Why WWE Hall Of Famer Loved Hearing About Infamous Chris Jericho Backstage Fight
A WWE Hall of Famer has shared his perspective on a backstage fight involving Chris Jericho, a well-known incident in the wrestling world.
The pro wrestling business is highly competitive, so there are sometimes backstage incidents involving wrestlers and other personnel.
Chris Jericho is one of the most successful wrestlers of the last 30+ years, but even he has had his share of backstage incidents. One of the more famous ones was when he fought Bill Goldberg in the WWE locker room shortly after Goldberg debuted in WWE in March 2003.
Writing in his book Undisputed: How to Become World Champ in 1,372 Easy Steps, Jericho detailed what happened that night.
“It was Goldfinch’s first Raw, and I worked with HHH vs. Shawn and Booker T. After the match, I was pulled aside and informed that Goldsmith had spent the entire match barking to Nash about how I didn’t know how to sell properly and how I hadn’t wanted to do business with him in WCW.”
“It made me mad that he had only been with the company for a little over a week, and he was already up to his old tricks. It was time to put a stop to it right now. I marched straight into the dressing room and saw Nash sitting in the corner like a giant praying mantis acting like he owned the place, while Billy Boy sat across from him with a self-indulgent smile on his face. Throwing caution to the wind, I stood in front of him and stared directly into his eyes.”
“‘I heard you were saying some stuff about me during my match. I don’t know if you realize it, but things have changed. This isn’t WCW. If you have something to say to me, say it to my face.’”
In a May 2025 interview, Chris Jericho provided more details about the fight.
“We start arguing and I’m like, f*** it. So, he puts his hand on my throat, like does this sort of a thing. Now, you know, I’m not a giant, but you f*****n’ put your hand on my throat, like that’s a fight.
So, I just kind of attacked him and somehow we started rolling around, and I got him over where I was able to put like a body scissor on, and then I put kind of a choke on it. I’m like, this guy’s going to get up and f****n’ kill me. But I was like, man, I can’t let go. He’s going to kill me. He’s going to f’n kill me. So then I kind of got pulled off and they pull us apart.”
After they locked up, other wrestlers and WWE personnel broke up the fight.
As for who won, Goldberg admitted on Chris Jericho’s podcast that Jericho won the fight.
“Oh my god. Yeah, you kicked my ass. Pretty good, man.”
Jericho would go on to say that after they fought, everything was cool, and he’s now friends with Goldberg.
The Goldberg-Chris Jericho Fight Was Amusing To Other WWE Wrestlers
John Bradshaw Layfield is a WWE Hall of Famer who was part of the roster in 2003 when the Goldberg-Chris Jericho happened. While speaking about Goldberg’s career on Something To Wrestle, JBL gave the perspective of other wrestlers regarding the fight.
“It just happened. You know, s**t happens. S**t happens backstage sometimes. Jericho is a standup dude. Jericho is not scared of nothing. And, you know, Goldberg and he got into a confrontation.
Any time you hear about a fight, or a dust up, I don’t know if it was a full fight, but it was a dust up, the boys love it. It’s fun.
And we all wanted to know what happened, we wanted to hear it from every different perspective. I heard it from Jericho’s perspective. He told me directly…what happened, like he told a lot of people. We talked to anybody who were witnesses there. You know, the boys enjoy stuff like that.”
Over 20 years later, Goldberg just competed in his final WWE match (even though he’s not happy about it), and Jericho remains active as an AEW wrestler at 54 years old, even though he has taken time off over the last few months.