During a new episode of his “Talk is Jericho” podcast, Chris Jericho revealed he was in talks with WWE to be part of a backup plan to replace Shane McMahon at WrestleMania 34 to team with Daniel Bryan against Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn.
For those who may remember, McMahon was hospitalized with diverticulitis just weeks before WrestleMania. This left his status for the biggest show of the year heavily in doubt. Jericho went into detail about his talks with WWE as a backup.
Podcast excerpt courtesy of The Wrestling Observer/Figure Four Online:
“A few weeks before WrestleMania, maybe three or four weeks, I get a call from Vince. And he’s talking about Shane and his diverticulitis and he had an infection in his hand and he had, there was one other thing as well, hernia, that was it. And he goes, ‘Listen, we don’t know if he can do ‘Mania.”
Jericho noted he had a scheduling conflict for WrestleMania weekend with a Fozzy concert in Hampton Beach the day of the show and a WrestleMania watch party as well. He talked about exploring all options and how it would have been possible for him to get to the Superdome on time with the help of a police escort.
Daniel Bryan, who was a featured guest on the same podcast, said WWE is in a situation where they don’t tell the wrestlers about any plans because they are afraid the news will leak. Bryan was simply told they had a good backup plan if McMahon wasn’t able to get cleared in time for the tag team match in New Orleans.
Jericho recently made his return to New Japan Pro Wrestling, attacking IWGP Intercontinental Champion Tetsuya Naito. The attack appeared to setup a forthcoming IWGP Intercontinental Championship between Naito and Jericho at either the Dominion iPPV on June 9 in Osaka or the big G-1 Special on July 8 in San Francisco.