Chris Jericho Discusses Holding Back Wrestlers’ Careers, ‘Please Retire’ Chants, More – Chris Jericho made an appearance on the latest episode of Insight With Chris Van Vliet to discuss a wide range of topics, including the ‘Please retire’ chants from the crowd in AEW.
On his current AEW run: “It’s funny how I’ve become kind of public enemy number one as a heel, by the way. Isn’t that kind of the idea? Aren’t you supposed to be public enemy number one as a heel? Aren’t you supposed to not like somebody’s character when that character is a heel? Some maybe I’m actually smarter than everyone. I’m manipulating people to do what I want them to do. ‘Well, fuck off. Just retire already.’ It’s like, okay, isn’t that make you mad? Because what I look at is the ratings, and nine times out of 10 my segments always go up, and there’s still some of the biggest ones on the show. So that tells me that whatever it is that I’m doing is working, but I do have a target on my back for that, and that’s once again,I mean, it’s kind of the idea, you know, it’s like, I am a bad guy on the show. It’s public opinion, and it goes in cycles, you know. And when you’ve been in the business as long as I have, especially at the top level, that makes people mad, you know.”
On the chants: “I mean, it’s one of those things where it’s like when they were really at their peak. I’m always thinking, okay, I can make a t-shirt out of that. I can make a whole angle out of this, but it kind of went away. You know, they kind of stopped. Plus, I was really good at being able to shut people down….I don’t know, for, give me a city in New York, you know, ‘please retire.’ Take the mic and say, ‘I know why you want me to retire. Because, you know, you want me to go play. You want me to go pitch for the New York Yankees. So they could possibly win a World Series, but that’s not going to happen.’ Boo. And then they stop, you know, it’s something that Seinfeld said years ago in any great stand-up comedian, I’ve got the mic. You can’t heckle somebody when the guy has the louder voice. So, yeah, the please retire was a good one. That was fun, you know. But once again. No, I don’t take it personally. No, nobody really knows me that says that stuff. And probably, if I saw them on the street, like they’d probably say hi, you know, like whenever I do, you know, a convention or something like that, like when my lines are down the street, you know. And that’s not from an egotistical standpoint, but I’ve been doing this a long time, and a lot of people have great memories from the different eras that I’ve been in. You know, it’s like, I’m the Rolling Stones on the Steel Wheels Tour when all the critics are saying it’s a steel wheelchair tour. Stones need to retire…..this is a job where the idea is to elicit emotions, positive, negative, or anything in between. And when you sign up for it, you have to understand that people are going to respond. Now, all of us wish that you could just walk down the street and have people throw a parade for you at all times and throw confetti and will their firstborn sons to you. It’s not that way, especially now.”
On helding back other wrestlers’ careers: “I always love the concept of the Jericho Vortex and how anybody that works with me gets dragged down. Name one. Name one person that got dragged down from working with me, maybe afterwards, they didn’t go higher. But that’s not up to me. I’m not in charge of booking the entire company. All I can do is influence with the storylines that I work on. But everybody that I can think of that worked with me certainly went to a higher level from, you know, I did a year with MJF, and look where he’s at, to Danny Garcia, to Sammy Guevara to, I mean, you know, Daddy Magic last week comes off a commentary and gives, gets a big pop. Who do you think, you know, put him in that position, you know, all of those guys. I think Big Bill and Brian Keith have grown by leaps and bounds from working here work with me, you know. I’m not going to go through the entire cast of characters, but I definitely know what my intentions are. And it’s not to bury anybody. It’s to build as many people as I can and give them experience so they can learn how to start shouldering things on their own.”
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Chris Jericho Discusses Holding Back Wrestlers’ Careers, ‘Please Retire’ Chants, More
