Chris Jericho discussed in a recent edition of Busted Open Radio some of his favorite matches from his wrestling career. Here is what he had to say:
Chris Jericho on some of his favorite matches from his wrestling career: “It’s really hard to say your favorite – what’s your absolute gun to the head favorite? Before I used to say the match I had with Shawn Michaels for the WWE title – ladder match in Portland in I believe 2008. That’s one of them. It’s a match that was not only a great match or a perfect match, it was the culmination of a seven-month-long story that was originally supposed to be a one and done. It was supposed to be a one-month story, and Shawn and I were like why are we rushing this? Neither one of us are doing anything. We created this whole amazing, probably textbook on how to put together an amazing angle, and if I still worked in WWE, I’d suggest they do a special on it for the network because it really was textbook for how you put together a great storyline.
“Kenny Omega at the Tokyo Dome – that was the match that A. my first match away from WWE in almost 20 years, B. it showed what a draw Chris Jericho was because that match did an extra 15,000 tickets in sales and an extra 30 percent in New Japan World subscriptions, and C. it showed Tony Khan that there was a segment of the fanbase that was looking for something different from WWE. It was basically where the spark of AEW began, so that was a big one. I’ll do another one -with Jon Moxley, where I dropped the title to him a mere 10 days before the lockdown. I thought that was a great story with a great payoff and a great finish. There are so many others I could mention – Ultimo Dragon in 1995, that’s the match that got me hired in ECW and WCW. There are quite a few signposts along this Chris Jericho highway for sure.”
On why he decided to keep a list of every wrestling match he’s had, which is the focus of his new book: “My first day of the Hart brothers pro wrestling camp, Keith Hart was there – it was the only day we saw him after he collected our money and split. He said ‘Do you have any questions?’ He explained what was gonna happen over the next two or three months in school. I asked him ‘How many matches have you had?’ And he was really annoyed. Nobody keeps track of that stuff, why would you even ask that? I thought to myself that was really weird because if I wanted to know how many games Wayne Gretzky’s played in, I could go to the library and find a record book and look up Wayne Gretzky. So I said, I’m gonna keep a list of every match I’ve ever had – whether I have one or 2,722 – I’ll keep a list of it.”
(H/T to 411 Wrestling)
