because of you. It really is. I've had a lot of friends in this business, and a lot of partners, but I haven't the chemistry with any of them that I've had with you. It's been a joy, you've made my job and my time here in the WWE a better place, and I wanna thank you for that.
  • On the March 20, 2017 RAW, Jericho revealed not only was Owens a fan of his when he was a teenager, but he'd also asked Jericho for advice when he first started in the WWE, with Owens concluding their exchange with "If you need anything, drop me a line."
• Michelle McCool recounted the time when she and Melina put on a really good match including an awesome spot where she gave Melina a DDT into the ring barricade, only to get reamed out backstage for having the temerity to look "better than the guys". Jericho stormed up and stood up for them.
  Michelle McCool: One of the agents came up to us and was like: "I can't believe y'all did that! You have no idea! We were all backstage, scared to death!" We were like: "...What? We know how to safely bump. We wouldn't do anything that would put either one of us at risk. We're totally fine! If the men can do it, why can't we do it?" He said: "It looked too good! You can't go out there throwing punches like that, or taking bumps like that — that looks better than some of the guys! You can't do that!" Finally, I remember Chris Jericho, who was by the ring, hears all of this going on. He said: "Look, if the guys can't follow what the girls are doing, then the guys need to step it up! I thought it was awesome. They did great. And it's not their problem that it looked that great!" I was like... "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!" Because out of respect, we can't say anything, and here comes one of the boys — Jericho, of all people, sticking up for us!
• A big one that most people wouldn't be aware of unless they've read Jericho's 3rd autobiography (fortunately Cultaholic shared it in their video on 10 Wrestling Matches Changed On The Fly) took place during Jericho's feud with Ricky Steamboat in 2009. Following Steamboat's age-defying performance at WrestleMania 25, his one-off return got extended into a final run, which included a series of house show matches against Jericho in Tokyo, Honolulu and Greenville South Carolina. While Jericho was supposed to win all three matches after hitting the Codebreaker, during the Greenville match Jericho realised that they were in NWA territory and was inspired to do something different to repay his childhood hero Steamboat for everything he'd done for him. Calling an audible in the ring and convincing his opponent to kick out of the finisher, Jericho whispered only three words to Steamboat as the crowd went mad: "Wrestlemania III finish". Steamboat understood in an instant, and when Jericho scooped him up for the slam, replicated the end of his legendary victory over Randy Savage (in what is still considered by some to be the greatest WrestleMania match of all time) by slipping out and rolling Jericho up for the pin and the unexpected (and heartwarming) victory.
• As revealed in the Dark Side of the Ring two-part episodes about the late Chris Benoit, it was Chris Jericho who reconnected Sandra (Nancy Benoit's sister) and her nephew-in-law David into each other's lives. The Benoit family had kept them distant since the tragedy for 13 years, and Chris knew those two suffered and would immediately understand each other, thus invited them to attend AEW Revolution together.
  • It was also revealed that during the whole time, Chavo Guerrero and Chris Jericho are the only ones who kept in contact with David.
• In his Podcast with Vickie Guerrero, Chris mentions how he learned a lot from her husband Eddie Guerrero, not just about being a wrestler, but as a human being. When they were leaving a restaurant, Eddie left a significant tip for the waiter, and Chris asked him why he did so. Eddie told him "What's $4 or more dollars to you? To them, it could mean making rent or something", and from then on, Chris always overtips, inspired by Eddie's compassion.

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