Chris Jericho recently spoke with Justin Barrasso for Sports Illustrated Extra Mustard’s Week In Wrestling; you can read a few highlights below:
Jericho talks about how the ‘Alpha Club’ vs Bullet Club match came up:
“Our official name of the team is, ‘The Bucks of Jericho… or is it Y2Jackson.’ I needed a main event and I’d been talking with the Bucks about doing something with them, and Nick Jackson was the one who said, ‘Why don’t the three of us team up and face Kenny, Marty, and Cody?’”
“We were all in Osaka back in June and I inducted the Bucks into the Alpha Club. So now we can do Alpha Club vs. Bullet Club as the main event on the cruise. Coming from the world I come from, which is WWE and Vince McMahon, the tagline sells tickets even more than the match. The only way to see it is to come on board.”
Jericho talks about how he faces less restrictions in Japan than he does in WWE:
“The New Japan Jericho is not WWE’s Jericho. This, once again, distances those two characters from each other, which is exactly the way I want it. I’m always about reinventing myself, evolving and changing. That helps you stay current, helps build your brand, and gives you longevity.”
It’s very cool to go back to Japan, where I started, and be part of this worldwide growth of New Japan. There are no real restrictions on what I can do in New Japan. We did the original beatdown with Kenny and got some blood going, which you never see in the WWE nowadays, and we did the press conference where I was swearing and attacking reporters. You can’t do that in WWE, but you can in Japan. Just to have those shackles released, it just felt like all of these things led to more of a Bruiser Brody character than a Shawn Michaels-type vibe.”
Jericho talks about changing up his look to fit a more sinister character in New Japan:
“I was sitting in the crowd so I wanted to look as much like Bushi as I could. Bushi wears black lipstick, so I put the black lipstick on and darkened my eyes with dark eyeliner. When I took the mask off, I had a very gothic look. People are saying this has a vibe from Clockwork Orange or Alice Cooper, and it’s kind of a combination of both of those, but it was inspired by neither. It feels like more of a serial killer, lunatic character.”
“I showed [a fan drawing of him as The Joker] to [New Japan booker] Gedo, and he said, ‘Do you want a hat?’ He gave me a fedora, which really fit the vibe of the crazy, wacky, out-of-his f—ing mind character.
“And when it came time for the Naito match, I knew I needed something different. The lighted jacket and the sparkly trunks didn’t fit anymore.”
