Chris Jericho Reveals Original Name He Pitched For The Walls Of Jericho

On a recent episode of Talk Is Jericho , Chris Jericho marked the 25-year anniversary of his debut with the WWF. He talked about his final days with WCW and why he chose to leave, meeting with Vince McMahon at his house prior to signing a contract with the company, and Jericho also analyzed his iconic Y2J promo upon his arrival.

When Jericho came to the WWF, he was using the Boston Crab, eventually named the Walls of Jericho, as his finishing move. However, the move wasn’t called that at first.

“I remember debating what my finish would be,” he recalled. “I think Vince thought I could use something more explosive than a Boston Crab. We were talking back and forth. I said, ‘Whatever you want to call it, it’s going to be the Y2J Problem.’ He said, ‘No, that’s not the name of your finish, that’s your name.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘That’s your nickname.’ ‘The Y2J Problem?’ ‘No, just Y2J.’ That’s one of those little things that Vince is really genius about, a little detail that created this amazing name that, especially for the time, people still chant to this day even though I haven’t used that name since 2008.”

Jericho continued: “The finish, when we did decide to use the Boston Crab, Liontamer, he didn’t like that because Ken Shamrock had the Lion’s Den. We came up with Walls of Jericho. Another idea I had was the Standing Torture Device, which was the STD. It was the Attitude Era. It would have worked. They also gave me a list of finishers that WWE corporate came up with, and I remember one of them was the ‘Rock ’N’ Roll Finisher and the other was the Salad Shooter. I think there was a thing you could buy on an infomercial called The Salad Shooter. ‘Why would I call it the Salad Shooter?’ I realized, maybe, because of the Sharpshooter, but what does salad have to do with Chris Jericho?”

Listen to the full Talk Is Jericho episode here .