Cold as Jericho by P. Dizzle tha Grand Champion
Disclaimer: I own nothing, and this has nothing to do with any of my other stories.
Rating: T
Summary: Chris Jericho gives some insight as to why he turned on the fans… or, as he has aptly realized, the sheep. (Hint: There was a show with an episode entitled "Black as Cole.")
Chris Jericho has been aching to say something to the fans - no, wait, the blind WWE announcer-spun sheep who have the audacity to fill the stands and call themselves wrestling fans - for some time, now. He has actually been thirsting to bring something to the attention of the people of the WWE Universe, for months. Specifically, ever since he turned on them. More like he attacked their totally fraudulent hero Shawn Michaels and then they turned on him because of it. The mere thought about the sheep of the WWE Universe and their absolutely fickle nature absolutely made him sick. They had no right to label him as a traitor when the whole time, they had been the traitors. They had been the true evil of this program this entire time. And tonight, he wasn't holding back anymore. He was determined to prove it to them.
He knew that the sheep fans weren't the only ones who had thrown their perception of him aside the second he attacked Michaels. At least half of the Superstars in the back started seeing him in a different light, started perceiving him as some kind of crooked being who did not deserve to be on Raw. He knew that the other half, the half he once considered snobs, were going to become receptive to the idea of teaming with him in due time. It was always odd to him how much flip-flopping was involved in this business, even if he'd seen it a thousand times with a thousand people before, including himself. Sometimes the flip-flopping was a gradual process, and sometimes an instant change. However, outside the locker room, with the sheep, it was always an instant change.
As a matter of fact, it became an instant change for Chris since he started arguing with the Rock back in 2001. He knew that. He knew that his rivalry with the Rock had forever crippled his bond with the WWE audience. He knew that now. However, he was too stupid to realize it back then and continued to try to play with them by being the arrogant joker with the long hair for years. Now, after having seen the light, after seeing what these "fans" he used to dub his Jerichoholics are truly all about, after waking up and becoming a real man as opposed to a comedy act, he finally realized how much better off he was this way. And thank God for it, too. Now rather than some glorified curtain jerker getting fooled by a guy who calls himself Captain Charisma, Chris Jericho stands as the World Heavyweight Champion.
As he sat there in his locker room and thought his thoughts, all dressed up and dapper in a pinstriped suit with his title belt on his shoulder, the former Ayatollah of Rock-N-Rolla couldn't help but remember how different the air was from in the past when he walked out of the locker room and through the backstage area to get to the ring. He couldn't help but remember joking around with some of the guys and enjoying his time with them. And some of the guys he remembered joking around with before are also among those who have told him since, for example, that they hoped he couldn't look at himself in the mirror, or that they didn't understand how he could. And they said it with total disdain in their voices. Including… no, especially the Has-Been Kid, Shawn Michaels.
Walking around in the streets with people he thought were his friends back then was very, very different compared to walking around with his new protégé Lance Cade these days. These days, there were these few fans who still respected him because of everything he'd been through in the wrestling business. Those were true wrestling fans, who he actually respected, though he'd never admit it by appealing to them in an arena. He knew that the true wrestling fans wouldn't need to be appealed to, that they would still support him and his cause in secret because they respected how awesome he is. But then there was at least 90 of the people he came across, who had pretended to respect him before, yet as soon as he attacked one of their favorites, they jumped in hatred of him. It even happened here in Minneapolis, Minnesota - which he found extremely strange, considering how far north the state of Minnesota is. For a state that's right on the Canadian border on the other side of which he was raised, these people were acting like they were some of Shawn Michaels' best friends from back down in Texas or something.
And since the baptism by fire that he undertook a few weeks ago to become the World Heavyweight Champion at Unforgiven, it's actually gotten worse, as people have been calling him a cheap champion. He simply sneered in disgust at the idea that somebody could call it a cheap victory, after he and Shawn fought tooth and nail to tear each other apart, Shawn turned out to succeed in the end, and then he came in this battered state in place of a practically headshot CM Punk in the Championship Scramble, immediately took a Spear by Batista, and still had the wherewithal to get back into the match at the right second to cover Kane and become the World Champion. But then again, these people probably didn't even understand the meaning of a baptism by fire. So any time they called him cheap, he realized that it wasn't him that was cheap. It was their understanding of real life that was cheap.
Jericho actually admired Cade very much, for, despite being taught every move and trick he knows by HBK, the kid had enough true eyes of righteousness that he refused to kiss up to Shawn Michaels despite the sheep backlash that would come of it. Cade understood Jericho, he understood the truth. He understood that Michaels would use him to build his résumé and then betray the kid when he no longer needed him. It was the same thing Michaels and his Kliq buddy Triple H did to people all the time, including one another on several occasions. So Lance beat the Heartbreak Kid to the punch and betrayed him first by wanting to align with Jericho and understand the wrestling business through the eyes of the Savior Self. And the Ayatollah, out of admiration for Lance Cade's gumption in supporting him instead of Shawn Michaels, had happily obliged. Cade hadn't gotten into much action over this time so far, however he had a feeling that might change soon - especially after Cade scored the pin over Michaels in that tag team match last week on Raw.
In any case, Jericho knew the reason why he had previously held back on saying what he wanted to say tonight. He used to wonder whether the fans would finally see the light, or whether they would simply call him a bitter prick who couldn't let go of the past. However, he knew the answer. He knew deep down exactly what the WWE Universe would do. And it took that realization to make his decision for him. Tonight, he would release the innermost thoughts that came to him when he suddenly bumped into TNT and started watching a certain television show's reruns a few months back. The reflections of the Realist Savior would be revealed to all, and they could either make sense of it as he wished the cast of that show could, or they could… okay, just who was he kidding? It was clearly obvious that they were just gonna continue to be hypocrites and point to him being bitter and dishonest and crazed like they always do. Either way, he'd be getting a load off his chest, and he'd be thanking God for the Charmed nature of the signs which finally told him the truth.
Then came a knock came on his door, which stirred him out of his thoughts momentarily, only to be followed up by the call of "Hey, Chris! It's time," the voice of Lance Cade being the one which protruded from outside. With that, Jericho stood up, and walked towards the door, opening it to indeed find his latest pupil standing there, in more casual attire - with a collared shirt, but also wearing jeans and not carrying a suit coat.
"Thanks, Lance. It means a lot that you could be out there for this," Jericho acknowledged as the duo shook hands.
"Anytime, man," Cade replied, thinking it no big deal. Chris smiled at that as the two made their way through the hallway to the curtains because in all honesty, he truly was grateful about Lance's support. Sure, he would be doing this anyway with or without Lance Cade, but the truth is he felt just a touch more comfortable doing something like this when he knew that he had at least one person's honest support in all this.
Seconds later, Monday Night Raw finally began to air on the USA Network, as it was nine o'clock. However, instead of the usual Raw intro that always came up, Jericho's tunnel countdown and the stage firework burst came up, followed by the latest edited version of "Break The Walls Down", the theme he'd used virtually his entire WWE career. Jericho and Cade came down to the ring in the usual serious nature that was about them these days, once again being booed by the same unsavory ingrates that filled these crowds almost every night. The two made their way down the ramp, up the steps, and across the ropes into the ring without any theatrics whatsoever, once again in full mode to get a point across. Chris called to the timekeeper for a microphone, and was granted that gift as his music stopped and he continued to listen to the people booing his every second.
Instantly, as he and Lance looked at each other, they just knew - there were none of those real wrestling fans in this arena. The Target Center in Minneapolis was now a house full of marketing sheep who believe anything the announcers tell them to believe. With a sardonic chuckle of disgust, Jericho listened as they continued to jeer him and catcall him and chant "You Suck" at him. After almost a minute of listening to them, he finally got tired of it enough that he made them listen to him, putting the microphone to his mouth and letting brutal integrity take care of the rest.
"You know, ever since I exposed Shawn Michaels for the fraud that he is and ended up getting booed, people have been asking me the same question," Chris first stated. "'Why? Why, Chris Jericho, why? Why did you decide to betray Shawn Michaels? Why did you destroy Shawn Michaels? Why did you punch Rebecca in the face? How can you look at yourself and be proud of what you've done? What's wrong with you, Chris? Why have you changed? You used to be so funny, and so charismatic!' You know what? I am sick and tired of having to repeat myself, or having to repeat all the questions that have been presented before me. I'm through telling you people the base realization that I've come across that's led to this turn. I'm through trying to explain to you what is so fraudulent about Shawn Michaels, because it's become pretty damn clear over time that you people will never believe me, and even if you do, you don't care. You don't care how much of a deceiver, how much of a liar, how much of a fraud Shawn Michaels is. Or Triple H, for that matter. All you care about is how long they've been here, how many world titles they have, and how many stupid little sophomoric jokes they can tell you around the age of 40." Taking a brief pause, Jericho observed how the sheep jeered at him once again, and what that told him is that he had their attention. So now it was time to turn on the heavy artillery already.
"So I won't talk about Shawn Michaels. Or Triple H. I'll simply talk about what I came to talk about tonight. And what I came to talk to you peons about is Charmed," Jericho finally revealed. "You know, Charmed? That supernatural TV show with the Halliwell witch sisters and all the magic and demons and the Underworld… you know, all that stuff the Undertaker and Kane should probably be ruling over right now? Yeah, that show. I've never exactly been a really highly professed fan of Charmed, and as a matter of fact, I never even intended to have anything to mention or to say about it. It's just that a few months back, during the month of May, one day I woke up and I felt a little bored, and I ran into the show on TNT. Remembering that Alyssa Milano was one of Edge's celebrity crushes, and recognizing her face on the show, I decided to watch out of curiosity. I became captivated by her interactions with Julian McMahon, as they seemed to be really good at the way their characters acted. So I did a little research, I watched the show when I could, and an epiphany came to me that's been fueling my thoughts for the past few months." Then he heard a fan in the front row shouting at the top of his lungs.
"Why don't you just get to the point, jackass!?" this particular fan yelled, obviously looking and sounding temperamental like an alcoholic who'd gotten a little intoxicated before the show.
"Hey, moron. You might wanna shut your mouth and let the honest superstar talk before Lance Cade comes down there and kicks your ass. I'd do it myself right now, but you fans… no, you sheep, are not even worth soiling my hands, let alone being called wrestling fans," Chris replied to that fan, the other idiotic sheep showing their jeering colors as he redirected his attention to them. "As for my point, it's real simple. See, I'm about to mention a fictional couple that was paired together in Charmed and describe how similar the history of that couple is to the history between me and all of you people. So I hope that Julian McMahon and Alyssa Milano are big Raw fans, I hope that they're watching Raw right now, and I hope they're listening very closely to what I have to say. Because what has happened here over the last nine years has an exact metaphor in what happened to the characters they played, the district attorney Cole Turner and Phoebe Halliwell.
"See, the first time we saw Cole Turner, he was so good in court he swept Phoebe off her feet. Over the course of time, Phoebe started to connect and to bond lovingly with Cole. But then she realized that he was a demon… or, more appropriately, a half-demon, the other half being human, who was hired to kill her, which momentarily stifled all of that, before the realization set in that his love for her was so strong that it overcame his deviled blood. From there, the bond between Phoebe and Cole only became increasingly stronger - until the point where the entity known as the Source of All Evil entered his body and overtook him. As he was corrupted by this power which he was apparently not meant to have for too long, Phoebe eventually shunned and rejected his love, and with her sisters, the Charmed Ones, the show's namesake characters, went on to vanquish Cole. Then he somehow came back from the dead and continued to try to prove to Phoebe that he was able to control the powerful demonic ashes that now came inside him. And through all that, Phoebe always rejected him and turned him down out of fear of what the demonic part of his nature could do. At times, the Charmed Ones were reluctant or incidental allies. At times, they were squarely enemies. But the one constant was that she was never able to get over the fact that his blood took over even one time, and this is how she conditioned herself to not be in love with him anymore. Eventually he crossed the line to jumping the shark in one of his attempts to get Phoebe back, which ended in him being vanquished once and for all, never to be seen again outside of a limbo between life and death.
"But the pathway that Julian McMahon's character of Cole Turner has taken can be traced directly back to Chris Jericho," he then stated. The minute he made that insinuation, the sheep booed him for trying to compare himself to the actor's most phenomenal job. "See, much like with Cole and Phoebe, when I first came here nine years ago, with my long hair, crazy jokes, and over-the-top ego, each and every single one of you was dazzled… until the point you realized I was brash enough to go after some of your favorites. That stifled the bond between Chris Jericho and the fans, up until the point where people like Stephanie McMahon, Kurt Angle, and a few old friends of Shawn Michaels, ironically, became the asses of my jokes. And you people enjoyed seeing people like the old Triple H, who really hasn't changed a bit, especially his brilliant wife Stephanie, get theirs weekly to the point where you loved me to no end. Then, one day, I became big enough to adequately challenge the Rock." At the sound of the Rock's name, the crowd erupted. Chris let it subside, which took a little while, before continuing on as Lance Cade looked around without exactly looking too pleased, or even too displeased. To be quite frank, he didn't care about the Rock, so he didn't care about this. But back to Jericho.
"I proved that I wasn't willing to be subservient to your people's grand champion or to kiss his ass, but rather, to kick his ass. And I rose to the occasion, eventually defeating both the Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin to become the first-ever WWF Undisputed Champion, and the King of the World, eventually aligning myself with the same Stephanie McMahon as she and her husband Triple H had their… marital problems, so to speak. You people shunned me at that very instant, faster than Phoebe - Alyssa Milano's character, by the way - shunned Cole for becoming the Source of All Evil." He paused to listen to another spout of jeers that actually started at the part where Jericho said "King of the World". Cade started screaming to the people off-mike that they were doing nothing but proving Chris right, prodding them on to jeer even further. "And… from there, I ended up losing the title after a few months. Losing Hell in a Cell to Triple H later on. But I rebounded, thanks to friends like Edge and Christian - one providing me a good rival, the other a sidekick. I continued to entertain, to be the same Chris Jericho I always was, yet because you refused to forget when I conquered the People's Champion and Steve Austin, it took a cruel joke to be played on me by Christian and Trish Stratus for you people to cheer for me. You cheered for a year because Trish and Christian were annoying you all like hell, and later because you'd cheer anyone who took on Triple H's Evolution. But even so, even as you cheered me, you only cheered half-heartedly compared to in the past, because you could never get over the fact that I ever grew up from being Stephanie's scourge to becoming greater than the Rock and Stone Cold and even patching things up with Stephanie.
"Which you clearly proved as soon as I stepped up against John Cena. The second I even touched him, you people booed. You booed me, you ostracized me, you turned on me for attacking Cena faster than Phoebe looked Cole in the eye after he went mad and said she felt nothing for him anymore. You betrayed me, and you prodded your three-move voice of the street to victory to the point where I lost a Loser Gets Fired match and ended up absent from Raw for more than two years. But the similarity in the story stops there," Chris boldly declared, undeterred by the cheers people gave at the mention of his humiliating dismissal at the hands of Bischoff over three years ago.
"The similarity stops there because unlike Cole Turner, Chris Jericho had not suffered his final vanquish in that two-year exile from Raw," Jericho then stated. The sheep responded to Jericho making himself actually sound better than this Cole character by continuing to boo him to hell. Cade told him off-mike something he already supposed, which was that most of them probably never even watched Charmed, yet are just booing at Jericho for the sake of booing at him. "Let's face it, most of you are only booing me because it's me. At least half of you didn't even know the show existed as anything more than yet another gig where Alyssa Milano had some nude scenes. Newsflash, idiots: after watching a few episodes and talking to some fans of Charmed who aren't wrestling fans, I believe her run there includes a grand total of one nude scene, which wasn't even sensual at all. And you people have the audacity to boo me for saying I'm better than Cole Turner as if it actually means anything when the fact is, if you asked Julian McMahon about my comments, he'd agree with me. He'd say that Cole and I are the exact same thing except I'm not dead." In came even more boos. Cade shook his head, amazed at how these bozos in the crowd were not understanding anything.
"You know who Phoebe ended up settling for in the end? An annoyingly dull cupid named Coop. If you want me to describe him further… actually, whether you do or not, I don't care. I'm about to do it right now," Chris continued, again flanked with jeers as they couldn't face the fact that this whole rant was a simple product of the fact that he didn't care anymore. "Okay, so here goes. He's uncharismatic, he's boring, he's unoriginal, he's always rambling on about knowing what love is, and he's played by a completely plain and uncool Casanova-wannabe Canadian named Victor Webster." Some of the people cheered those shots at an actor just to try and feel rebellious, but most of them continued to demonstrate the obvious to him - he wasn't winning anybody over tonight.
"That's about all the information I was willing to go into. I can tell you people are annoyed. But quite frankly you need to understand where this information makes you hypocrites, where in it my epiphany makes sense from," he continued. Yeah, he continued. And so did the jeering former Jerichoholics. "You see… I'm about to prove through all of you, and through Phoebe, Alyssa Milano's longest gig herself, that you WWE crowds are all multitudes of hypocrites. You enjoy the breaking of bonds, you enjoy pain and chaos. You live vicariously through misfortune and shunning and betrayal. That is, unless all that is happening to you.
"If you guys had actually watched Charmed, and Julian McMahon had gotten tired of Nip/Tuck within two years, and his reappearance in the 150th episode of Charmed was full time as opposed to a one-off, and Cole Turner came back not only alive and well, but changed, and he told Phoebe straight to her face that it was over, that he knew the truth now, that he now realized his love for Phoebe had done nothing but bring him down, and most importantly that he saw her as his problem and was not in love with her anymore, you people would look at him and say; 'Wow… what a badass.' You would be cheering at his return, and you would see the program as having been drastically improved in one stroke. This is the exact same thing happening here, except it's me telling this to all of you. And here you are, booing me to living hell." That comment only prompted them to get right back to what he said they were doing. Chris turned to Cade and told him "how sad" off-mike, before turning to the fans again.
"The fact is, you people think someone's a badass until they do something to you, and then you turn around and call 'em a jackass. I just find that hypocritical and frivolous. As a matter of fact, I find that incredulous. More than anything, I find that to be absolutely ridiculous," he pointed out, only to be catcalled and jeered even further by the sheep. Cade shook his head yet again and was now sighing and muttering under his breath how pathetic they were, and with good reason.
"But what I find more incredulous is who you shun me for. You morons shun me in favor of people like CM Punk, who haven't truly proven anything of what they're supposedly capable of, and people like Shawn Michaels, who would subject me to their history of lying and stabbing friends in the back before I ever did anything to them. You people shunning me, a good and honest man who actually once thought you were worth saving, for Shawn Michaels and CM Punk is really the same as how Phoebe shunned Cole… basically, as it turns out, for this Coop guy I described earlier. Coop is a complete joke, Shawn Michaels is a fraud, and CM Punk is a nobody from no-name circuits who just happened to win a world title by committing bank fraud," Jericho expressed, the "bank fraud" remark taking reference to both the straight-edger's opportunistic use of the Money in the Bank briefcase and the fact that Punk had stolen that exact same method from the very guy he used it on, Edge.
"You people deserve to be called Jerichoholics about as much as any acting role Alyssa's ever had deserves to be called Mrs. Cole Turner, let alone the one that did. And to be honest, that actually means zero percent - absolutely nothing," Jericho stated, still stoic and solid and serious in his stance - as is Lance in his clapping for Jericho as everybody else… you already know. Boos. "This Sunday at No Mercy, Shawn Michaels - your Heartbreak Kid, the same Shawn Michaels you people earnestly repeated the pattern of turning on me faster than a speeding bullet once I attacked, is finally going to understand what he should've realized all along. That he is not just stepping into the ring with an angry Chris Jericho. He's stepping into the ring with the wrestling manifestation of what would happen if a demon from Charmed had said no more to a love which simply because of his blood was destined to end him. Hell, if you wanna take it one step further to a story we all know, the wrestling manifestation of what would've happened if Romeo had said no more to thinking he could love Juliet when their families were at each other's throats. The story of Romeo and Juliet, as well as Charmed, would both be completely different. Romeo and Cole Turner would have known the freedom that Chris Jericho knows now."
"Shawn, you're about to step into the ring in a ladder match with a living epiphany. You're about to step into the ring with the man who represents all that tragic characters like Cole and Romeo could have been if they had only realized they were not meant to enter the loves they entered, or probably to even love at all. You're about to step into the ring not with a story, but with the truth. And I don't mean that R-Truth guy on Smackdown. I'm talking about a truth that neither you nor these people can even handle. You are about to come face to face… with the Illumining Savior… Chris… Jericho."
As his theme music came back on amidst the chorus of boos which was probably draining these hateful people's voice boxes, Cade was clapping, shouting in support of Jericho's every word, and even patting him on the back to reaffirm his position alongside Chris. Finally sick of standing in that ring in front of those people, the Ayatollah (no longer of Rock-N-Rolla) left the ring and walked up the ramp, his new student behind him. He was hoping that at least some of the sheep would realize the atrocity of this fan base he was warring against here, but unfortunately, absolutely nobody woke up with his message and became a true wrestling fan. There were even some of those that apparently felt so upset they had to hear his music after listening through all that that they started throwing stuff in the ring after he left. If he wasn't so sickened by them, he would probably shake his head in pity at these people - because as much they hated him for simply being an honest man, all their boos and catcalls ever did was fuel the reality of his words.
Because of that, he knew he could beat Shawn Michaels. And at No Mercy this Sunday, he will beat Shawn Michaels. And he will still call himself the World Heavyweight Champion.
Even as the sheep treated him like dirt, he still had the sidekick. And he still had the best smug posture this side of the galaxy.
Damn, it felt good these days to be Chris Jericho.
A/N: Just so anybody knows, this was not some attempt to actually take any legitimate potshots at Alyssa Milano, her role as Phoebe Halliwell, CM Punk, or Shawn Michaels. Maybe a couple are taken at Triple H, but he's not important, nor is that Canadian Webster guy and his pathetic cupid role. The important thing is as I listened to Jericho's theme song and read a Cole-centered Charmed fanfic or two at the same time, this idea came to my head that Julian McMahon's Charmed role as Cole Turner was exactly like Jericho's character, and this was how I ran with it.
Shawn Michaels and CM Punk just happened to be casualties because Shawn's the one feuding with Jericho on-screen and Punk's the one who lost his title to CJ. Alyssa Milano, or namely her Phoebe character, which I find a personal favorite, just happened to be a casualty because… well, as the Ayatollah just thoroughly explained, Alyssa's Phoebe is to Julian's Cole as the fans… no, wait, the sheep, are to Chris Jericho.
There is a group, though, that should absolutely take this as personally as they want - the very same pure sheep of the WWE who just cheer the faces and boo the heels. As I had Jericho explain, they shouldn't even be called fans. They should just be called sheep.
Now, if anybody wants to follow this up and turn it into some kind of story where Julian McMahon becomes the manager for Cade and Jericho, be my guest. Just tell me about it first so I can read and review. Speaking of reading and reviewing, maybe some of you guys could do the same for me over here?
In any case, catch ya soon, peeps!
(The Scarlet Cloak fic should be updated in a day or two.)
-Dizzle the Lord of Superstars,
signing out a Jerichoholic.