Chris Jericho appeared recently on Mature Audiences Mayhem and discussed several different things during the broadcast. He opened up about his match at WrestleMania 33:
“Probably the best story was Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens. We were best friends, and all the dastardly stuff we were doing until he turned on me at ‘The Festival of Friendship.’ Then, we had this big WrestleMania match – the confrontation. Originally, that was going to be the main event for the world title. Kevin Owens was the champion and I was going to beat him in the main event of WrestleMania as a babyface.
“Bill Goldberg and Brock Lesnar had a match, Brock really liked it and wanted to have a rematch. He put Goldberg over and they had a rematch, but only if he won the title from Bill Goldberg. That was Brock’s idea so they changed it. Vince said that it’s going to be me versus Kevin Owens for the world title at WrestleMania and you are going to win the title, f**k yeah! Next week, he doesn’t tell me, but I hear that it’s changed to Brock Lesnar versus Bill Goldberg for the title.”
On the match being 2nd on the card vs being either first or last:
“And not only did they take us out of the main event – and, once again, just because I was told I have no right to it and things change all the time, I’m a big boy, I can handle it. But to take us from the main event slot and then move us to the 2nd match on the card on a card that has 12 matches on it? I was like, that’s a f**king insult! And I didn’t realize it at the time, but afterward, I guess about 3-4 weeks later, I was like, wait a second, we were 2nd on the card? It wasn’t even 1st! The first match on the show at a WrestleMania is a very important match, maybe event second only to the main event. But to put us on second is an insult and it doesn’t even matter now what I did.
“We had the best storyline of the year but it doesn’t matter, it’s still not going to get me higher on the card to be second on the card at WrestleMania. I need to leave; that is how you know. When the time comes when you are put in that spot as an insularity guy? Then I went through this whole thing when I went on tour with Fozzy and had the Tokyo Dome match against Kenny Omega. This whole new world of creativity opened up and this whole new star power for Chris Jericho, and we drew a lot of money for New Japan at that Dome show. And that was how the road to AEW started.”
You can listen to the interview in its entirety at the link in the beginning of the story. WARNING: NOT FAMILY FRIENDLY! STRONG LANGUAGE USED!
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