Chris Jericho Talks New DVD, Life In The WWE

The Road Is Jericho

CraveOnline: In your new DVD The Road is Jericho, you mentioned early in your WCW career as a cruiserweight that “fans weren’t programmed to care” in reference to the NWO stuff. As an entertainer, is that frustrating and do you feel fans are still programmed to feel a certain way?

Chris Jericho: People are lead in whatever direction they’re supposed to be lead in by the people that are commentating the show. If I’m out there breaking my balls to put on a 5 star match, whatever that means, if the person whose announcing the show is talking about Hulk Hogan, Sting, Virgil, and Michael Wallstreet, what does that subtly tell you? It tells you what’s going on visually doesn’t matter. What’s going on audio-wise does matter. If you watch a hockey game on TV and the guy skates down the ice with the puck and they’re talking about tomorrow night’s game and how important it is, you’re like “Why the hell am I watching this game?” That’s the type of vibe they were doing there and I didn’t really appreciate that. It diminishes what you’re doing as a performer.

CraveOnline: You brought up in your DVD that most of your title runs in WWE were as a heel. Did you enjoy the psychology as a heel more so than a babyface? Is there more freedom with that?

Chris Jericho: Well, I enjoy anything where you get a reaction. It’s a lot easier to make people hate you than it is to make them like you. Once they like you, they will like you forever. There’s a fine line because as a heel, you need to make sure that there is nothing admirable about anything you’re doing. All the best heels turn into babyfaces. I’m not just talking about wrestling but also, about pop culture.

Darth Vader, Terminator, Hannibal, The Joker, if Heath Ledger hadn’t passed away, the next Batman movie, The Joker would have been a good guy because he was so damn entertaining. That’s the real task. Once you become a heel, how do you stay a heel? Jericho in 2008-2010 was the most hated heel in the company bar none for a long period of time and that to me is probably the real feather in my cap as the art form of a heel. “Yankees suck!”, “Well, your girlfriend is fat and ugly”, “Boooo! Boooo!” Once people start laughing and going “Yeah, you know the Yankees do suck” You shut your mouth. You don’t tell me what to do. Talk down to them is the secret of how to stay a heel.

When I was a heel, anything I said that was a ‘catchphrase’, I stopped saying it. I would never let them make any Chris Jericho merchandise. If you look at that 2008-2010 period, there was no Chris Jericho merchandise because I did not want one fan, not one, to have any reason to cheer me. I even wanted guys like myself; you know I grew up as a fan of wrestling, where I’d see the bad guy, I even wanted guys like me to hate me and that’s the real secret on how to be a heel.

Mad pops

CraveOnline: Speaking of getting a reaction from the crowd, when you made your WWE debut in 1999 that was one of the biggest pops I have ever heard. Was that the biggest pop you were ever a part of and if not, what was it?

Chris Jericho: Actually, I have two. That was the biggest pop until the Royal Rumble in 2013 where I was the surprise entrant at number two. That was the biggest pop I had ever gotten in my career because that was a legitimate surprise, which is so rare. You could tell me “Oh, I knew you were going…” No. That was a legitimate surprise that nobody had any clue that Jericho was going to be there that night. That to me was the real biggest pop of my career.

Related: Daniel Bryan One-On-One Interview

CraveOnline: I can’t recall, but was your debut leaked in 1999? Did the dirt sheets already have that info?

Chris Jericho: The dirt sheets kind of knew but it wasn’t as prevalent. I don’t think a lot of people knew. I think people suspected because if you look in the crowd that night, when I came out, there were tons of Jericho signs. So it was almost like there was an underground movement that was letting people know “Jericho will be here tonight” and that was more of people’s hunches, hoping and thinking, “maybe he will come tonight.” It wasn’t like it is nowadays where you knew for sure “Oh, Jericho was seen in the building” that sort of stuff didn’t really happen back in those days. Even though it was only 15 years ago, it might as well have been 50 years ago as far as the Internet was. But in 2013, people are tweeting and texting and taking photos every single minute so I was Googling myself which sounds a bit perverted, all the way up until I went to the ring to see, certainly somebody knows that I’m here. Certainly somebody knows that “Jericho is backstage” but nobody did. Nobody knew and nobody found out so I think 99’ was a hunch but in 2013 there was nothing. There were reports that John Morrison, Shelton Benjamin, and Carlito were backstage but not one report that Jerich was here.

“make them love you”

CraveOnline: You were great on the microphone and one of the few guys that could go tit for tat with The Rock. What makes a good promo?

Chris Jericho: Well, heel or babyface, the most important thing is for wrestling characters to connect to the audience and that is really all that matters. You got to connect with the crowd and make them love you or make them hate you and if you can connect to the crowd, and that goes for rock n’ roll, goes for stand-up comedy, goes for acting, if you can connect with them, people will always pay money to see you. There’s different ways to connect. You can connect in a good way, you can connect in a bad way, and so a promo gives you a chance to connect. How do you do that? I don’t know. People will ask “How do I do a good promo?”, I honestly don’t know.

For me, I just did whatever entertained me. A lot of times, it didn’t make any sense. “Never ever be the same again” or “Ayatollah of Rock ‘n’ Rolla” and all that horse shit. The only reason I said it is because I thought it was funny and because I thought it was funny suddenly other people did too and that’s where the magic comes from. You have to throw your inhibitions away and be yourself and not be afraid to look like a fool and commit to it because if you commit to it and make people believe what you’re saying is real and that’s the real you, people will respond to it. People aren’t stupid. They can sniff out when someone is faking it.

“I didn’t have any friends with me”

CraveOnline: Did you ever have a guy take it personal when you were cutting them down in a promo?

Chris Jericho: I think so. In the early days when I first got there I was perceived as some kind of maverick asshole know it all outsider. That’s the way it was when I first got to WWE. I came in by myself. I didn’t have any friends with me. I didn’t have anybody to watch my back. I think there was a few people who took what I said the wrong way and it might not have even been the people I was directing it at then. I remember I said a lot of stuff about Chyna cause I was in a feud with her. It was guy versus girl. I think the rest of DX took offense to it behind the scenes even though they had nothing to do with it. I think they were just looking for a reason to gang up on me or were looking for a reason to put black marks on me. I never took offense. Say what you want. I don’t care. It’s all show business. Its not real but back in those days, it was real for some people.

I even talked about it on the DVD. Triple H and I didn’t like each other back in those days and we talked about it on our podcast. We’re not sure why we didn’t like each other [laughs]. Looking back on it we can’t figure out the reason why but we did. I think that was just the product of the wrestling wars being real at that point in time WCW versus WWE. When I came over from WCW, I was an enemy even though I was working for the good guys; I think I was perceived as some sort of spy or some sort of castoff rather than somebody who made the choice to walk over to WWE on my own volition. I think in those days there were a lot of people that were really sensitive cause they were just looking fro reasons to bury the other people.

WCW – Chris Jericho – The Man of 1004 Holds by Y2JFans

CraveOnline: How long did it take you to write that classic ‘Armbar’ promo? Did you write it?

Chris Jericho: I pretty much wrote it. Disco Inferno had something to do with it. He came up with the idea of it but I pretty much wrote it. The thing about that promo is that I was just reading it off of a sheet of paper so its not like I had to memorize anything. What happen was, I started off reading the first seven or eight moves and then we went into commercial and I just started going into some cheap heat like, we were in Chicago so “The Chicago Bulls suck”, “The Blackhawks suck”, “Michael Jordan is stupid” or whatever I said for two or three minutes. People were super booing me when we came back from break and I could see the countdown so I was like “I’m going to start a chant…Chicago Bulls suck! Chicago Bulls suck!” People were throwing shit and booing and I keep saying, “Chicago Bulls suck” until about three seconds before we come back from break. Then I switch back to the list “Hold number 753 Russian Armbar” and then we’re back on so it looks like the whole break I’ve been reading these holds but meanwhile I had only read about 10-15 holds so it really wasn’t that much to write. It was one of the easiest promos I ever did but I’m so known for it.

The championship

Chris Jericho: I think it was one of those things where I was told for so many years that I didn’t have what it takes to get to the top or to the big leagues and I always knew that I did. A couple of weeks before that, I won the WCW title from The Rock and that was the one where it was like “Fuck you, Bischoff. I won I won. I knew I could do it. I’m the winner.” With the Undisputed championship, I didn’t even really know I was getting it until it happened that day. Sometimes people will have their family in the crowd or they have people there to support them. I had none of that because I didn’t expect that I was even going to win. It was just kind of told to me on the day. It was a pretty cool moment. It was like winning an Oscar and getting a pat on the back from your peers.

It was far from my favorite moment in WWE. I think the work that I did five or six years later in 2008 and 2009 destroyed the work that I did in that era of 2001 where I was Undisputed champion. That’s just me being super picky. As far as it goes, you can never take away the fact that in the 50, 60, 80 years of world of pro wrestling, that I was the first Undisputed champion. That will never be taken away. It’s a pretty cool thing to tack on the career resume for sure.

CraveOnline: You referred to yourself in The Road is Jericho as the George Harrison of The Attitude Era. How crazy was it to be a key guy on a ‘Dream Team’ roster so to speak?

Chris Jericho: It was amazing. Like I said, I look back on that era with great pride and great fondness. We were so lucky to have two of the biggest names [The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin] of all time in our company at the same time. That will never happen again.

CraveOnline: Which WWE Superstar do you see a bit of yourself in today?

On Dean Ambrose

Chris Jericho: I don’t really know. I don’t know whom I see myself inside of but I’m a big fan of Dean Ambrose. I think he’s a little bit wacky the way the Y2J character was and Rollins has a little bit of that. He’s very versatile as far as playing the heel that people really don’t like. I think he can embrace it a little more. I don’t like seeing Rollins shirts for example. I think guys need to take the next step and forbid merchandise from making shirts of you when you’re a heel. Those are two of the guys I definitely see a lot of myself in and it’s a different style of character but even Bray Wyatt. He’s not afraid to take a chance and play a character a 1,000 percent. Jericho in 2008 was completely the opposite from who I am as a person but I committed to it 1,000 percent. I think Wyatt does that as well.

What’s next?

CraveOnline: What can we expect from Jericho in WWE in 2015 and for Fozzy?

Chris Jericho: I don’t know. I was just back in January and February doing live events, which I think, is unprecedented. The only guy to ever come back to do live events which is the opposite of The Rock and Brock Lesnar and I liked it. It was fun. I don’t want to come back if I don’t have the time to do something properly TV wise and there’s a lot of stuff going on. We got a lot of stuff coming up. We’re touring with Slash and we’re doing the KISS KRUISE . Touring with Slash and KISS within a course of a couple of months and lots of other cool stuff going on and not just in Fozzy either. I don’t know is my honest answer but I got a great relationship with WWE and still enjoy doing it so hopefully we will figure something out over the next few months.

Photos courtesy of WWE

The Road Is Jericho: Epic Stories & Rare Matches from Y2J is now available on DVD and Blu-ray.

Joshua Caudill is a writer for CraveOnline Sports, a surfing enthusiast, an unhealthy sports fanatic, and an expert on all things Patrick Swayze. You can follow him on Twitter @JoshuaCaudill85 or “like” CraveOnline Sports on Facebook.