Twenty-five years ago today, The Rock walked into WWF No Mercy as WCW Champion. He didn’t walk out with the title.
On Oct. 21, 2001, Chris Jericho defeated The Rock at the Savvis Center in St. Louis to capture the WCW Championship, giving Jericho the first world championship of his career.
The title change came during the height of WWE’s Invasion storyline, when championships bearing the WCW name were regularly defended on WWF television. The Rock had won the title from Booker T at SummerSlam two months earlier and successfully defended it against Booker and Shane McMahon in a 2-on-1 Handicap Match at Unforgiven.
By No Mercy, however, Rock had another problem: Jericho.
(via WWE)
Chris Jericho Finally Became a World Champion
Jericho had already established himself as one of WWE’s biggest stars since arriving from WCW in 1999. He had won the Intercontinental, European and Hardcore championships, but a world title had remained out of reach.
That changed against The Rock.
The two wrestled for more than 20 minutes before Stephanie McMahon became involved late in the match. Stephanie threw a steel chair into the ring and Jericho went after her, allowing Rock to regain control. Rock eventually pulled Stephanie into the ring and delivered a Rock Bottom, but the distraction proved costly.
Jericho capitalized by hitting Rock with the Breakdown onto the steel chair and scored the pinfall to become WCW Champion.
It’s a significant moment that can sometimes get overshadowed by what Jericho accomplished less than two months later.
At Vengeance on Dec. 9, Jericho defeated The Rock again to regain the WCW Championship before beating Stone Cold Steve Austin later that night for the WWF Championship. The victories made Jericho the first Undisputed WWF Champion.
But his first world title victory came 49 days earlier.
On this day 25 years ago, Chris Jericho finally reached the top of the mountain by beating one of the biggest stars in wrestling history: The Rock.
