AEW superstar and former world champion Chris Jericho recently spoke with the New York Post to hype tomorrow’s special edition of Dynamite, where the Demo God leads the Inner Circle in the first ever Blood and Guts matchup against the Pinnacle. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
On the decision for the Inner Circle to turn babyface:
Doing this for as long as I have, you can always tell. Also, I believe in long-term storytelling. Kind of the idea when MJF joined the Inner Circle was eventually to have him start his own group. What I wanted, which has never been done before, is to have the entire Inner Circle turn from heel to babyface. There was no reason to end the Inner Circle, but as far as the Inner Circle as heels there wasn’t much more we could do with it. But we knew that because that’s why we started this angle in September, knowing that when we go to February or so it would be time to do the massive switch.
Why their version of Blood and Guts will differ from other WarGames matchups:
Our version of kind of the WarGames is why we called it Blood and Guts, it’s just not a copyright thing. There are some differences and we wanted to kind of make it our own version of this classic match, which we obviously have a direct legacy to with Dustin and Cody [Rhodes] being with the company and obviously [president] Tony Khan is a massive fan of that era of wrestling. So, I think he didn’t want to mess with those classic rules. He grew up loving that style of WarGames. I’ve never been in a WarGames before in my life. A matter of fact, I’ve never even seen one. I watched a couple now to just kind of look at them. The reason why I don’t need to go back and watch any is (because) I’ve been in a lot of first-ever matches that are now kind of mainstream, if you talk about Money in the Bank, if you talk about the Elimination Chamber or Stadium Stampede. We didn’t go back and watch other ones, because there weren’t any. I’m treating Blood and Guts kind of the same way. Yes, there are ideas you can pull, but this isn’t a typical WarGames or a typical cage match. Also, our angle seems to be a lot more serious than some of those teams that were kind of put together and a lot more of a blood feud. I think those rules fit what we’re doing here in that you don’t want to do a bunch of pins and eliminations. It really is submit or surrender because of the story that we’ve been telling between these two factions.
Talks the professional rivalry between MJF and Chris Jericho when it comes to cutting promos:
That’s just a professional rivalry, but it comes from a place of respect. I remember when I started in WWE there weren’t a lot of guys who could go toe to toe with The Rock on the mic. Me being a great heel combined with his great babyface, we pushed each other. MJF is like that, too. I think for both of us, especially you get somebody who can cut a great promo and there’s not a lot that can do it the way that MJF can and there are not a lot who can do it the way Chris Jericho can. I think one of the reasons we thought it would be great for us to work together in the first place was for the promos we could do back and forth, face to face. Now that we’re such at odds, good guy, bad guy, enemies and allies, there is professional rivalry but the best part is, it just ends up being better for the segment and better for the fans. It’s not like there’s any animosity or underlying heat, it’s more of just volleying back and forth. What can you come up with? That was great. Wow that was f—king great too. That just makes for a better show. I’m saying this with complete humility, if it’s even possible in wrestling. There are not a lot of guys that can do that in this day and age the way that he and I can. That’s why most weeks you’ll just see us doing promos. As soon as Blood and Guts was announced there really was no reason to do anything physical. We found out that Mike Tyson was available so then we did the Dax versus Jericho match. Worked out great, but had there been no Mike Tyson we wouldn’t have even touched each other yet and we would just be building these promos up to Blood and Guts.
Says he wants a bat vs. bat match with Sting:
Painmaker versus Sting, kind of my alter ego, bat versus bat. It’s all there. Once again, it’s always based on the story. But one thing I’ve done really well since 2016 when I came back to WWE and worked with Kevin Owens, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns, I concentrated on working with kind of guys from the younger generation because I didn’t want to see another Jericho versus Triple H match for example. We’ve done it. So Jericho versus Sting for a one-time dream match, I think it would work. I don’t want it to be like WCW in ’96 where it’s Piper versus Hogan, Piper versus Savage where it’s just kind of like the same thing.
Hopes to see Samoa Joe in AEW:
You look at a guy like Tucker for example, I don’t know if we would take him tomorrow, we might, but it seems to me if he goes and proves what he can do and what he’s capable of, well then absolutely. Obviously, the one name that stands out as an established main-event heavyweight champion guy is Samoa Joe. Those guys have three months before they can go anywhere. But I’d love to see Joe in an AEW ring at some point. That’s another dream match if you want to go there. I’ve never. I think we had one little, three-minute s—tty little match on Raw and it was just kind of thrown away. And I didn’t want to do it because I said this is a pay-per-view match, but that’s the WWE style. I think Joe and Jericho, Joe and Omega, Joe with Cody, Joe with put name here is a money match.