The Unspoken Irony of Chris Jericho Helping Goldberg Win the WWE Title

In the main event at last night’s WWE FastLane, Universal champion Kevin Owens got squashed by Goldberg. After playing mind games and jumping out of the ring several times before the match started, Owens was shocked when the music of his “former best friend” Chris Jericho hit and he emerged from the tunnel. Goldberg seized on the opportunity to spear, jackhammer, and pin the champ in about 20 seconds.

The irony in all this — and it will be surprising if this gets brought up on WWE television at all, but who knows — is that Chris Jericho and Goldberg hated each other during their previous time together in WCW and WWE.

As I wrote last January, Jericho went on Ric Flair’s podcast and described their previous beef. Jericho had a bit where he would beat up a short-person Goldberg or challenge him to a fight on nights where he knew Goldberg wasn’t in the arena. Goldberg supposedly did not take kindly to this. When WCW wanted him to lose to Goldberg in a squash on Nitro, Jericho resisted by hiding up in the rafters in real-life and avoiding the confrontation. He wanted the fight to be on PPV, and eventually Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan agreed with that plan.

On a different podcast in 2013, Jericho talked about a kerfuffle that occurred in WWE, after WCW folded. Jericho had been in WWE for a bit by this point, and said he was “no longer the low guy on the totem pole.” Goldberg allegedly complained about Jericho “burying him on the internet,” they got in each others’ faces, and Jericho choked him out.

Funny that all these years later, by virtue of a common storyline enemy, they wound up allies for an evening.