AEW star Chris Jericho made a lot of waves when he appeared on Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Sessions podcast on Peacock after WrestleMania 37 last Sunday. In an interview with Busted Open Radio, Jericho gave more details behind the performance and the reactions to it.
“Nobody really knew what to expect,” said Jericho. “It came completely from the left field. The opening line of the show, if you’ve seen it, I said, ‘I can’t believe there aren’t any snipers on the roof to take me out. I can’t believe I’m the show! ‘ But yeah; what a monumental, groundbreaking moment that certainly was. “
“I wouldn’t have done the show if I hadn’t talked about my entire career, including AEW. There would be no benefits for me to do the show just to continue talking about old things I had done in WWE. And Steve wouldn’t have had me either.
So we were both determined that if we’re going to do this, we’ll do it right. And that’s one of the things that I really liked where people were so surprised. You need to know how I do things right now. And I wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t exactly the way I wanted it to be, and it turned out to be just perfect.
While Jericho and Austin were both aware of Vince’s possible response, neither of them worried that anything would be cut.
“We were both very convinced of how we wanted the show to be done. But when a certain 73-year-old wakes up one day and goes’ what ?! I never said that! The whole thing could be changed, wiped off the face of the earth or whatever. But I also think there was a lot of confidence, from both Vince and Tony Khan, to both Steve and myself, knowing we wouldn’t be heading that way. There was no reason to talk about things that would bury both sides. It was a very positive interview, as you have seen.
“So we were given a lot of confidence. And I think the moment Vince said “do it,” he knew what we were going to be talking about. And Tony even said it to me. He trusted Steve and I to take care of both sides and we did. If it were someone else, I don’t know if we would get the same trust. But I had Steve’s word and he had my word that we were going to do our best to have a great show. And there was no reason to put anyone down or say bad things. I think that’s one of the reasons it aired pretty much exactly the way we spoke.
The thing took more than two hours. I don’t think much has really been left out; a few lines here and there. But probably only ten minutes out of the two hours plus we talked about were left out. And that was mostly for time purposes. “
Jericho also said he would be willing to do another round of Broken Skulls Sessions. The reason, Jericho explained, is that there is still so much to discuss in his career.
“I realized I could do part two of this easily,” said Jericho. Because while we’ve talked about so much and covered so much, it’s just the tip of the iceberg.
‘There is a lot of chemistry and camaraderie there. Steve and I are good friends, you could tell. Steve is a very good interviewer and I think I have a lot of great stories to tell. And I was very happy with thirty years of stuff encapsulated in two years. But we’ve covered everything as far as you can discuss in this two-hour time frame. “
Jericho also briefly said that no one in WWE was aware of the podcast.
‘Nobody really knew. We recently laughed at how Triple H found out about this during a conference call for NXT, which I’m sure he loved. That’s about how close it was to the vest. “
One of the unique things about the podcast was that Jericho and Austin discussed AEW first, rather than starting at the beginning of Jericho’s career. When asked if this was so, Jericho revealed that it was.
“That was it,” said Jericho. “Again, we weren’t worried about edits. I’m going to say that Steve and I had the finishing touches. You know how it works there; only one man has the last cut. But to Vince’s credit, as far as I know, he was completely absent.
“It was both Steve’s and I’s idea to start AEW because there were so many questions about ‘will they talk about it?’ We just said ‘let’s get started right away’. And everyone will be really addicted. They will be like ‘holy smoke, they are really talking about AEW. And not just casually! ‘
‘I think there will probably be a total of fifteen to eighteen minutes of AEW talk. So we thought if we attack it right away and go back to it at the end, people are really paying attention. Because the question will be answered right out of the gate, which I think will amaze people, hook them up and engage them right away. “
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please include Busted Open Radio and report ah / t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription