Chris Jericho says mistakes and injuries happen, but why not use the ‘happy accidents’ to generate some more revenue and attention?
Jericho was recently interviewed by Collider Live and part of the conversation included Shawn Spears’ now infamous chair shot to Cody Rhodes at Fyter Fest. Jericho says it was an accident, but that can happen in wrestling and said his kick to Adam Page at Fight For The Fallen was just as much of an accident as Cody getting busted open was. He noted that his kick to Page in sneakers created a different result than if he would have been wearing sneakers.
“I think it was just a mistake. It’s wrestling, right? Things happen. It’s a live stunt show. So some things go wrong. If people use the f-word—meaning fake—I hate that word because there’s nothing really fake about it. I mean, you’re putting on a show, but it’s not like if we’re on a movie and I’m gonna hit you with a chair, you stop it, stunt man comes in, you got a rubber chair, take two, take five, take ten, we’ll add the sound effects later.
We don’t do that. You get one swing of a chair and if it hits you in the head and cuts you open, that’s what happens. The other night I did a thing with The Hangman, with Adam Page, beat him down, I was wearing black sneakers instead of boots. The soles are thicker so when I went to kick him, I kicked him right in the face, blood everywhere, huge black eye. Not supposed to happen, but it happens. That’s just the nature of the game.”
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Jericho says if they could change anything, it would be to get more attention out of these ‘happy accidents’—as long as the performer wasn’t seriously hurt. He says the attention from the miscues can generate more for the company, and cited a personal injury when he had one of his teeth broken [in a ladder match with Shawn Michaels at No Mercy 2008] as a time when he took advantage of the situation and made it more real.
“If I could predict the future and know that he was going to get cut open—anytime that we call them ‘happy accidents’—like with Hangman getting busted open and the next day it’s like ‘make sure you get a lot of pictures and put them up on social media’ because it’s real.
This is like, once again, when you get the naysayers that are like ‘oh nothing happens in wrestling it’s just a show,’ and then somebody gets a huge giant black eye, you want to take advantage of that as crazy as that sounds. Like, one time I got my tooth snapped in half by a ladder. And instead of going right to the dentist I waited until the following day so I could be on TV on Monday night showing my snapped tooth because you want people to see that. To know that it’s not all fun and games.
So, when that stuff happens, as long as somebody doesn’t get seriously hurt, like I said, it’s a happy accident. So if someone was going to do that to me and they said ‘Okay, you’re going to need 12 stitches, but it’s gonna add a million dollars in revenue to people who want to see your match,’ alright, I’ll take it. That’s fine. I got scars all over from stuff that has happened like that.”
