WrestlingFigs > Wrestling News Posts > INTERVIEW RECAP OF CHRIS JERICHO ON BETWEEN THE ROPES
INTERVIEW RECAP OF CHRIS JERICHO ON BETWEEN THE ROPES
  • 11/10/2005 (2:48:57 pm)
  • Chris Murray

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Recap of Chris Jericho's interview on last night's edition of Between The Ropes on Central Florida's Sports Radio 740 The Team
 
Between The Ropes
Wednesday, November 9, 2005
Central Florida's Sports Radio 740 The Team
Simulcast online at www.BetweenTheRopes.com
 
On Wednesday night, November 9, former WWE superstar and actor/musician Chris Jericho joined hosts Brian Fritz, Dickerman, and Vito DeNucci on Between The Ropes on Central Florida's Sports Radio 740 The Team to update everyone on his future plans in wrestling, whether it be WWE or TNA, and address his decision to leave WWE in the first place as well as discuss his latest projects in music with Fozzy and in Hollywood.
 
The interview commenced with some discussion of Fozzy's gig in Orlando, Florida on December 2 at The Social, six years after their first show in the city at the Hard Rock Live where BTR host Dickerman introduced the band for the concert that became immortalized in the Fozzy mockumentary on MTV.
 
Jericho talked about the travels of Fozzy with recent trips to the U.K., Australia, Canada, and throughout the United States. However, still no airplay in Japan. Their biggest territory is in England where they've done four tours, including performing in front of 50,000 at the Download Festival. He noted the irony of leaving wrestling to spend more time at home, but now being busier than ever with touring and acting work in Los Angeles.
 
Chris delved into his latest acting gigs, which include one of the starring roles along side Joseph (formerly Joey) Lawrence in an upcoming sci-fi movie called '2Human.' He's doing a lot with VH1, including weekly appearances on 'Best Week Ever' and being all over the new 'I Love The 80's 3-D' series. He's also working for E! Networks. He's getting more recognition in Hollywood from being on VH1 than as a wrestler or musician. He's in discussions with agents on a possible book about a specific part of his career. He did the red carpet work with Joan Rivers and Melissa Rivers at the Emmy's for the TV Guide Channel. He's taking a lot of acting classes and has some auditions and hopes for some potential movie opportunities in the next year, including one possible major role. He commutes weekly to Los Angeles for acting work, but doesn't plan on leaving Florida. He pointed out that the four-hour flight once a week to L.A. is a lot easier than WWE travel.
 
Jericho said he doesn't mind starting from the bottom in Hollywood. The Rock came out and instantly became a leading man, but he's realistic and doesn't expect that for himself. His 15 years in wrestling have helped him a great deal, comparing it to Shakespearean acting by working so much in front of a live audience. But he said he's encountered roadblocks in Hollywood because of his wrestling background. However, his size, which was a detriment in the wrestling world where he was considered too small, has helped in Hollywood because he doesn't look like a stereotypical, bulky wrestler. He mentioned how The Rock has dropped a lot of size to allow him to be versatile for various acting roles.
 
Talked shifted to sports entertainment. When asked if he misses wrestling, he replied, "Actually, I don't miss it." He said he likes watching the shows and watching the matches and characters as a fan now, but he doesn't miss working after 15 years straight.
 
Chris was asked about the image on his website with him posing in front of the TNA logo right after he left WWE. "I was reading something on a forum or something that said 'Jericho is leaving wrestling because of this, this, and this.' I've done this from time to time where I like to mess with Internet fans, and God bless them because it's cool that they're that much into it and they enjoy talking about wrestling and reading about wrestling on the Internet, but they think they know everything a lot of times. And if you read it on the net, it must be true. And I've done this before in the past a couple of different times. I was like, these guys don't know why I'm really leaving wrestling. So I called up my webmaster and I said let's put a TNA logo up on the site and just see what happens. And man, you talk about a s-h-i-t storm through the Chris Jericho household. Everybody from Johnny Ace on down was calling me asking what the heck was going on. I actually e-mailed Vince and told him what I was doing, but nobody else. I had Jeff Jarrett, Scott D'Amore, John Laurinaitis, and all those guys calling me up and asking me what's going on and fans and friends in the course of three or four hours. I thought it was pretty funny. Mission accomplished. Just having a little bit of harmless fun at the expense of the Internet fans." He said Vince never responded to his e-mail, but Johnny Ace e-mailed him and said, 'Great rib.'
 
Jericho clarified what happened with his contract during his last month with WWE. He said his contract expired at the end of July and he told Vince while they in England a few months earlier that he wasn't going to re-sign. Vince asked him to stay through SummerSlam, which was a month after his contract was due. WWE asked him to sign an extension through SummerSlam, which he did. He asked WWE.com to post that he signed an extension, which was technically true, so it wouldn't affect the crowd reactions to his program with John Cena and people would think he was staying.
 
Chris said he wasn't frustrated with his wrestling career, particularly at the time he chose to walk away. He said irrespective of push, he was happy that he went out there and had one of the best matches on the show and was one of the most entertaining guys on the show every night. To him, performance level and how people react to what he was doing were more important than being champion. He pointed out that fans cheered for him in his last match against Cena even though he didn't try to be a babyface and felt it was a cool pat on the back from the fans to have the dueling crowd reactions.
 
Asked if he was surprised he was only world champion one time during his WWE run, he said he's a little surprised and maybe it would have been different if he was on Smackdown. In his mind, the Raw title is the number one title. He would have liked to have been a babyface world champion at some point and thought his "title win" over Triple H in State College, PA on Raw showed that, but it wasn't a big deal. He considers himself a three-time world champion, beating The Rock twice for the WCW Title and being the first Undisputed Champion.
 
Chris feels that he did a lot to help elevate guys and get strong matches out of guys not considered to be solid workers throughout his run. "If you look at John Cena, he gets a rep as a bad worker, but when I was in there with him in those two matches we had, I didn't see a bad worker. I saw two great matches with two really good competitors. And I don't think he's a bad worker. I think he gets a bad rap. I also get a kick out of that he's in a big long angle with Kurt Angle, who's apparently the best in the world right now or so I've heard or so he says, but yet the two matches I had with Cena were better than the ones he's had with Kurt so far so somebody's doing something right. And I'm not saying Kurt's not doing his job either, but I know how to get into guys' heads and pull stuff out of them that a lot of guys can't and a lot of guys can as well."
 
He said his three favorite storylines in WWE were he and Shawn Michaels leading to WrestleMania 19, he and Steve Austin which led to Austin's team vs. Bischoff's team at Survivor Series in Dallas with Austin's team losing, and the triangle with he, Trish Stratus, and Christian.
 
When asked about his good friend Christian leaving WWE, Jericho said he's very proud of him for walking away on his own terms. He said it took a lot of guts. "He's a great performer, he's a great talker, he's a great wrestler, he's a great character. He's just not 6'6", 300 pounds of shredded muscle. And that shouldn't make a difference, but for some reason it does. He never got his due that he deserved."
 
Asked whether Christian would do well in TNA, "I think he would do great because all he needs is a little bit of a push which would give him the confidence to be that top guy that Vince didn't think he could be. That's why I'm glad that he left. He needed to get away from there and they're going to see the talent roster is getting thinner and thinner and thinner. And these guys that they're bringing in just aren't ready for the spot. But they have no choice because they have nobody else. If you lose a guy like Chris Jericho, if you lose a guy like Christian, if you lose a guy like Steve Austin, there's only so many of those guys you could lose before you basically have amateur hour on live TV. It's becoming that way. Guys are working hard and trying, but you can't take a guy who has only been wrestling for two years and put him in a main event spot. He just doesn't know what to do. A guy like Christian to go to TNA is great for him and great for that company because they need guys who are considered top stars that show up in TNA that haven't been fired."
 
Is there ever an off chance you could pop up in TNA for a short little deal? "You never say never. There's no doubt about it. But contrary to popular belief, Vince is a great boss. He was the best guy I ever worked for. We made a lot of money together. I feel a loyalty to Vince, and to nobody else in WWE believe me. If Vince wasn't the boss, I'd probably say absolutely. But as long as Vince is the boss and the head of WWE, I'll always feel, like I said, a loyalty to him. Not that I owe him anything, but I would at least owe him a courtesy call to say, 'Listen, this is what I'm thinking about doing.'
 
Jericho admitted outright that he loves TNA. "To be honest with you, a dirty little secret and Vince will be angry to hear this, I actually watch TNA probably a little bit more than WWE now."
 
Chris said his new favorite wrestler is Samoa Joe. He compared him to the next Mick Foley, not the same style, but he looks radically different and is so awesome in the ring. Same with AJ Styles. He said he'd rather see them not ever go to WWE and stay with TNA to help that company grow.
 
When asked about the greater emphasis on sports entertainment instead of actual in-ring wrestling in WWE lately, namely the J.R. skit on Raw, he said Vince has always had a liking for toilet humor, going back to 80's product with skits of The Bushwackers at the Oktoberfest. He said the biggest problem with the WWE now is the majority of the guys have their stuff written for them. He said guys need to go out and sink or swim on their own and come up with creative stuff on his own. Anyone who has ever been a big star has done it that way. Jericho feels entertaining characters are the key to successful wrestling. It's a character driven business. He noted that he watches a lot of TNA and has trouble telling guys like Austin Aries and Roderick Strong apart, even though they are great workers, because their characters don't stand out.
 
Jericho said when he first started in WWE, he wrote all of his own material. He wrote the famous promo with The Rock on his first night in WWE in the hotel room in Chicago the night before the show and ran it by Vince Russo the next day. Now, the writers tell the wrestlers every word to say. Jericho said he had a little more leeway than most since he got to write most of his stuff side-by-side with Brian Gewirtz. But when a new writer would hand him a script, he'd crumble it up and throw it away. Chris believes guys needs to be able to write and feel their own material and their own character and be able to improvise with the crowd on the fly both on the mic and in the ring.
 
"If I was in charge of Raw for four weeks, I would throw some of these guys out with no script at all. You got five minutes to do a promo and you're on in an hour and see what they come up. The ratings aren't going to go down. It's not like if you do a promo that totally sucks for five minutes, people are going to not watch forever. I'd like to see some of those guys in trial by fire and see just how they react and see what they got."
 
When asked whether or not we'll see Chris Jericho in wrestling again, "Who knows man. I've never said that I would never come back. That's not my intention. But when the time is right, I'll know it. At this point in time, I have no reason to come back. If something came up that was really interesting and some kind of cool angle or something I thought, and I'm not trying to be egotistical, but worthy of me coming back, I honestly would think about it. Sure. But that would have to be when all of these other avenues have dried up or died because I don't think that's going to happen."
 
The guys concluded by discussing the evolution of Fozzy since their last Central Florida gig six years ago and promoting the December 2 Fozzy concert at The Social in downtown Orlando.
 
To listen to the Chris Jericho interview, including some more TNA comments from Jericho on the classic AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels vs. Samoa Joe match at Unbreakable and who should dethrone Jeff Jarrett for the NWA Title, and the entire November 9 edition of Between The Ropes in streaming audio, visit the show online at http://www.BetweenTheRopes.com. Join us for Between The Ropes for two hours every Wednesday night at 10:00pm ET on Central Florida's Sports Radio 740 The Team and worldwide on BetweenTheRopes.com.

 

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