The World's Smallest Jerichoholic

Yes, he's playing WWE '13

 My son Asher's love for wrestling is phenomenal.  The little guy isn't even 2 yet, and he's utterly fascinated by the WWE.  He'll settle for TNA, but RAW and Smackdown are definitely his favorite shows, and he's always up for a WWE Pay-Per-View.  The bizarre thing is that even though I'm pretty much a lifelong fan myself, I really didn't force it on him at all.  I figured we might get there one day, but Kris and I thought he would be into cartoons and such at this age, and while he does have a fondness for Spider-Man, nothing tickles his fancy like wrestling. 

The little guy is glued to the screen when it's on.  He claps.  He says "uh-oh" a lot, and he raises his arm triumphantly when someone he likes wins a match.  Incidentally, he picked up the raising his arm bit from a Steve Austin feature we watched on Netflix, so he celebrates a victory in Texas Rattlesnake fashion.  He doesn't understand why we can't fast-forward through the commercials (we like our DVR a lot) and he gets very frustrated, repeatedly grabbing the remote control and crying out for Jericho during each and every commercial break.  Ah, the cries for Jericho.  That might be the strangest part.

As a child, I started off with Hogan and Macho, and then in the late 80s and early 90s, I was all about Ric Flair.  Chris Jericho hit my radar in a big way when he went heel in WCW, and when he become a WWE superstar, he quickly became my favorite.  Has been ever since.  Yet I wasn't about to force Jericho on my kids (yes, even my girls, Alaina and Taryn, ages 7 and 5, are wrestling fans) and I thought it would be a little strange for my little fella to be rooting for a heel anyway--which Jericho was working as when my main man Ash started taking interest.  So, my wife and I got him a big stuffed Cena and basically pushed Cena and Sheamus on him.  I guess he could tell who the old man was pulling for, however, and he followed suit.

Asher frequently wakes us with his "Jericho" nonsense, and he will gladly club either of us in the face with a remote control while saying it just to make sure we get the hint.  He could watch Jericho 24/7, and I've lost count of how many times he has watched the Jericho set the WWE put out a few years ago.  Trust me, we're both eager for the next one.

Now, he's also saying Cena, Ryback, and Big Show these days, so he is branching out, but he remains the world's smallest Jerichoholic.  It's a little strange perhaps, and he's much better at picking up moves than adhering to the "don't do this for your own safety" warnings the WWE frequently dishes out, but it's also pretty adorable.  And the kids has taste.  Jericho's surprise return at the Royal Rumble took us all by surprise, and I don't know if I have ever seen the little guy so transfixed.  Not only that, but Jericho is doing some of his best work ever, and while most of his finest stretches came as a heel, he's killing it as a face these days. 

Who knows?  Maybe it's time to buy the little guy a stuffed Y2J . . .

Bonus:  In a strange coincidence, Chris Jericho has a son named Ash, which is what my wife and I call Asher.  Now, we didn't name our son after his son, but I think Chris and I are both fans of the Evil Dead franchise.  My wife isn't, and she didn't realize why I was so quick to agree when she suggested Asher as a name and noted we could call him "Ash" for short.