The Best In The World: At What I Have No Idea by Chris Jericho Review

My review of Chris Jericho's latest book The Best In The World: At What I Have No Idea. It's Chris Jericho approved

(Also at 411Mania.com)

Chris Jericho is not only one of the best sports entertainers to step into the squared circle and he’s not only one of the most energetic leading men in rock-n-roll, he’s also one of the most talented writers to ever pick up a pen. 

His latest autobiography The Best In The World: At What I Have No Idea further cements that status.

I was so excited for Jericho’s newest book that I went back and re-read A Lion’s Tale: Around The World In Spandex and Undisputed: How To Become A World Champion In 1,372 Easy Steps just to re-familiarize myself with the Jerichonicles before diving into his latest effort. I had forgotten half the stories in those books, but quickly remembered just how funny and engaging Y2J is on paper. 

The Best In The World picks up where Undisputed left off, which is Jericho’s return to WWE in 2007 after the Save.Us vignettes. From there Jericho talks about his WWE run, including his classic feuds with Shawn Michaels, Rey Mysterio, CM Punk, and his tag team run with Big Show. 

We all know that Jericho has a pretty storied wrestling career, but his 2007-2012 run might be the best of his career. It was great reliving the Michaels feud through the eyes of Jericho. Everyone knows the deep respect that Jericho has for Michaels, so to read about the feud, and other Jericho/Michaels stories in the book, was very interesting and enlightening. 

The Jericho and Vince McMahon relationship is also an interesting one. Fans who read Undisputed got insight on how Vince operates and why that led to trouble for Jericho at times. Fans who read The Best In The World will get even more insight on the psyche of Mr. McMahon and what makes him tick and why that continued to lead to trouble for Jericho. 

Along with insight about wrestlers, the reader is also treated to insight about celebrities. Remember that in 2009 and 2010 WWE had a guest celebrity host every week and more often than not Jericho ended up doing a scene or two with the guest host. Some of them were good and some of them were bad and Jericho isn’t afraid to share who sucked and who surprised him. 
Of course, Jericho isn’t just a really good wrestler with really good wrestling stories, he’s also the lead singer of a pretty big metal band named Fozzy. I don’t follow the metal scene and don’t hear a lot about Fozzy in the mainstream, so until reading Jericho’s books I’ve always just assumed that Fozzy was pretty insignificant in the music business. And maybe they aren’t huge rockstars on the level of the Foo Fighters or (insert the name of some popular rock band here) but they are definitely well-respected in the rock/metal industry and Jericho has the stories to back that up. Whether he’s hanging out with Slash or hosting the Golden Gods Awards, there are plenty of stories involving Jericho and some of the biggest names in rock history. 

Wrestling fans who don’t care or don’t know much about rock music might find these stories a bit overwhelming at time as Jericho talks about a ton of people who I’ve never heard of like they are Steve Austin. That said, I imagine if you’re just a huge Fozzy fan who doesn’t care about pro wrestling you can find all the wrestling stories pretty overwhelming as Jericho talks about a ton of people you’ve probably never heard of like they are Mick Jagger. 

The good news is that Jericho is such a good storyteller that it doesn’t matter if you’ve heard of certain people or not because you’re still drawn in by his writing. Jericho writes very loosely and throws in a ton of pop culture references that will really test or expand your useless trivia knowledge. 

The only thing that bothered me throughout the book were the little mistakes that could’ve easily been avoided. Come on Chris, you should know that Mike Tyson was the special guest enforcer at Wrestlemania 14, not Wrestlemania 15, and that they are called Imagine Dragons, not Imagination Dragons. Again, these are small details, but they are also avoidable details and something I would expect Jericho to avoid given how much of a perfectionist he is. Small errors don’t ruin a great book, but they do prevent it from being one of the frootest books of all-time. That’s right, one good proofreader and this book could’ve been the autobiography version of The Grapes of Wrath. 

Small errors aside, Jericho once again proved why he’s the best wrestler turned writer in the world. That title will remain around his waist as long as Mick Foley sticks to blogging (although Foley has never beaten Jericho in a wrestling match, so I’m not sure if he could beat him in a writing contest either) and John Cena sticks to wrestling, movies, music, making wishes, commercials, drinking contests, and different colored shirts. Because if Cena ever decides to challenge Jericho for the writing title, we all know how that story will end.