I must admit... I'm going to be a little bit bias on this one. you see, I will argue to anyone who listens to me that Chris Jericho was far more original as his old heel form then he EVEEERRRRR (Sorry, I was compulsed) was in this new form. I feel that he was in his prime at WCW (where he was considerably misused) as the character who talked too much trash, and then when confronted about it, would get his ass kicked. In his days at WCW, crowds will tell you they came to watch Chris Jericho get the piss beat out of him. That, I feel, is the exact job of the heel: make the crowd so irate, that they are paying money to come and watch you get your ass kicked. Granted, WCW never capitalized on that, and never put him up against a stronger opponent than Dean Malenko, but there was so much potential there. Anyone remember his little stunt at Fall Brawl 1998, when he called out "Goldberg"? I know when I was sitting at home, I was praying Goldberg would come out and destroy him (Of course, I was ten at that point, but the fact still remains.)
Jericho knew how to work a crowd in those days... Granted, he still does, and does it better than most anyone in WWE now. But something about his days in WCW seem almost untouchable. Hell, WWE came close to debuting Jericho the right way, by having him take his first crack at the Rock upon his debut (The only problem was the Rock proceeded to bury him afterward). It's just that no one, for whatever reason, wanted to give Jericho the kind of spot he has now. Kind of ironic, in a way...