The Inner Circle appeared on Talk Is Jericho and discussed details on the Stadium Stampede match, adding their own perspectives, sharing moments from behind the scenes of the match.
Host and former AEW World Champion Chris Jericho has called the match one of the best things he’s been a part of in wrestling. Jericho shared his thoughts on the rare opportunity they had to do the first-ever Stadium Stampede match.
“It’s such a rare thing to be involved in the first-ever of something in pro wrestling, because everything’s been done. And I was in the first Elimination Chamber,” Jericho stated. “I was in the first Money In The Bank. So, I know the feeling of a Stadium Stampede. Like you said, we can’t go back and look at a previous one, but yet we have this whole empty open canvas.”
During the match, Jacksonville Jaguars mascot Jaxson de Ville went toe-to-toe with Jericho, who landed a “Judas Effect” on the big cat. Jericho revealed who was behind the idea of the mascot’s appearance, and noted he could not do any real harm to the mascot, because there was a lot of cushion to soften the blow.
“The mascot was Nick Jackson’s idea,” Jericho revealed. “We should get a mascot, and you can hit it. So, we tried to get one because we had a lady from the stadium. Here’s another thing that I’m sure you guys know, but for people that don’t know, we weren’t just dealing with AEW rules. We were dealing with the city of Jacksonville, because they own the stadium; the Khans lease it. So, we’re also dealing with the NFL. So, any kind of things, we had a NFL rule watcher, and we had a city rule watcher.”
Jericho continued, “So, all of those people are going, ‘You can’t do this. You can’t do this.’ You couldn’t hit the mascot, but then they brought the mascot in, and Tony said it’s cool, and the guy was into it. His name was Alex. I said, ‘Alex, I got this move where I basically give you an elbow to the face.’ I said, ‘It’s not going to hurt you.’ And he goes, ‘Do you want me to put my helmet, my mask on, my head on?’ He puts this giant head on, and the thing is so big, I tattooed him as hard as I could. I bet he couldn’t feel it because there was so much padding.”
One of the more iconic spots in the match, was the instant-replay review spoofing the counterpart in the NFL. Jericho admitted that though he doesn’t know much about the NFL, he wanted to do the spot well, because it was something that Tony Khan really wanted to do.
“The replay was Tony’s idea, and Tony must have asked me 100 times, ‘Are you doing the replay call? Are you doing the challenge call?’ And I don’t know football,” Jericho admitted. “I don’t know what the f–k he was talking. I had to Google ‘challenge call’ and see when there’s a bad play, the coach has the right to throw the red flag to get a replay. I didn’t know that so we did that, and I said, ‘We better make this good, because this is the one thing that Tony wants to see.’ And as Jake knows, as long as you make your boss happy with the things that he wants, you can get away with whatever else you want to do.”
Jericho also talked about how he and Nick Jackson came up with the idea for the spot on the stadium steps. Jericho revealed how much pain his body endured during that spot, as well.
“So, in the last one, was the sprint up the stands by Nick Jackson and running down. And the reason why I wanted him to do it, because he was into it, but he was like, ‘It’s so long. Let’s go halfway,'” Jericho recalled. “I say ‘No, you got to go all the way.’ Why? Because it’s never been done before. We’ve never seen this. We’ve never seen a guy run all the way up the steps.”
Jericho continued, “He jumped off that ramp to hit me on the table. When you get hit on a table, it breaks. That’s your fall. This table is set up in sand. So, when he hit me, the the table just went [Jericho makes the sound the table made]. Anyways, that was a great part. Take Jericho out, put the line over on top of me with spray paint. And Hangman, you could see gently lifts it up over my ball bag so he doesn’t take my balls out, and rightly puts it over my face so that I’m gone.”
Jericho revealed that not only were they filming overnight, but there were many other outside factors that they had to deal with. He shared how the wrestlers and crew were running against the clock to finish filming on time.
“We filmed it from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., or 5 a.m. Then we had about a 60-minute period when it was a torrential downpour,” Jericho revealed. “And you [have] done yours already, Jake. Santana and Ortiz, you guys might have even been gone at that point in time. But me, Sammy, Nick, and Kenny, we had to do this whole extra thing, and it was getting close, because at 4 a.m., when the rain went away, they said the sun is coming up in an hour. And the fire marshal’s getting pissed for all the explosives at the end. So, we were really under the wire at that point.”
Jericho pointed out the cheerleaders and drumline left during shooting, changing the original plan for the end of the match. He also punched home just how tired he was, after the filming.
“It’s actually pretty funny, because like I said, we finished at 5:10 or something. The fire marshal was leaving at 5:15,” Jericho recalls. “I’m done. Because if you look, we had the cheerleaders [and] we had the drumline, but they started dropping off like flies. Because at the end, the idea would be when The Elite wins, the cheerleaders…they were gone. They said ‘We outta here.'”
“So we finished at 5:10, and that’s when I had the the white spray paint all over my face and down my shirt,” Jericho stated. “I’m like, ‘I’m not going to wash it off. I don’t know if I can wash it off. I’ll worry about it later.’ So, I walk into the hotel at about 5:30-6:00 in the morning, and there’s a group of pilots and stewardesses waiting to go to the airport. And here comes this lunatic: my eyes are beet-red, my hair’s all over the place, I got half-white face, I got a dented baseball bat in my hand, and a football uniform with a white line. I just look at them and I go, ‘It’s been a rough night guys.'”
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