Chris Jericho recently appeared on the “Busted Open” show on SiriusXM satellite radio where he discussed a variety of topics including extending his run with WWE beyond WrestleMania, taking time away from Fozzy and working with new talent in WWE.
All excerpts courtesy of Prowrestling.net.
On extending his run with WWE beyond WrestleMania:
“The original plan was for me to finish after WrestleMania (with Owens). Then Vince had the idea for me to stay through April 30th and then May 1st and then May 2nd …so it’s a little bit crazy. But yeah, I think it’s fun. We had a break for about a year and a half with Fozzy so getting back in the room with the guys and just rehearsing and playing Judas for the first time live, it’s really exciting. It takes me right out of the WWE world and straight to Fozzy world very quickly, which helps because I don’t even really remember what happened on Smackdown. It’s a little bit crazier than I expected.”
Why his latest run was among his favorites:
“It’s definitely one of my favorites, top two along with the the Shawn Michaels feud and that era of Shawn Michaels, Rey Mysterio, Big Show was my partner. This year, I would like to say that we were geniuses and we thought to do this from the start and orchestrated the whole thing, but it just was all very organic. The whole partnership with Kevin Owens, the whole “list, stupid idiot” all that stuff it just became a thing much to my surprise to be honest with you. So as soon as everything really started getting over last March, we knew that we really weren’t doing much with Fozzy and the guys were doing another Stuck Mojo record so I said “Listen, I’m just gonna stay in WWE for 2016, I’ll take a break from the road with the band.” I think it was a pretty fun route because it just kept getting better and better even up until Smackdown on Tuesday. It was a great way to end the saga between Owens and Jericho because it started organically and then we went through the whole ups and downs and all this other stuff and turning on each other and then finally getting the surprise win on Sunday [Payback] and then having him take me out, kill the ‘knight in shining armor’ on Tuesday I think was a fitting end and a nice way to kind of button everything up.”
On working with AJ Styles during his first year in WWE:
“I take great pride in the fact that when he came into the company, and I know how Vince thinks and that he doesn’t care what people have done outside of the walls of the WWE, I knew that if I could work with him for a couple of months that I could help him with the small little things that he didn’t know about WWE that he picked up in about two weeks. And also get him over with the boss right away. And that’s basically what happened, and AJ is the best in the world I would say at this point. He was when he came in but still there was a little bit of a transition.”