Chris Jericho on Preferring Long-Term Storytelling for His Wrestling Career & Tells Impatient Fans To “Shut The F*ck Up”, His NJPW Match with Kenny Omega Led to Tony Khan Starting AEW, Being Creative Is Only Thing That Matters In Wrestling, & More

Untapped’s Spencer Matthews held a recent interview with Chris Jericho. One of the topics discussed included Jericho’s thoughts about his preference for long-term storytelling in wrestling career and his message to impatient fans over it for them to “shut the fuck up.”

“I like long-term stories. My favorite ones have always been ones that last for months. You have to be creative. You don’t have to be on the show every week. Both guys don’t have to be on the show every week. There’s always a way to tell a story that elongates it. I would rather make things go longer than shorter. I always love wrestling fans, especially modern day ones, who just want to know the answer right now.

If I’m watching Saving Private Ryan, it’s 3 hours long. It’s a long movie. You better be watching and paying attention. At the end of that three hours, you can decide if you like it or not. An hour and a half in, if I go, ‘They haven’t even found Ryan yet. This movie sucks. This is stupid. This is too long.’ I hear it every day from wrestling fans. My thing is, shut the fuck up and let me tell my story when it’s done.

If it takes a year, tough luck. This show is going on for 50 years. It doesn’t have to end in a week or two to three weeks. Sometimes, a good way to do that is take your opponent out for a while and continue the story. Take a couple of detours. But it still leads back to the overarching story. That to me is the brilliance of pro wrestling. We can tell any story we want. We can make it go as long as we want or as short as we want.

I did a feud with MJF in AEW. It was 366 days, literally a year and a day. There were people like, ‘This feud is too long. Why go to something else? Why? What else do you got going on?’ That was the thing with Shawn Michaels and I. They wanted it to be a one-month thing. When we were like, ‘What do you have coming up?’ ‘Nothing.’ ‘Well, what do you have coming up, Shawn?’ ‘Nothing.’ ‘Then why are we ending this in a month? Let’s keep going.’ We did seven, eight, nine months. It ended up being one of the greatest stories in WWE history. I’m not saying that from an egotistical standpoint. It’s true. That to me is the brilliance of wrestling.

Sometimes, to do that, take one of the components out and continue forward. Then bring it back around again. Then change it a bit. Go over here, go over there, and suddenly you get to the top of the mountain, end of the story. That’s when you know it’s time to finish it. Until then, just sit back and enjoy the show. It’s show business. It’s not real.”

Jericho also gave his thoughts about his Mount Rushmore of opponents in his wrestling career and his belief that his match against Kenny Omega at Wrestle Kingdom 12 for New Japan Pro Wrestling in 2018 led to Tony Khan starting AEW.

“If you’re talking about the Mount Rushmore of opponents that I’ve had, I’ll put Shawn Michaels on there. I think Moxley would be in there from our work that we did in AEW and in WWE when he was Dean Ambrose. I loved working with him. Great intensity. I had great chemistry with The Rock. It was very short because he left to do movies very early on. But when we worked together for about a year in the early 2000s, we never had a bad match, bad angle, or bad promo segment. We were perfect foils for each other.

Then I think maybe Kenny Omega had put on there. We never had the same thing. We changed the business when we had our match at the Tokyo Dome, which at the time was crazy because nobody ever thought it would happen. We’re both from the same small town in Canada called Winnipeg. We packed the Tokyo Dome. The digital streaming was through the roof for New Japan Pro Wrestling, which then led to Tony Khan seeing and deciding that he could form AEW because there was so much demand for wrestling that was not WWE. So those are my four from an opponent’s standpoint.”

Jericho also gave his thoughts about his belief that being creative is the only thing that matters the most in pro wrestling.

“The only thing that matters is creativity, personality, charisma. That’s what makes you become a big star in the business. It doesn’t matter the moves that you do. ‘Oh, I can do a triple moonsault.’ Who cares? It doesn’t matter. It’s how you connect with the crowd, how you get your character over with the audience, how you build a story that people care about.

It’s like watching a movie. You can go to a movie like some Hollywood blockbusters that they spend $200 million on, but it’s shit because it’s just all a bunch of effects and set pieces. But there are no characters that you can relate to. The plot isn’t good. Then you can go see another movie that maybe cost $500,000 to make, but it’s one of the greatest movies of all time because you connect with these characters that you’re watching. That’s what wrestling is. It’s all based on that.

I tell everybody in the business, the young guys and girls that come in, ‘Work on your character and connect with the audience.’ If you can do that, you’ll always have a job, not just in wrestling, but in show business. That’s what it’s all about.”

Jericho also gave his thoughts about his success in wrestling and how it has impacted him inside and outside of the ring.

“It never really got into my head, but you do feel a little different at that point in time. Like some certain rules don’t apply as much. Whenever we had shows in Madison Square Garden, for example, if I was late, I would drive the wrong way down a one-way street because it cuts time off to get to the garden. I knew it doesn’t matter if I get pulled over because the cops will know, ‘Oh, it’s Chris Jericho going into the garden, go right through.’ So, you do kind of think, ‘It’s fine, I’ll just go. It’s only a block. I’ll drive wrong way.’ But it’s not a good way to be, but it just kind of gets into your head that way. It’s like, that’s fine.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com 1, 2, 3, & 4