Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock might have been the two biggest names in wrestling in the 1990s, but neither can claim to be the first ever WWE Undisputed Champion. That distinction goes to Chris Jericho, who used his quick wit and ring savvy to regularly steal the show during his time in the WWE, as well as the other two major wrestling promotions.

Having accomplished everything he ever dreamt of in the squared circle, Jericho is now trying to break the walls down in the entertainment industry. When not touring with his band Fozzy or working on his autobiography, Jericho can routinely be seen on VH1 shows like I Love the 80s and The Best Week Ever and at The Groundlings show, Cookin' With Gas.

He recently took time out of his hectic schedule to talk about his experiences in the ring, life after wrestling and the severe lack of midgets in the business today.

Before we get into everything, let's go back to the very beginning. What drew you into professional wrestling initially, and how did you break into the business?
I got into wrestling because I was a big fan of it as a kid. I used to watch it with my grandmother. And I kind of decided when I was 14 this was what I wanted to do. So I went to train with the Hart brothers pro wrestling camp in Calgary, which was about 12 hours away from Winnipeg, where I grew up in Canada. That was Bret Hart's father and that's where a lot of the guys trained - Chris Benoit, Brian Pillman, a lot of guys like that.

They had a show called Stampede Wrestling, which I was a big fan of, and at the end of every show they'd have an address up on the screen saying, "If you want to be a wrestler, write to this address." So, I did and they said, "When you're 18, you can come train." So that's what I set my sites on since I was 15. When I graduated from high school, I was 17 and still too young to go to wrestling school, so I went to college for a couple of years, basically to kill the time until I was old enough. Then, when I was 19, I left home and went to school and that's basically how it was done.

You worked for each of the "big three" (WWF, WCW and ECW) during wrestling's boom in the 90s. What was it like to be involved in wrestling during that time and what was it like working for each company?
You used the slang of the "big three," I'm not even privy to that. You know more than I do. I wasn't even aware of the "big three." I did work for the big three. It was great.

ECW was the first time I really had a job nationally in the states and it was a real almost like cult atmosphere in the way that people treated it as fans and the way the wrestlers treated it just being part of the company. Everybody was really dedicated to it and they really gave 100 percent in their belief to the company and to their matches. It didn't matter if there were 300 people there or 200 people there, the show was always quality and it was an almost Japanese style of wrestling in the fact that the matches were very hard hitting.

Moving to WCW was more of a show-business kind or era. The NWO era, with Hogan and all of those guys. And being a good wrestler was almost secondary and that's kind of how it was for me there in the fact that you can only get to a certain level and you would never crack through the ranks to meet up with guys like Hogan, Savage, Hall and Nash and those type of guys. It was a great place for older guys who had made their money to be, but not for a younger guy who wanted to make a name for himself.

That's why I made the jump to go to the WWF, take a chance and jump over there, and that's what I did and working there in the prime time when Austin, The Rock, Jericho, Undertaker and Foley and all these guys who are no longer there anymore were at their peak was not only a great experience as a performer, but also for the fans as well. It was kind of almost the golden age for wrestling for our generation and it would be hard to top that just because the amount of originality in the talent and the amount of originality in the characters and performers, I can't see that being matched anytime soon.

You were the first-ever undisputed WWE Champion, beating Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock in a tournament. Where does that accomplishment rank for you personally?
I have a list of accomplishments that I think are major for me. When I first started, all I wanted to do was be the WWF Intercontinental Champion. I did that seven times. I stole the show at Wrestlemania 19 with Shawn Michaels, I was Tag Team Champion, European Champion, Midget Champion ... every kind of championship you could have in the WWF, I had it. But to win the Undisputed Championship was obviously top three in my all time accomplishments because it was like winning an Oscar. That's what being a world champion is like. All of the emphasis and the hat is kind of hung on you, so to speak, to become the Undisputed Champion and to win in that way, beating Rock and Stone Cold in the same night, nobody could ever do that, nobody will ever do that again. It's like winning an Oscar in my field – only it's unparalleled in that it can't be duplicated.

What are some of your favorite moments in the ring? What matches or angles stand out the most?
Like I said, stealing the show at Wrestlemania 19 was a great moment with Shawn Michaels. There were tons, I was very proud of Trish Stratus-Christian love triangle because I wrote most of that story. The same thing when Steve Austin got fired by Eric Bischoff, that was about a six month story that started with me and Austin that I had a lot of input in. I'm very proud of my final program with John Cena that I had before I left. I had a lot of emphasis on that storyline as well. There's so much stuff. I definitely did more than I ever thought I would and I have no regrets about anything in my career and there's really nothing I didn't do.

Talk to us a little bit about the WWE's grueling travel schedule. How many days out of the year would you say you were on the road and how much of a physical and mental toll does it all take on you?
That's one of the reasons I took a break from wrestling. Mentally, it was much more taxing than physically. To be on the road four or five days a week, every week, it never stops, no holidays, no Christmas break, no nothing, it gets you after a while. The 10 or 15 minutes that you are actually in the ring, that's a blast, but all of the traveling you have to do to get there is very difficult. You leave your house Friday morning, you land at an airport, you rent a car, you drive to the building, you do the show, you drive to the next town, Saturday's the same thing, Sunday is the next thing, Monday you maybe have to fly to where Raw is and then fly home on Tuesday. You get Wednesday, Thursday off, then you're back on it again on Friday. And that's not even if you go internationally. It's taxing because of all of the travel and you definitely get a little bit callous towards it, but there's only so much you can take. After 15 years of doing it, it was really starting to wear on me and it was time for me to get away for a while.

Do you see yourself coming back at some point?
Well, I never said I was going to retire and I don't have any specific timeline as to when I would come back. Who knows? As of right now, I've been working on so many other things and I've got so many other projects that I really haven't had time to think about going back. And, like I said, I don't miss the business right now because I've done everything in it and when I watch the shows, there's really nothing there that makes me feel like, "Wow, I'm being left out. I really need to get back on Raw tomorrow and still be one of the best guys on the roster and still have one of the best matches of the night after not having wrestled for 12, 13, 14 months." It's just a matter of knowing your abilities and knowing because of the experiences I had to get there that there's really not a lot of people that can overpass me, even at this point in time.

How much wrestling do you watch? Do you still keep up with the programs?
I don't watch a lot of the shows, but I still keep up with what's going on through the Internet and I watch the odd show here or there. I'm still a wrestling fan. I can't watch it as a pure fan anymore after working in the business so long, but I'm still curious to see whose doing good and who the new guys are because that's the most important thing. In wrestling you have to have a turn around in talent and have guys on the show who will be the guys to carry things in the future. Sometimes you see that and sometimes you don't.

If you were to take over as president and owner of a wrestling company, such as WWE, ECW or TNA, what would be your first decision? How would you run your company?
That's hard to say because running a wrestling company as it is would be almost impossible. You have to be willing to lose millions of dollars to even get it up and running. I mean, I have so much money that I just throw it away anyways, but to spend that kind of money on a wrestling company is really hard. It's hard to say. There are always things that you think you could do better. I think it would be very hard to run a wrestling company, I don't even know where I would start. I'd hire a bunch of midgets because midget wrestling needs to make a big comeback in the year 2007.

We completely agree with that. There is not nearly enough midget wrestling around today.
There's not enough, there's just not enough. There are still just as many midgets, but there's just not enough midget wrestling. And I think that's part of the reason why wrestling is in a little bit of a downswing right now. That and a lack of Lithuanians in the business. It's a crime.

Why don't you think there are more Lithuanians? Is there a factor contributing to that?
It has to do with the whole Lithuania mafia scandal of 20 years ago and Rasputin still has his tentacles in there and Elvis is involved.

Once you decided to take a break, how tough was the transition from wrestling to acting? We've seen before, with guys like Hulk Hogan, that being a huge wrestling star doesn't necessarily translate into an acting career. Is it completely starting over?
Of course it's starting over. I think one of the things with Hogan was he probably walked in thinking he's going to be at the big level, but I don't have that attitude at all. I'm happy starting at the bottom and working my way up because I did it once before. Anytime you start something you haven't done before, you have to put a lot of work into it and a lot of time into it but one of the reasons why I left wrestling was because I had so many projects that were going that just needed a little bit more time to take it to the next level.