Blocks w/ Neal Brennan - Chris Jericho

Episode Date: July 4, 2024

Neal Brennan interviews Chris Jericho (Champion Pro Wrestler, Fozzy) about the things that make him feel lonely, isolated, and like something's wrong - and how he is persevering despite these blocks. ---------------------------------------------------------- 00:00 Intro 2:13 Getting Rid of People Wlho Tell You You Can’t Do Something  5:15 Wrestling Writing & Improv 7:50 Mexico and Japan 13:35 Sponsor: BetterHelp 15:08 Politics of Wrestling 26:50 Acceptance as a Musician 32:07 Sponsor: Rocket Money 34:38 Too Self-Involved 38:33 Champions vs. Roster 42:25 Greatest Difficulties  47:59 Attributes of Wrestlers 52:03 Mistakes He’s Made 54:20 How He’s Grown ---------------------------------------------------------- Follow Neal Brennan: https://www.instagram.com/nealbrennan https://twitter.com/nealbrennan https://www.tiktok.com/@mrnealbrennan Watch Neal Brennan: Crazy Good on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81728557 Watch Neal Brennan: Blocks on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81036234 Theme music by Electric Guest (unreleased). Edited by Will Hagle Sponsor Blocks: https://public.liveread.io/media-kit/... ---------------------------------------------------------- Sponsors: https://www.betterhelp.com/NEAL for 10% off your first month https://www.rocketmoney.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, it's the Blocks Podcast. I'm Neil Brennan. My guest today is, we're taking it outside the realm of comedy and music. We're expanding it to professional wrestling, ladies and gentlemen. And comedy and music. Yeah, and comedy. We'll discuss that. That might be what you call multifaceted. You hate to say it, but it might be. You're an entertainer. How about that? Yes, yes. multifaceted you hate to say it but he might be you're an entertainer how about yes yes see it's chris jericho everybody he's one of the most uh popular and best wrestlers ever multiple champion multiple federations multiple belts fucking hyphenate you're still doing it right yeah

and you're and you do other shit as well well um kind of going back to what you said wrestling is entertainment so i've always looked at myself as an entertainer more than just one specific you know facet that's what i wanted to get back to we're not even get back to so you what do you you're in grade school high school what do you think is gonna happen you're in canada what do you think's gonna happen to your life i think i just had a lot of goals and dreams and thoughts of things I wanted to do that were outside the beaten path and you're talking about you know growing up in the 80s there was no internet or anything like that so when you said like this professional wrestling looks really fun like I really want to try this how do you do that

now whenever you want to do something off the beaten path you'll always have a litany of people telling you you can't do it by the way the 80s almost everything was off the beaten path well it's true like there was very little even even if you wanted to do something it was impossible well because there was no information yeah but i'm talking about like you know people that i went to high school with that instantly went to university and then went to the University of Manitoba. And then suddenly, you know, they've got their business degree in four years and then fucking don't do anything ever. I never wanted to do that. I wanted to.

I really was interested in how do you get into wrestling? How do you how do you put together a rock and roll band? Because those are the two things I wanted to do. Yeah. wrestling how do you how do you put together a rock and roll band because those are the two things i wanted to do so i just really started concentrating on that and and getting the information that i could get the limited information i could get but also too early on you want to talk about blocks getting rid of people who tell you you can't do something because there must have been everybody well my question back then, they were probably right.

You know what I mean? Like, it wasn't exactly wrong. You just had a thing in you that was able to, they would have been right most of the time. Yeah, but I also think, too, like, why does people care so much about what I want to do? Like, worry about your own shit, you know? Totally agree. And another thing, too, is when you're talking about, you know, wrestling was about really really big guys hulk and hulk was probably six four three hundred pounds macho man savage who for my money one of the greatest one of the greatest performers of any genre i've ever seen right an entertainer uh capital e entertainer the cream will rise to the top but the cream

rise to the top oh yeah and that's one of the greatest fucking any things i've ever seen that and that's what i'm talking about characters uh that you play and i realized you know my dad was a pro hockey player he played 10 years in the nhl oh great and i loved hockey yeah but it was a team i liked wrestling better because they're individuals i like the characters that were in that's really interesting and this is not even a teenager yet i just really liked the characters and the over overblown personality so so that's kind of how i was able to break into wrestling even though i wasn't six foot eight news flash spoiler alert 280 280 pounds,

was having the biggest, I knew I couldn't be the biggest guy physically, but I got the biggest character on the show. I had the biggest persona, the biggest personality. This is when I was freaking 19 years old. I figured it out that early on that you have to connect with your audience. So that's kind of how I always approached wrestling from day one, was you're playing a character and you're entertaining. The thing about wrestling from day one was you're playing a character and you're entertaining the thing about wrestling from from the outside in it looks like real it's male pretend it's adult male pretend it's like the most kind of flamboyant silly and yet it's violent so like you can it's

it's masculine enough but you can do a lot of shit within it. I mean, if you're on the outside looking in, kind of, I think the world has kind of changed over the last 10 years or so. I mean, there was people still like in 2010 or 15 saying, you're a wrestler. That stuff's all fake, right? I'm like, what is this, the fucking 60s? Everyone knows it's a show. People still would want to have this like, really?

And there's still times when you can convince people that it's real.'s the thing about wrestling it's neither fish nor fowl there's no other form of entertainment like it it's scripted but it's not roughly right it's not really scripted people think there's a script the script comes to you might call it a promoter in boxing there's a booker who puts the matches together. And then you figure out the storylines that lead to these matches. You guys. Okay. So there is a, like on WWE, I know there's a few, I know some writers. Yeah, sure.

But you guys have to figure out what's the rough outline. So I would, I would, I would liken it to like, if you ever heard of it, Christopher Guest makes his mockumentaries or Larry David with Kurt. I just had Cheryl Hines on Talk is Jericho, and she was explaining, you get a couple lines of, okay, Neil talks to Chris, and they argue about his love for culture pop soda. Right.

And that's all you get. And you better be good, and you better be on it, and you better flow. Wrestling is a lot like that. You can over-script it, or you can under-script it, but the best way is just to have bullet points.

It's like being in a jazz band and just following each other or an improv comedian yeah you know and i actually did groundlings for a year out here in los angeles and it helped me so much with so many different facets of entertainment the which what was the most helpful part committing yeah to to a bit um which is kind of an acting would be called dropping in. That really helped. And also like either you have that improv element in you or you don't, but you can go with the flow. Like you can never put me in any situation where I feel like I couldn't

entertain. So you had, that's obviously like when we're eight, everyone's like that. And then, I mean, Jerry Seinfeld one time said, when I was in high school, everyone was funny. And all stopped right and i kept being funny is that how you feel with this sort of the the drive to entertain i think so like i grew up in high school we always had a group of guys that we would make our own movies we did they called them air band competitions were lip-syncing we always won every year by putting together like i remember like we put together the wham bangers that it was a combination of hit the lights by metallica and wick before you go go by fantastic and we would do that like like i guess you call

it now there's a collab a collaboration yeah so we always had to and then going to what you're saying i have a point on what you meant is that at that time frame all of us were creative all of us were coming up with stuff if we did a movie oh this time you know wallace is the funniest guy this time a house the funniest guy this time irvin's the funniest guy that's me um but then i just kept pushing it where other guys i think let the reality of the world slip in a bit too much like okay you can't do this forever and i'm like well you can because look at all the guys that do this forever yeah not just in wrestling but in like i took a lot of inspiration from music from the front man, Mick Jagger and Dave Lee Roth and Bruce Dickinson and Paul Stanley and all

these great Freddie Mercury, charismatic front man, David Bowie. And I wanted to take that element and put it in the ring. So I think like you said, a lot of my friends just stopped doing that for whatever reason, because they felt they had to do what the world tells them to do, which is get a job and do this, this, this. And I was like, no, I'm going to fucking Mexico and I'm going to live there for a couple of years. Well, that's they felt they had to do what the world tells them to do which is get a job and do this this this and i was like no i'm going to fucking mexico and i'm going to live there for a couple years well that's what i'm gonna yeah that's because looking at your your biography it is like japan mexico you might did you think like i this is might not work and i don't care or it was it like this is to work this is just a pit stop before it

works well to me it all worked you know great like even going because i graduated from high school at 17 just because of when i was born and all that sort of thing and you couldn't go to wrestling school until you're 18 that's fine that's all i wanted to do so i went to to a journalism program in winnipeg for a couple years got my degree and degree. And then when I was 19, I was like, okay, I'm going to go to wrestling school. And you might as well have told people at the time that you were going to go to sword swallowing school. It's like, what? Wrestling? Yeah.

You're too small. That was always a big thing. It's like Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse. I thought you'd be bigger. I thought you'd be bigger. So I just wanted to go to wrestling school. Boom. Accomplish it. Wouldn't it be cool if I could actually get a match? I got a match and to wrestling school. Boom. Accomplish it.

Wouldn't it be cool if I could actually get a match? I got a match and have the match. This is in Mexico? No, this is in Canada. Okay. Small town Canada. Yeah. But I'm just saying each step you build.

Yeah. And then suddenly you get two matches in a week. And then suddenly you get to go out of Calgary to Edmonton. Then you get to go, because I train in Calgary. Then you get to go to Winnipeg for a trip. And then somebody says, hey. Winnipeg? Winnipeg.

Yeah. Then someone says, you want to go to Pomonapeg for a trip and then somebody says hey winnipeg winnipeg yeah then someone says you want to go to pomona california for a show fucking a 36 hour drive but now we've worked in the states and that's also the funny thing about like metal back then so many videos were about the road yeah yeah and like black and white and getting off the bus and small turn the page yeah well this was no bus This was like four guys stuffed into a, you know, a freaking tourist trying to get down to the States for one show. Yeah, same thing. But it's, you know, as a stand-up comedian, you know, you would know the same thing. You build your way up the ladder.

I'm still, I'm really glad you answered the way you did because I still feel, I have three Netflix specials. I still am just happy that there's an amplified microphone right a room where i can just say my shit i don't care like i'll get them all the whatever we'll we can scale it out but i'm still happy that there's a just the thing of it yeah is so with stand-up it's like it's so interesting and so fun well and you never know what you're gonna get and there's no idea for me like once again talking about size which was such an issue back in those days was okay there's a kind of a prejudice against small like i was a smaller guy but he's six six five eleven and you're five eleven but yeah i never i didn't get the sense walking over that i could uh take you in anyway

but thank you but you might be a ninja i don't know but the thing is too though you have guys everyone was big like if you were a big guy getting a wrestling i could tell these guys are shit it doesn't matter how fucking oh they're bad like bad balance bad they're just not athletic or they're not good entertainers they're not good characters they're just playing wrestler like i've never gone in my life and so i realized okay in mexico and japan there's huge wrestling companies and and the guys there are smaller. Humans are smaller in Mexico and in Japan. So I can go there and size isn't an issue and I can just work on my craft. And that's what I did for the first six years of my career was work internationally.

Mexico, Japan, Germany, you know, everywhere I could go to build up this resume, build up this experience in the ring and build up the life experience outside of the ring to really get to the next level i know from my approach to from being a writer director to a comedian what i had i knew i could write the jokes right but i had to figure out how to how to energetically be a performer, be an entertainer. What was your version of that? What were the building blocks? You probably didn't have to do much character shit in Mexico and Japan, or did you? No, no, it's the opposite.

There's so much character stuff that you can do, and because I was just going for it. Anything in life is built around confidence. Once you get just a little i remember the first match i ever had in the pinocchio moose hall in pinocchio alberta of course right everyone knows it and there's probably i don't know 100 people there but there was like this little group of kids and in my mind there was 20 of them there might have been two but they were cheering for me and i remember thinking like holy shit they're cheering for me they've only seen me once like i did it i did it so then i have confidence well i'll keep being

really flamboyant and and so that's kind of how i kept building the confidence so you know you go to mexico and they're really about rudos and technicos rudos are bad guys and technicos are good guys did you speak spanish i didn't when i went there, but I learned. Great. I learned how to speak Spanish because I lived in Mexico City basically for two years. Mexico City. Shout out to Mexico City. Shout out to Mexico City.

Great city. And then also flying back and forth to Japan. At the same time? At the same time. I had no fear. 90, 89? No, no, no.

I started in 90. So this was 93, 94. Okay. 95, around that time frame. And it was all about character. I was writing for all that on nickelodeon at that point go on there you go i mean uh what's the one where they dump the slime on your head yeah all of them i'm gonna i'm an alumni of one of the whatever show that was um

but yes so so you'd go to japan and i was a bad guy there you know and you could really lean into to the being an asshole which i loved and then in mexico because i had the long blonde hair i was a technico a good guy so then you'd be really popular with the ninos the kids and and and the ladies so i could play both roles so that's the the the way it works is like if you're a white hat the kids and the ladies tend to like you did okay what about is there a general rule with that or is it like really times have changed like we're talking once again early to mid 90s where if you were portrayed as a good guy people would cheer for you now if you play that same character in 2024 they'd do you

the fuck out of the building this show is sponsored by better help hey you know how they say comparison is the thief of joy but yet it's still impossible to stop doing it. Obviously, social media is a huge part of it. So what do you do when you get caught up wishing your life looked like somebody else's? We all know that it might look like they have it all together in their Instagram, but in reality, they probably don't. Therapy can help you focus on what you want instead of what others have so you can start living your best life. It can also help you focus on what you have. That's great.

That's the biggest growth I've had in the last couple of years. And therapy has helped for sure. You hear me talk about therapy on here all the time. I stand by therapy. It's one of the most helpful things you can do. For instance, it's taught me boundaries. You can learn boundaries. You can learn how to be resilient.

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Do better with BetterHelp. Okay. do better with better help okay well okay well i have a lot of questions about like the the politics of getting the uh your your role in the in the company right meaning i know you went back and forth you've been in so many different companies and you've gone you've been heel and you've been yeah hero and all that shit do you have to kind of politic to get written for you know what i mean like is it is what's the status hierarchy and can it be played beyond are the guys that are just good politically and not incredible wrestlers or performers or vice versa are the guys that are fucking great wrest wrestlers, great performers, and they just are, they said the wrong thing to the wrong person. Yeah.

Or someone just doesn't like them. Right. You know, I mean, that's kind of what it is. You're you, when you, when you work in a wrestling company, there's a boss. Right. And you're basically performing to the audience of one. Now we listen to the, what the crowd is doing is doing, but it's not like anything else. Like, you know, if we're on a hockey team

and I score 25 goals, you're going to play me more. If I'm in wrestling and the entire crowd is cheering for me, but you're not slotted into this position where the overall booker, the guy who promotes and controls the show, if he doesn't see you in that position, you might not get it. So it really is, once again, it's a lot.

I mean, it's funny. When I did Dancing with the Stars, for example, right off the bat I realized, oh, they're just booking the show. There's no who's better, who's worse. It's just like they think this person is the most entertaining or maybe getting the best ratings. He's going to the semifinals or she's going to the semifinals. And it's like I figured it out right away because it's like wrestling.

We're going to figure out who gets the best. Oh, you're saying like it's not fixed but like it's not it's produced you can go out there and do the best dance ever and if you're not slotted to get to the next step you won't you know and then i'm just no and you're not saying this is no scandal yeah this is like it's show business yeah you know they don't claim it to be you know it's it's it's like you know if you go to the olympics and there's a figure skating and someone does an amazing you know they don't claim it to be you know it's it's it's like you know if you go to the olympics and there's a figure skating and someone does an amazing you know all the russian judge gave him a five like it's just someone's opinion yeah and that's kind of what wrestling is based on on that sort of a thing so the olympics are fixed as well guys well i i also we're learning

a lot i've tried uh not tried but i've started to really think about how pro wrestling could easily be an Olympic sport because it's an athletic display between two people, much like figure skating or synchronized swimming or anything else that's judged on points. Oh, that's a really funny idea. Think about that. So let's say I'm from Canada, and Chris Jericho and Kenny Omega, the best wrestlers in the world from Canada,

we put together our routine. And then you got Will Ospreay and Michael Oku from England they put together their routine and then you got you know John Moxon Brian Danielson from the United States they put together their routine and then the judges would say okay this was the best like it doesn't matter who wins or loses like like figure skating so anyways that's a whole other thing and then you guys get drug tested and they take all of your medals

away we're the only ones that probably get drug tested more than anybody else down these days in wrestling are they testing yeah are they really yeah big time great yeah i mean i think oh yeah they should they should there's been that's another thing too how the business has changed as i mentioned in the 90s it was all about huge guys it just jacked up as you can be then the 90s it went more to uh smaller guys but still you had to be in great shape you still have to be in great shape but still have to be in great shape but if you look at the wrestlers now in 2024 and compare them to the ones in 1994 you're going to

see a completely different body shape and body type why why are they testing now versus then i think because it was out of control for a while a lot of guys if you look in the 90s and 2000s dying of drugs okay okay stuff like that so you think hgh steroids is leads to just i mean i just think just drug use life on the road back in the 90s and 80s and you know for for any form of entertainment look at the comedians yeah look at the rock and roll bands yeah wrestlers are right there with them so it's but you got but a lot of them were way bigger that's the thing about right i'm just I'm just talking about actual drugs too, being on the road. It was a much tougher lifestyle back then.

I'm saying traveling when you're 6'8 is worse than 5'8. Sure, but if you're on whatever you're on as well, it makes it worse. Demerol and all, yeah. Yeah, I mean pills were really big and all that sort of stuff, and it's kind of all calmed down now, which is great. I mean it's the way it should be. And like I said, wrestling is still always about personalities and stories. It's just now you don't have to be an extra 40 pounds of muscle

to make it to the next step. It seems like the hardest schedule and job in that NBA players, it's 82 games, 41 on the road, that NBA players, it's 82 games, 41 on the road, but there's a lot of staff to massage. Just like there's a lot of infrastructure for that level of travel and stress in the body. And is there that in wrestling? Once again, no.

What did you just say? 82 games, 41 on the road, and then your season's over and you get six months off or whatever it is we don't have that ever that's what i'm saying like it seems way more there are no home games no i mean you're you're the one thing that's different now is if you go back even 10 years ago you would have road shows like that weren't on tv so i mean when i was working in in wwe you sometimes we work in Friday, Saturday, Sunday,

Monday, and maybe even a Tuesday once in a while. That's insane. That travel schedule was fucking crazy. Different city, different city, driving, renting your own cars,

all that sort of stuff. When a W started, that was one of the things we only work on Wednesdays. Now we work Wednesdays and Saturdays, but that's, but, but still, and it's like,

it's our boss, the family Tony Khan they also own the Jacksonville Jaguars and Fulham Football Club in England so they treat AEW much more like an athletic team the much better care as far as you know hotels and cars a lot of stuff is taken care of where it wasn't in WWE so that makes it a lot easier on your travel too. And plus the fact you're only just flying into one city and flying out the next day is a lot better than flying into one city on a Friday, picking up a car,

driving 250 miles to somewhere on Saturday, then driving another 200 miles somewhere on Sunday, then driving somewhere else, the 250 miles to get there Monday, return your car Tuesday in a city that's like 15 fricking states from where you got it and you got to pay for it all. And you have to explain

like, well, no, I got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're in Nevada. What's the drop-off charge? Yeah, exactly. Well, I wouldn't even think about this, but when WWE went public as a publicly traded company and a lot of people got very

wealthy, you guys must have all been like the it's weird because for the longest time there was only one show in town chris jericho has come to save the wwf which is the worst thing that can happen for, for a performer or anything. But so you could get to a certain level and make some money. But like you said, you see what's going on with the gone public and there's, you know,

$2 billion in shares and, you know, you did good making 250 grand that year, but you're like, Holy smokes. Like, fuck man. I was in the main event 20 times or whatever it may be.

So once again with the advent of aw when aw started five years ago actually when i went to aw it changed the entire salary structure i don't know if you know a lot about hockey but when bobby hall went to the wha in 1970 the nhl raised everybody's pay so that no one would go to this other league right and that's basically what happened in WWE and in AEW. Did he end up coming back to the NHL? He did. No, I don't think he did.

No, he retired in the WHA because he was Winnipeg Jets for five, six years. Yeah. But point being, it changed the entire way that the business was done. And that's kind of what happened in wrestling too when AEW started. What was your deal? What were the old deals and what did your deal? Well, I mean, you look now because things have changed too, Neil, where it's all about television revenue.

Before it used to be I was talking about the road shows and pay-per-view and all this sort of thing. Now it's television because live sports is the last bastion of advertising revenue that they'll spend. You don't know what's going to happen. Right. You have to tune in for the whole show. You have to watch it.

When it's happening, there's gambling, which I don't know if you guys, they probably won't gamble on you guys, but, and it's apolitical. Those are the virtues of live sports is that most of the time, not political and all those other virtues. And so it's worth like in some cases, billions of dollars. Yeah, it's the most value, and it's the only one that rates well. Yeah. So that's kind of when AEW started,

because I was kind of the biggest name to help start the company, and one of the factors that got us onto TBS on a national platform, that, of course, it was the most money i'd ever made ever in wrestling and that was in 2019 which was 29 years into it was it bittersweet like i wish i could have made i mean you could look at it that way in the league that i was in the company that i that i you you could look at it that really helped yeah but i mean you don't seem to have a lot of self-pity. I rode the wave the whole way. You know, I've always been really good at knowing when it's time to move on.

And it was time to move to a different place. And we made AEW a success very quickly. Yeah. So I'm not sour grapes or bitter about anything. Yeah, listen, would it be great to make $10 million a year for 20 years? Sure it is. Sure. But I mean, there's guys in the 80s that were making $20,000 a year that don't have anything now, and they were world champions.

So it's the same thing with hockey. You know, like I said, when Bobby Hill. Well, the hockey thing, your dad being a hockey player had to make the whole thing seem a little more realistic, meaning, you know, your dad's in the NHL. Like, that's a pretty, that's like larger than life. And it's a big deal. And you see the lifestyle you get to know and a culture of athletes. And also too, it really helped because my dad always supported me.

My mom did too, but I think she was a little more confused. Like we were wrestling really, where he was like, go for it. Like, why not? Like someone's got to do it. And he had done the same thing when he was a teenager, basically dropping out of high school when he got drafted by the Boston Bruins at 17 years old or whatever it is you know my son now just left college because he wasn't feeling it he's really getting into jujitsu and really really wanting to do that i'm like you're a third generation fighter yeah maybe this is your outlet because he never

showed any interest in hockey or wrestling maybe jujitsu his thing yeah so you know there's no reason why when you're 17 18 years old and you walk out of high school that you're then forced to decide the path of your life for the next 30 40 50 years it's so dumb yeah you know two months ago your mom was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and now you got to pay the rent and go to class and figure out you know what you're you know being but it's also you're like we had we're both living our dumb childhood dreams yes yeah so we're bad examples like but most people shouldn't have to decide what the course their life is going to be when they're 18 we were lucky that we knew from you know i knew and also chris incredibly talented very much so And good looking too, to be honest.

But I mean, when you, when we were lucky that we had that, you know, and to, and to me it was like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to be in a band and I'm going to be a wrestler. That's what I'm going to do.

Yeah. Someone, like I said, someone's got to do it. Yeah. And, and, and,

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and, and, and, and, and, and, and Schwarzenegger's book or one of his books where he told everyone in his little village he was going to be the biggest bodybuilder of all time and the biggest actor of all time got laughed out of the village that was me I'm going to be in a rock band I'm going to wrestle now I'm an eight-time world champion I got a gold record on my wall from from Judas from from Fozzie my band and it's like I think it's better than it needs to be well there you go meaning like you could just have you know what I mean like could have just gone in and well and that was because once again I've been playing in rock and roll bands since I was 14 years old you know this Meaning like you could just have, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Like could have just gone in. Well, and that was because once again, I've been playing in rock and roll bands since I was 14 years old.

You know, this is not something I just woke up one day and went, hey, I'm going to get into a band. It's like, you know, and I think if you're talking about Fozzy, another block in the music world was trying to convince people this wasn't just a vanity project. Yeah. And also too, I experienced it with wrestling. Oh, you're too small. Experienced it with Fozzy. You can't sing. You're a you're a wrestler it's like why what does that have to do with anything bruce dickinson

most singers can't sing i mean most rock singers but i mean some can sing amazingly but some it doesn't have to be pitch perfect no but my point is like bruce dickinson's an airline pilot and it's like saying oh you can't be an airline pilot because you're a singer or you can't be a singer because you're an airline pilot it makes no fucking sense yeah you need to do it you can either do it or you can't so we had to work twice as hard to get people's respect with fozzy but now we've had we just had our six top 10 hit you know now actually and like i said a gold record in world tours and all this other stuff so you just got to stay with it if you're if you know it's going to work don't listen to people who tell you can't do something.

Cause everybody, not everybody, the majority of people who don't understand something, we'll just say, you can't do it. And don't buy into it. The funny thing is a lot of people who said it don't remember saying it too. Meaning you're like,

it becomes like it echoes in your head forever. And then you bring it up to people and they're like, I don't remember that at all. Yeah. And you never forget it. And I, not only do i never forget it i think about it every day right it's it drives me yeah you know i wrote i've written a bunch of books but the fourth book i wrote was called no is a four-letter word and what i meant by that was people throw around no like as a as a fail safe and so it's a curse like curse word it's like a swear word hey can i have

a book? No. Why? Well, it'll never work. What do you mean it'll never work? Like, let's figure out a way that we can make it work. Don't just say no for no reason. And I find that's another good kind of motto for my life is don't tell me why something won't work.

Let's figure out a way to make it work because there's always a way, always. Yes. Do you find your own story inspiring at the risk of sounding egotistical i think i think people could find it expire inspiring um i'm living it so i'm not going to sit and go be inspired yeah but but i mean you a small town kid from canada who wanted to get into wrestling and wanted to get into music and did it, you know, in a time when there was no internet to Google anything like I was talking

about, you know, writing letters to wrestling schools and sending VHS tapes to New Zealand to try and get booked and find out the promoter that you got the address of stopped promoting six years ago. Like, you know, that was his it's perseverance and just, you gotta have a certain, like you said, something inside of you where everyone else stopped being funny. What do you think yours is? Is it fun or is it, is it more fun?

Is it closer to fun or anger? Not anger, not anger, great challenge. Yeah. And pissing people off that like, once again, like there's no excuse.

If I can do it, you can do it. like there's no excuse if i can do it you can do it like there's no excuse and people don't like that like it's like oh yeah he's doing this or he's doing that or even there's people that just hate me that i'm still in wrestling like he should die die go away and it's like i'm not gonna do that because the only person that can tell that to myself is me and i think i've always kind of had that attitude like don't tell me what i can and can't do i'll know if i can do it or not i think that's that that's probably the extra the x factor that i had to continue to build well how's your inner monologue not exactly knowing what you're going for but it's always been positive no i know that's what i'm that's what i'm curious about because most people i know it's negative and they have to overcome it it's negative and then there's 20 positive 80 negative 20 positive

but whereas you don't seem you don't seem to have a ton of uh you don't have to tell yourself to shut up no and once again like there's there's no real rules for me like i think once once you get to a certain point to where you succeed, you know, once again, in pro wrestling when it was kind of a long shot, and then in music, and then, you know, the podcast that's still one of the biggest in the world after 10 years, or having the Chris Jericho cruise,

like, all of these things that I do, it's like you get that confidence that we spoke about earlier, and then you become dangerous. Because it's like, I'll give it a try. Like, dude, let's do it man like i just literally am rolling out a comic book of a character i created called the pain maker that i did in japan uh in wrestling but i wanted to take it into the comic book world because i was like how many spider-man batman superman movies do i have to see yeah sooner or later someone's gonna have to create a new superhero or anti-hero whatever you want to call it and i think this is a great idea let's let's

go for it what's the end game a movie what's another end game i don't know bob kane created batman in 1933 and here we are still talking about him 100 years later maybe let's let's create the pain maker and he'll be getting talked about 100 years later with movies and franchises and like shoot shoot for the stars and there's no reason not to hey dummy how much do you think you're paying in subscriptions every month the answer is probably more than you think over 74 percent of people have subscriptions they've forgotten about i definitely did i had a website membership and thanks to rocket money i'm no longer throwing money away on that particular platform because I just wasn't using it. And Rocket Money made me realize that. Most Americans

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With Rocket Money, I have full control over my subscriptions and clear view of my expenses. I can see all of my subscriptions in one place and I see if something I don't want and Rocket Money can help me cancel it with a few steps. I love how the dashboard shows me this month's spending compared to last month's with charts. So I can clearly see my spending habits. Plus they'll help me create a custom budget and keep my spending on track. Rocket Money will even try to negotiate lower bills for you by up to 20%. All you have to do is submit a picture of your bill and Rocket Money takes care of the rest. They'll deal with customer service for you. That's such a great service. I can't stand it. Yeah, you know what else Rocket Money does? It alerts you to subscription increases,

which has been happening a lot lately. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all of the app's features. Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash N-E-A-L. That's rocketmoney.com slash N-E-A-L. Rocketmoney.com slash N-E-A-L. What do your loved ones criticize you for? Maybe being a little too self-involved, I think, which is easy to do when you're doing so much.

When you make a business of yourself, basically. But that's it. I'm the brand. And there's always jobs coming in. There's jobs going out. I guess in a lot of ways I run the business of Chris Jericho. And that probably is a little bit too much sometimes you know and i have to learn to to sometimes pull back about i'm not just talking always about me not in an egotistical way but just

talking about all the stuff that's going on yeah that's probably one of of the flaws have you had to like really was there like a low point or is it just it is a hard thing because you're the, you pay the bills and you, you are every human being self-involved, self-interested and then you monetize it. So then it becomes a thing you kind of need to constantly be worrying about. Well, yeah,

because you know, like David Lee Ross said here today, gone later today. Yeah. I mean, I'm not quite at that point now where, where you can just disappear because there's so many ways to to be in the public eye and continue to make my if you're

famous in a show or a special or a match you can do comic cons and horror cons for the rest of your life in this day and age um so i've never been worried about that and once again i'm always very creative and i don't worry about taking chances but But like you said, I think you have to continue to have a certain standard of work, a certain standard of a body of work. And so that takes a lot of pressure. And it takes a lot, you still gotta have a lot of, put a lot of effort into it and it takes a lot of time.

So that does become a little bit overwhelming at times. LeBron James said a couple of weeks ago that in order to be great, you have to hurt your loved ones. I mean, you know, it's not the greatest of thoughts, but there's a sacrifice that your loved ones have to make you know and vice versa you know then that that is something that it my life isn't like yeah my friend's life you know like my friends as in plural all my friends i'm my life is based on being on the road being away from home most people lives is away from home for nine to five and then they're home. Yeah.

And there's pros to that and there's cons to that in all aspects of it. So this is the life I chose and I can never complain about it because it's what I always wanted to do and I'm doing it. So even though there's detriments to it and things that you wish weren't that way. You've been married 20 almost 25 years was there a sort of talk up front where you said like hey just so you know what this is you were popular when

when you got married was but not half as much as i was going to be yeah you know and then you know building fozzy and all these other things sometimes that becomes an issue what i try and do is especially now like i said with aw being only wednesdays for the most part it does make it a lot easier to be home a lot um you know i can kind of control my schedule if there's something that needs to be done or or you know an event or a birthday or that always was a pretty good for all that sort of stuff anyways so i, I mean, I think I did a pretty good job with the chain of being on the road wrapped around me. I think, I think I did a pretty good job of balancing.

Yeah. And they, she agrees. I don't know. I hope so. That's like the, the hard part, like is getting,

having relationships away from it. Right. And still, you know, crushing it, so to speak. What's the difference between being the champion and being one of the guys on the roster? I think maybe in the earlier years of being a champion, it kind of really cements you as a top guy, as a main event player. And then once you've been champion, for me, like I said, eight times world champion and a myriad of other ones,

I think there's 40 or 50 now at this point, you just establish yourself as basically as as a leading man shall we say and once you're established as a leading man you can do a movie as a great fourth lead or a great fifth lead it doesn't always have to be about you um and wrestling is like once again it's all about connecting with the crowd and telling great stories and sometimes those stories involve being a champion sometimes Sometimes they don't. So that's the beauty of wrestling. We say in wrestling that the championship is just a prop.

It's a prop. And you use that prop accordingly. So it's all about star power and building your name and your value. And like I said, if the title is involved with that, obviously it makes you one of the top guys. It doesn't necessarily, back in the 80s and 90s, Hulk Hogan's the champion for four years. The entire company is based around him.

Now it's a little bit more spread out. Like when AEW first started and I was the biggest name in the company, I knew that was great, but I got a two-month, three-month window here. It can't always be about me. That's the new timeline, basically? I mean, for me, it was.

I put it on there to try and build as many names as we could because you want to build as many. So with AEW, you were like one of the architects, like a GM. Yes. Yeah, I mean, yeah, EVP. And did it make you think of the whole thing differently? It did. Okay, yeah. It did because mentioned in wb there's a lot of writers in aw we're writing a lot of our own stuff which for me is is great because i'm a creative and i know my character

and i know who's out there that i want to do want to wrestle with i want to do stories with so it's a completely different animal like in wb you would wait and find out what the writers had for you yeah in aw i'm submitting the ideas that if my boss approves it then i know what i'm doing for the next eight weeks which you know if you're if you're painting a picture can all the guys do that no no you have to be at a certain level okay you have to earn that respect are there guys that are really good performers and then they have bad story ideas because that happens out here a lot yeah there's movie stars like i'm also a producer and a writer and then all their movies go down then yeah and another thing too is a lot of people just kind

of wait around for whatever they're given that's nothing about wrestling like we said you're not expected to come up with your own stuff that's not really how the business works until you get to a certain level then you can then you are expected to come up with stuff and that is that is that generally that's every corporation every every every league every guy i would think so i think so you want yeah guys to pitch yeah i mean even the last probably I was in WWE for 20 years, probably the last six or seven. I spearheaded the stories. I didn't have all of them, but I spearheaded them. And then once I moved to AEW, probably coming up with 70 to 80 percent and then collaborating with my boss and whoever else is kind of involved.

And that's something, too, that after some years, I'm not attached to anything anything like if i have an idea and you don't like it no no problem like no like the motherfucker like okay well like we're writing a song together like i always envision like if lennon mccartney you're writing a song do you like this part cool let's keep it do you like this part i don't like it okay let's come up with something else yeah that's what putting the other great wrestling matches like too yeah so i guess what i'm curious about is what what's been the greatest difficulties of being you because physically you seem like you're not limping no no no like you're not no you're not fucked up i mean after 33 years in the job i'm not i've never actually missed a match from injury ever besides when i broke my arm in 94 and missed six weeks.

What are you doing that other guys are doing? I don't know. Durability. I grew up in Winnipeg where it's frozen eight months a year. Maybe my bones are frozen. Was your dad pretty durable also? I don't remember him getting hurt much in those 10 years he played. So smart.

You get smarter as you get older. You adjust. I don't lift weights anymore you know i just how come you start feeling it on your joints and now i'm just like you're cutting off your nose to spite your face okay i'm doing my bench presses to build my chest but my shoulders fucking screaming so you know okay what do you do stretches boxing now got it kickboxing uh bike a lot of biking but but that's what's a lot of really pay attention is you don't really start paying attention to the diet a lot really i went through a big yoga phase which helped a lot um so you just got to listen to your body

and and the fact that um you know i was always in great shape but i wasn't a muscle guy that has to be 250 pounds like you know you can get you can just start just being in great shape, but I wasn't a muscle guy that has to be 250 pounds. Like, you know, you can get, you can just start just being in good shape, you know? So all those things contribute, I think. But, um, but yeah, I don't have those, those pain issues, which I think is how you started. Yeah. Well, yeah. What, what are the challenges? Is it, is it travel pain? Like what I'm also curious, Like I, I watched beyond the mat, the documentary, like 50 times,

like just endlessly. And, uh, it's a sad documentary, which is obviously like the way they framed it. But is there a way to be a professional wrestler? That's mostly fun. And mostly,

I think so. Neil. I mean, that's the thing. Like once again, like you mentioned earlier, you still like the fact that you have an amplified stick in your hand where people can hear you tell dumb jokes and laugh at them.

I mean, it's the same for me. I mean, if you go bare essentials, we're dudes running around half naked hitting ropes and bouncing back. Like people say, well, that's not real. Like you would never do that in a real fight. Well, you'd never fucking hit three ropes. Right. Yeah. You also wouldn't oil yourself up. Right. Well, you'd never fucking hit three ropes and run back.

Yeah, you also wouldn't oil yourself up. Right. I mean, this is show business, man. It really is. And that's something to me. It is supposed to be fun. It's still a job. There's always going to be things you like and things you don't like.

I mean, going into work. I'm going to work. You're going to work. You're going to an arena to entertain thousands of people doing, you know, live stunt shows. That's my job. Other people go to work

and write insurance policies or write prescriptions or whatever it may be. This is my job. Now, if it starts feeling like a job, then change something up. That's the beauty of it. Like, I really... When has it felt like a job? And what did you... How did you change it up? I feel like it's a job then change something up that's the beauty of it like i really what what when has it

felt like a job and what did you how did you change i feel i feel i feel like it's a job um the times that stand out to me right before i leave companies like before i go to another like with the company called wcw it was time to leave with wb it was time to how come just you start feeling stale stagnant mentally you're not digging anymore you don't see any upward movement you just feel like you're like you're you know spinning your wheels all that sort of stuff and like no you're not going to make more money you're not gonna you're sort of like in the same it's small pond yeah i know i can work in the main event and i'm in the second match and i don't see any way out of this so the best way to do that is just go and that's one of the beauties that understood by the by the guys and the lot of guys they might i don't know if

they do understand it but but you got to take a chance and it's scary like especially if you don't have anything else lined up but you have to believe in yourself yeah that's what i was wondering about it's like because you have switched a bunch of times, and I often think, I was reading it, it was like, was this acrimonious? And was there a huge risk of like, I may not have an opportunity after this, but I got to go. Yes.

And you did it anyway. Yeah, I mean, yes, absolutely. Like in 2005, I left WWE because I was just burned out, but I didn't know where to go, and I was just sick of wrestling. And that was pretty scary because, you know, I was making money,

but doing appearances and taking gigs here and there, but you go from a guaranteed contract to now you're, you know, a freelancer. And then the same thing when I left WB in 17, I just didn't feel like there was upward momentum. And then when AEW started, it's like,

this is perfect for me. Like if there was no AEW, I don't know if I'd still be in the business because it presented a creative challenge and reignited the fire that I had inside of like, I fucking love doing this. This is fun for me. I like creating all of these characters and universes and storylines and matchups. And that really, like I said, was a renaissance for me to to still be doing this and enjoying it and because once again i don't have any physical problems mentally the ideas are still there so there's no reason to stop doing it you know it's it's a controlled environment to where it's like a movie it's not it's it's not like a football game a football team where okay

well jericho's 53 he's a little bit too old okay, well, Jericho's 53. He's a little bit too old to throw the ball anymore. It's like it doesn't work that way. We can script it so that I throw the ball as far as I want. That's the beauty of it. And what do you think the most important attributes are for to be a pro wrestler? Once again, you've got to connect with the audience and it's the same that you answer for your stand-up if you're front man of a band if you're you know a shakespearean actor

you have to connect with the audience to where they feel something when they see you do you have tricks for that i mean it's just reading the room are Are you like, you were always pretty engaging. Probably you got girls like all that stuff. Is that, do you think that that's just a natural thing that exists in you or did you foster it at all? I think it's an X factor that you could, you could build and nurture and grow. Did you do it? Were you ever conscious of building it or nurturing it? I just think I just was conscious.

It's like, just fucking go for it, man. You know what I mean? What's the worst that can happen and then when when you become fearless that's when you become dangerous like in the best possible way you know and that's i never i never had a problem with like like i mentioned just completely like super super influenced by by by bowie and just seeing how he like let's dance the biggest fucking thing he's ever done he feels his next two records are stagnant because they're trying to make a sense he stops playing all of it and starts a band called tin machine and you're like what they've always come into town playing

only tin machine songs like are you kidding me and just that takes balls and bravery and confidence and i've done that many times in my careerrip down everything that's working and get rid of it because it's stale. They used to call me Y2J, you know, Y2K, Y2J type, that was the tie-in. And now that the Y2J problem is here, this company from the front office idiots to all the amateurs in the dressing room,

including this one, to everybody watching tonight will never, ever be the same again. Y2J, did he say Y2J? They're still calling me Y2J 15 years later. Get rid of this thing. It's 15 years old. I want to do something new.

Never call me Y2J on the microphone again. Tell the announcers I don't want it on the Tron behind me. It's gone. Get rid of it. Don't refer to me as that. But it's your biggest hitcers i don't want it on the tron behind me it's gone get rid of it don't refer to me as that but it's your biggest hit i don't care we need to figure out some new things and so i think being fearlessness and knowing reading the room and knowing it's time to switch when you start feeling that and you're a good guy you have a great option you just turn into a bad guy yeah and then when you start feeling that's sorry peter out you turn back into a good guy and you can do that your whole career flip back and forth and do you feel like

you have an understanding that a lot of guys don't have yes i think i do i think and this is not for me what are the pitfalls of ego for them are they not like they're they're they're dumb guys but i'm saying like what are the pitfalls some people say oh chris jericho he's he's the goat he's the greatest full-time if you believe that, that's cool. I don't believe it. There's others that are much better. But one thing I think I'm very – I like Y2J.

Go ahead. Thank you. One of the things I'm very, very good at is knowing when it's time to switch things up and having the balls to do it. That's hard. There's been times even coming from leaving WWE to come to AEW, and I always describe it like you're standing on a top of a giant skyscraper. And I say, Neil, if you take one step off this skyscraper, you can fly.

I'm telling you, you can fly. 10,000% you can fly. But you just got to take that step. It's the hardest thing to do. When you finally take that step and you suddenly fly you're like why didn't i do this years ago because it's a little bit scary you know and and and that's to me i never had a problem taking a step off the building it's a trust fall it is and it's and you but you're trusting yourself you have to believe in yourself or something else some like bigger

spiritual jurors and universes thing and i'm not saying like jesus or any of that stuff i'm just Or something else, some like bigger spiritual thing. And I'm not saying like Jesus or any of that stuff. I'm just saying you must feel like something charmed happening. But I do feel that. I do have faith. And I do feel like a lot of times you're not really in control of what's going on anyway. So just kind of go with the flow. You know what I mean? And I'm really good at that too, just going with the flow.

I'm like, God, this changed. This changed. Hey, man, it's all good oh my god this changed this change hey man it's all good like we'll make it good no matter what it is what mistakes have you made i mean a lot of mistakes i think i think that's how you get to where we are as people now you know what i mean i think you make mistakes in the way that maybe you deal with things personally at times. Professional mistakes, I mean, there's been hundreds of those, but I don't think it's a mistake. What's the category? When you make a mistake, what did you generally,

do you know what I mean? Like what's the mechanism? I don't know. I was going to say maybe like hurting somebody's feelings or something along those lines and i'm not like don rickles or just throwing out yeah sometimes you'll do something you'll be like oh man that yeah it sucked i shouldn't have said that or done that you know and is it generally speaking just trying to make something happen i think so yeah the thing with wrestling too is especially 20 years ago there was so many politics that was hard because everyone was, was maneuvering against each other and stabbing each other in the back to try

and get like shitty. It was, it was terrible. It was terrible. But then, but then, you know, we grow up and the business has changed.

It's so much different than it was when I first started. It's so huge now. And so corporate, you know, kind of the ways of the world before when it was much more you know carny based yeah i've changed so i mean i can't go through a list of mistakes i should have done this i should have done that because i don't really think yeah i'm not i'm just thinking more like what's the the kind of mistakes i make are being uh it's just overreacting to probably temper yeah you know a lot of times kind of

you know going too far in a certain way and and realizing i need to pull this back but maybe it's too late you know you keep pushing pushing them you get over the line you pull it back but it's too late i think that's just part of of life you know yeah but um but yeah i think i think mostly like from a professional standpoint most of the the chances I've taken have worked. Maybe not as big as they could have. Maybe not as big as they should have. But I'm probably 80% satisfied with the stuff that I've done for the most part. Yeah, it's pretty good.

And how have you grown? Who were you when you were 20 and who are you now? It's like, what would you say to your 19-year self when we first I wouldn't I wouldn't really say anything it was just believe in yourself and just go for it man and that's what I always did you know even I knew when it was time to leave Mexico I knew it was time to leave Japan or these other companies ECW and Smokey Mount Wrestling all these places that I worked it's like I just always had a good feeling of knowing that it's time to move to the next place.

And that goes for any of the outside of wrestling too. Like I said, like, um, it just all boils down to the same thing. No is a four letter word. And don't let anybody tell you that you can't do something. Um,

cause they've probably failed, you know, I'm not going to tell you can't do something cause I did it. So you can do it too. You know, I think that's, that's the model that anybody should have. That's a, I think I have no further questions. Your honor. Yeah, no, I, there was, it looks like you're having a great time.

Yeah. And people say, do you still enjoy it? And if I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't be doing it. It is too hard on my body and traveling and being away but i still love it it's what i've been doing since i was a fucking teenager 19 years old you know and people also say like okay what would you choose if you had to choose between fozzy and wrestling it's like i don't have to i built my career so i do them both i don't have to do that and i like that too you don't have to live in the box like we talked about of what society deems what do you do

i'm an entertainer and to me i still love doing it and i'm gonna go see the stones this summer multiple times and mick and keith are 80 and that's inspiring for me i'm 53 man so i still got you know 27 years of show business left to me to catch up to those guys and it's not gonna be wrestling can't wrestle forever don't want to wrestle forever when I feel that it's time to move on, I will. But there's so much you can do in this world and so many things and so many tricks that I've learned to continue to stay in the business in different ways. I have no doubt that there'll be things going on for years and years and years to come. Chris fucking Jericho. Fuck yeah. out