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Chris Jericho On 6 Years Of AEW, "Please Retire" Chants, MJF, John Cena, Hall Of Fame
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Chris Jericho (@chrisjerichofozzy) is a professional wrestler currently signed with AEW. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss his legendary professional wrestling career, how he feels about the state of professional wrestling in the modern era, being in the business for 35 years, his thoughts on the "Please retire" chants from the fans, why competition is good in wrestling, John Cena's year-long retirement tour and if he has thought about retirement, what he is most proud of since the start of AEW, the catchphrases that worked and those that didn't, the Dinner Debonair segment with MJF and how it was nearly changed at the last second and more!
Quote I'm thinking about: "You only have one life, so you should live it as beautifully as you can." - Eddie Van Halen
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"I mean, it was very much a closed, secret script. So what I got, you're looking at your two pages, there was basically the three or four pages of my scene and that was it. So I didn't know where it was in the movie. I didn't know what happened before it or afterwards, but they were really keeping it tight to make sure that none of the detailed plot points got out. So I didn't know anything about the movie until I saw it in the theater. It's a hell of a death, it's pretty cool. Back in the old days they would do a mold of your face with putty or whatever it was. Now they do it with a digital kind of wand, the same way they do action figures in wrestling. So they kind of took a scan of my face and then I get on set, and there's this bust of my face screaming, but it's got skin tones, and it like really looks just like me. So we do the scene, and there's two of them. The faceless chick puts her hand in my mouth and Art the Clown puts his hand here and there's blood coming out. It's cut, then they put my rubber face and ripped the jaw off, the skin stretching, and it's like this looks just like me and I'm standing right off behind the camera watching this going I'm right here guys, this is f*cking terrible. It's surreal to watch your own face get ripped apart, but that's just the modern technology. They made it look exactly like me."
"It was weird because it was two and a half years, and I was really burned out on what wrestling was. [It was] 2005 so I've been doing it for 15 years. Then around that time we find out that we're having twins and suddenly, oh my gosh, I need a job. So I did a lot of signings. I did a lot of different stuff. I was working for GTV, if you remember that channel, I can’t remember what the name of the show was, not the Daily Show, something along those lines. I was kind of picking up as many gigs as I could. VH1 was really big at the time, and so I was really hustling. But it was weird, because it's not like I really missed wrestling. It's like I really like pizza, but if you have too much pizza, you're done. You got me a large pizza, you have three pieces, I'm full, and you kind of push it away, and I was really was full on wrestling, shall we say. I didn't really watch wrestling. I kind of followed along with reading the sheets or reading the internet, but I didn't watch anything. Once again, kind of gave me a real, new perspective. I studied acting. I was spending a lot of time in LA working on that process of it, doing the groundlings like I said. So I wasn't wrestling, per se, but I was really working on the skills that I feel made me the biggest I'd ever been at the time in 2008 when I returned. I mean, I returned in 07 but 08 when the suit and tie Jericho came out with the Shawn Michaels feud and The Big Show pairing. The reason why those worked so well is because I had learned a lot about the process of acting and the process of living in the moment, which is basically what improv is, and having both of those skills kind of really honed in helped me a lot from that point forward."
"Yeah it's pretty crazy, 34 years, and listen, I always laugh when people will say do you still love it? If I didn't love it, I wouldn't do it. I'm not doing it for money at this point. It's the creative fulfilment, there's a challenge. Contrary to popular belief, I don't demand to be on every show every week. My boss books me for shows because of what I bring to the table, and still enjoying it and still really working on how can we make things better, how can we do more storylines, and what can I do this week that was different from last week. So yeah I do love wrestling still, especially now. I think probably from a financial standpoint, as a business, I think wrestling is the biggest it's ever been. Maybe not from a complete ratings standpoint, but things have changed. Ratings don't mean as much as they used to, and selling tickets in buildings don't mean as much as they used to, because there's so much money in television alone, and that's never been that way before. It's just ridiculous amounts of money towards the companies now, because of the popularity and because of the ratings that wrestling draws."
"It's interesting. In a lot of ways, fans' perceptions of what a good match is a little different than it was. I think a lot of people think a good match, the proverbial banger is your five-star, Madison Square Garden, Tokyo Dome main event type of thing, and that's great. But wrestling is still about reactions, about stories and about good guys and bad guys. So I know 25 years ago, you could do a lot less, and have people think it's an amazing match. Whereas now you can do the exact same thing, have the crowd react exactly the way they did, but kind of your critics and pundits will say well that was a terrible match. There are a lot more opinions now because of social media and a lot more stock put in those opinions. So you're having people that watch the show as a fan, maybe they watch every show and that's amazing. But their opinions still, I mean, even though it's important, it's not law, it's not written from the heavens, and a lot of people entertain that. To me, I still look at it as what does the crowd in the arena do? What kind of a rating did you draw? And not worry so much about critics, because that's fine. Critics are always critics. The Beatles were hated when they were a band by the time 67 ran around. So you take it all with a grain of salt. I just think now everybody has so much more access and has so much more of a say, and then a lot of people read that and take that say as gospel, and it's really not."
"I go through phases. I'm not that guy, ‘I'll never read the internet.’ Of course I do. You have to have a really thick skin to read the internet because people are really mean, they're very mean and they're very angry. I used to say if you're gonna read the comments, then you have to take when people say you're the greatest wrestler that ever lived with as much of a grain of salt as people say f*ck off and die and never be on TV again. Go away. Both are very extreme opinions, one way or the other, but both really don't mean a lot. So yeah, I don't read them as much, especially Twitter. I'm done with Twitter, there's no reason for me to be on that anymore. It's just so negative and it’s just like why waste your time on it? I mean, there has to be some positivity somewhere. So, yeah, I do read, but not as much as I did, and I definitely don't put stock in it as much as I used to maybe 15 years ago or 10 years ago or something."
"It's funny how I've become kind of public enemy number one as a heel, by the way. Isn't that kind of the idea? Aren't you supposed to be public enemy number one as a heel? Aren't you supposed to not like somebody's character when that character is a heel? Maybe I'm actually smarter than everyone and I'm manipulating people to what I want them to do. ‘Well, f*ck off, just retire already.’ It's like, okay, doesn't that make you mad? Because what I look at is the ratings, and 9 times out of 10 my segments always go up, and there's still some of the biggest ones on the show. So that tells me that whatever it is that I'm doing is working. But I do have a target on my back for that, and that's once again kind of the idea, I am a bad guy on the show. So, yeah it's public opinion, and it goes in cycles, and when you've been in the business as long as I have, especially at the top level, that makes people mad. I always love the concept of The Jericho Vortex and how anybody that works with me gets dragged down. Name one. Name one person that got dragged down from working with me. Maybe afterwards they didn't go higher, but that's not up to me. I'm not in charge of booking the entire company. All I can do is influence the storylines that I work on. But everybody that I can think of who worked with me certainly went to a higher level. I did a year with MJF and look where he's at, Danny Garcia, Sammy Guevara, Daddy Magic last week comes off of commentary and gets a big pop. Who do you think put him in that position? I think Big Bill and Bryan Keith have grown by leaps and bounds from working here with me. I'm not going to go through the entire cast of characters, but I definitely know what my intentions are, and it’s not to bury anybody. It's to build as many people as I can and give them experience so they can learn how to start shouldering things on their own."
"I don't choose anything. I might have a suggestion, but most of the time it's Tony coming up with who he wants me to work with. I know for example with Mark Briscoe, both of us wanted to work with each other, and knew we could have some great matches. I loved working with Mark and what a great kind of mini-feud, or I guess it was a feud. It was a couple of months long. So that was something that we both wanted to do and suggested to Tony. But most of the time, this whole thing that started working with Rated FTR, that was Tony's idea. So yeah, I still work for my boss, and I have never once as far as I can remember in the six years I've been in AEW ever said no to something. I might not like something, but I got to try and do my best to make it work or maybe come up with something that maybe is a better idea as long as the boss likes it. If the boss wants to do he wants to do then that's my job. So that's what we do."
"I mean, it's one of those things. When they were really at their peak, of course I'm always thinking. Okay, I can make a t-shirt out of that. I can make a whole angle out of this. But it kind of went away, they kind of stopped. Plus, I was really good at being able to shut people down. Like New York, 'Please retire.' I take the mic and say, 'I know why you want me to retire. Because you want me to go pitch for the New York Yankees so they could possibly win a World Series, but that's not going to happen.' Boo! And then they stop. It's something that Seinfeld said years ago, or any great stand-up comedian, I've got the mic. You can't heckle somebody when the guy has the louder voice. So, yeah, the please retire was a good one. That was fun."
"No, I don't take it personally. Nobody who really knows me that says that stuff. And probably, if I saw them on the street they'd probably say hi. Whenever I do a convention or something like that, my lines are down the street. That's not from an egotistical standpoint, but I've been doing this a long time, and a lot of people have great memories from the different eras that I've been in. I'm the Rolling Stones on the Steel Wheel Tour, when all the critics are saying it's the steel wheelchairs tour, Stones need to retire, they're done. Well Mick was 47 years old, and that was 1989. I saw him four times last summer at 81 years old and they're still one of the best bands in the business. So if I'm in kind of my Steel Wheels Rolling Stones period, I told you this last time was on. If I died tomorrow or tonight, there would be a huge like, oh my gosh! But right now it's not that way, and that's okay. This is a job where the idea is to elicit emotions, positive, negative, anything in between. When you sign up for it, you have to understand that people are going to respond. Now all of us wish that you could just walk down the street and have people throw a parade for you at all times and throw confetti and will their firstborn sons to you. It's not that way, especially now. I mean, society has kind of gone the way that they did when I first got to WCW, where they hated all the babyfaces just because you were a babyface. Hated a young Chris Jericho because they loved the nWo. So this blonde-haired, good-looking guy who was like throwing himself in the crowd because he had nothing to do was getting booed out of the building, and now I'm getting booed out of the building or getting chanted at as a bad guy. Isn't that the point? Please tell me if I'm wrong."
"It’s weird for me. I don't know if I want that much pomp and circumstance. Obviously, I'm not sure if that's John's idea or if it's the company's idea. The big retirement match, that's a lot of pressure, you put a lot of pressure on yourself like Sting with his last one. It was so good, but imagine if it wasn't. Or imagine like Flair and Shawn, that was a great match. But then Flair was like, I gotta want to come back. So it's like a rock and roll band, why put that sort of stamp on it? “This is the retirement tour.” And then you decide to come back, or you decide that you don't want to come back, and it's not the official retirement tour. So to me, I just kind of go with the flow and see where I am. But once again, I do not have the ego that would demand an official retirement tour or retirement match. But if it's something that I found to be interesting, that I thought would be good and fun and cool, which is the same way judge everything, then maybe I would do it."
"So in the early 70s, Bobby Hall, who was the number one player in the NHL, left to go to the WHA which was an upstart league that paid him $1 million to join their league, which was a phenomenal amount at the time. What happened was all of the players in the NHL got a huge raise to stay because they didn't want to lose anybody else to the WHA. I know this because my dad was one of them. Ted Irvine went from 35 grand a year to 100 grand a year just because of Bobby Hall and the WHA. So ipso facto, Chris Jericho is the Bobby Hall of wrestling. Because the moment I left to go to AEW, suddenly the entire salary structure changed. For years working in WWE Vince's magic number was a million dollars a year. Nobody gets more than that, guaranteed. You might make more if you're working on top and with the pay-per-view bonuses and all that sort, merch and everything like that, but the number on the paper that was the max was a million dollars a year. Now, opening match guys are getting a million dollars a year, and top guys are getting 30, $40 million a year. Not all of them, but a few, 15 million, 20 million. So I don't think that ever would have happened had there not been AEW to scare the WWE cognizant into paying people more. So that's good for all of us. It's good for the guys and once again with all this money that's being made from the television companies, the companies can afford it. So it's just good for everyone, good for the fans to have an alternative. And if you're running a race and someone's right behind you, breathing down your neck, you run faster. If you're ahead by 10 lengths, you run slower. That's just the way it goes. So it's always good to have high-level competition."
"Razzle Dazzle was one. I thought that would be a great catchphrase, razzle-dazzle. Razzle Dazzle. [When did you try razzle dazzle?] Very smart to know when it's not working. Maybe I don't remember the exact year, but once or twice I tried it and did not get the reaction that I thought."
"'You just made the list.' It is one that to this day people still talk about, and you never know what's gonna get over and what's not. But to see that one, whereas to this day, people still keep saying ‘Put me on the list.’ Yeah, you just don't know what's gonna work. It's just like being in a band. You don't know what song is gonna be a hit song, and what song is not. You can put all your your faith into this, and it just doesn't work. And then you put no faith into that, but you start seeing the signs in the crowd and realizing that people are popping and all these things, and it's like, wow, you really got something special here. Same with the 'Hi guys.' It's like, I stopped doing it because it was getting a babyface reaction. But that's something you think, and you put it in your cap, and you go from there, people just like to be involved in the show."
"So when we had the idea to do some stuff together, Max and I, which ended up being 366 days. That's how long that program was, from the first moment to the last moment, which I take great pride in. It was a great year. We did a lot of killer stuff. I think at one point Max had just seen the Elton John movie. He wanted to do some kind of fantasy sequence to maybe Tiny Dancer. I was like well let me see what we can get because I was like, I don't know if I want to do Tiny Dancer. I'm not sure. Somehow we came up with the idea of doing the wacky singing duo, and somehow Me and My Shadow was involved. I don't know whose idea that was, but we could get that, we could get that song. So then Tony was like, I don't want a fantasy sequence, just make it a real sequence. So we're like okay, and I think it was just we can both sing and dance. Let's do something stand-backish, shall we say? We filmed that, this is another thing about pandemic-era AEW, we filmed all that stuff in hours, which would take weeks if you were doing it on a Hollywood set. I think the Dinner Debonair took us five hours to film with all the dance routine and choreography and all that sort of stuff, learning the choreography and creating the choreography on the spot, all of that stuff. The crazy thing was we did that and we used "Me and My Shadow", and about two hours before we went to air we got a call that you can't use this version of "Me and My Shadow." And it's like, why? We've got the rights to it. The publishers, for some reason had a problem with this one version. Maybe they didn't like the drummer or the oboe player on the track, whatever it was, ‘If you use this track, we will sue you.’ Two hours before we call this guy Mikey Ruckus, who's a music guy for AEW, can you do this in an hour? He does it. Then he has to match the music to the finished dance. Then you have to download, you have to load the video into the truck, which means you can't just take it and put it on. It has to be loaded into the system, which takes time. We literally had that thing loaded and ready literally 15 minutes before it aired, to the point where Tony was like, You guys are gonna have to do this live in Jacksonville, in Daily’s Place, in the ring. How? There's no dancers, there's no nothing. So that's how sometimes, how close things are to being disastrous."
"My family, that I have been able to travel the world and I have been able to entertain."
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