Chris Jericho, get off my lawn!

Something about Chris Jericho is drawing the ire of bitter old men.  First it was in Kayfabe, when Jericho took on Ricky Steamboat, Roddy Piper, & Jimmy Snucka at WrestleMania 25.  More recently, he’s been the subject of incoherent rants by retirees outside of the ring.  First it was Larry Zbyszko, and now it’s Superstar Billy Graham.

Maybe it’s his dashing good looks, unparrelleled charisma, or better-than-most in-ring profile that has the old-timers so hot and bothered.  Maybe its the fact that at by the time he was age 30, he had accomplished more than they had in their entire careers, or that he’s 40 now and people still care about him.  Maybe it’s that he’s remained relevant to the average wrestling fan in his post-ring career by appearing on a wildly successful reality show, becoming a bestselling author, and touring with his band, while Zbyszko and Graham fell into the pit of obscurity in which they belong.  Or maybe it’s that he did all this without having to destroy his body with steroids in the process.  Whatever it is, the old geezers aren’t happy about what that young whippersnapper Chris Jericho is saying.

After the Chris Benoit tragedy, Billy Graham (the medical expert that he is) went on record as saying there was no way steroids played a part in Benoit’s grievous decision making.  In Jericho’s book, Undisputed, he criticized Graham’s bullheadedness on the matter.  Now, in a recent interview with SLAM! Wrestling, Billy Graham has responded, and his comments are immature testoserone-juiced drivel.  He promises to one day “walk across Chris Jericho’s skull on the floor of hell,” calls Chris an idiot, and threatens to “beat the living hell out of him” and “spit on his grave.”  He wraps up by calling Jericho’s Undisputed, a New York Times Best Seller, “phony.”  Billy Graham also has a book, billed as an autobiography, ghostwritten by Keith Elliot Greenberg.

In the same interview, Billy Graham demands his removal from the WWE Hall of Fame.  According to him, it was blasphemous for Abdullah the Butcher to be inducted because he’s never wrestled a match for the company.  He goes on to state that it takes a “shameless organization to induct a bloodthirsty animal such as Abdullah the Butcher into their worthless and embarrassing Hall of Fame,” and that he “wants out.”  The irony is Graham is the one who sounds like an animal with his vicious comments in this very same interview.  Chris Jericho, class act that he is, has responded to all of Graham’s nonsense with “God bless him and best of luck in all he does in the future.”