Pro wrestling legend Chris Jericho spoke with GamesHub about various topics, including when he sang his popular “Judas” track acapella during his feud with AEW World Champion MJF in 2021.
Jericho said, “It was a great moment. We were doing the storyline with MJF, and he had all these stipulations — one of them was banning Judas from being played. The idea came up — I think it was collaborative, the whole storyline lasted exactly 366 days, a year and a day — that we should ban the song and see what the crowd does. There were a lot of theories in the production meeting about how to make it work. One producer was adamant we needed to put the lyrics on the screen with a bouncing ball. Someone else wanted to put lyrics under the chairs. Everyone had ideas. But Tony Khan and I talked about it, and he said, ‘When you go to a concert, people know the words or they don’t.’ That’s the organic nature of it. If you force it, it’s not going to be as cool. I thought, okay, if it doesn’t work, that’s fine — it makes the heel’s plan seem more effective. And if it does work, it’s something special. The first ten seconds were a little rough, but by the third line of the song everyone clicked and got on the same page. Some people had the lyrics on their phones — that’s fine. But that was one of the coolest moments I’ve ever been part of, and I think it’s actually a fairly underrated moment in AEW history and in wrestling history. That’s the only time I can ever remember that happening that way. It was the one time where Fozzy and wrestling collided perfectly.”
On which of his characters is the most creatively distinct:
“It’s hard to single one out because there have been so many reinventions over so many years. That idea comes directly from David Bowie, honestly. I’m a huge Bowie fan, and he was never the same guy twice. Every record was different in imagery and sound. At the core it was still Bowie, but you could go to a Halloween party and see ten people dressed as Bowie from different eras and recognize every single one of them. I think you could do the same with Chris Jericho. The ones people still talk about most are Y2J, obviously. Then things like ‘Never, Ever Again’ from WCW. ‘You just made the list’ was only around for maybe six or eight months, but it still resonates — I now do it on Cameo and people are constantly asking me to put them on it. The main thing for me is I never want to be a nostalgia act. I want to keep changing, keep doing things that make people angry at first. When I stopped using the countdown, cut my hair, changed from long tights to short tights — it was like KISS taking off the makeup. People want the makeup. But if you leave the makeup on forever, you die. You have to try something new, commit to it, and most of the time it works.”
On his feud or storyline that didn’t get the credit it deserved:
“A really great one that I think deserves more recognition is Jericho versus the Rock. We could go toe to toe in the ring, and Rock was a great wrestler. Rock liked to talk things through in promos first, which I can do too, but there were very few people who could genuinely stand up to him on the mic. To have a great dragon slayer, you need a great dragon, and I think we were very good from that aspect. There was a whole run where he accused me of not being able to win the big one — and then I went ahead and beat him for the Undisputed Championship. We were even tag team champions together at one point, for about two weeks. I actually forgot about that until I saw a photo from Madison Square Garden recently and I thought, we were never tag champs — but there it is. Every time we were in the ring together or did a promo or a backstage segment, it was excellent.”
On why he considers it underrated:
“I think Rock’s been gone from wrestling for so long, and people associate him so strongly with Austin and Triple H, that the Jericho-Rock rivalry kind of gets forgotten. But go back and watch it — it’s very top-level stuff.”
On how he defines success in wrestling:
“Match quality has become so overemphasized. Wrestling isn’t about match quality — wrestling is about connecting with the crowd, capturing the imagination and the interest of the people watching. Take WrestleMania 18, Jericho versus HBK — we had a great match, probably the best match on the show, and there were 75,000 people there going nuts. But that was the result of a great storyline that built to that moment. Now you can go to a show and see five-star matches back to back, if we’re going by the definition of lots of innovative physical moves. Which is great. But how is the crowd reacting? A five-star match should mean the crowd is going crazy in a sold-out stadium. You can also have a five-star match in a community centre in front of 50 people, so the rating in isolation is irrelevant. It’s character, it’s storyline, it’s charisma. That’s what wrestling is about — it was in the 1930s and it is now. The biggest stars are the ones who connect at the highest level. If you can do that, you’ll always have a career. If you can also have a great match, even better. But the Ultimate Warrior didn’t have many great matches. People didn’t go to see great matches from him — they went to see him run to the ring. I’d love to be able to do that and save the wear and tear.”
On the current emphasis on physical wrestling styles:
“What worries me about the guys working today is here I am at 55, 35 years in, with still some career left to go. I don’t know if it’s a year, two years, four years — I’m not sure. But I don’t know how many of the guys working now will have the option to go 35 years. Hopefully all of them. But you can already see what serious injuries do — a bad neck surgery changes everything. The longevity may be harder to sustain when there’s so much emphasis on the physical at the expense of charisma and character. I remember the first time I ever got hurt. I thought I was invincible. I was in León, Mexico, did a dive over the top rope, and the guy who was supposed to catch me — a guy called Masaka — he just stepped aside. I landed on old-school bolted-down arena chairs. I messed up my arm and I thought, oh, I could actually get hurt doing this. And if a guy doesn’t want to catch you, that’s even worse. After that I started getting smart about which moves were worth the risk. The guys who figure that out early are the ones who get the longevity.”
