Chris Jericho says he’s living in the now because he’s not interested in only playing the hits and wants to keep people engaged.
Jericho spoke with Wrestlezone and 101WKQX host Kevin Kellam this morning while promoting tonight’s AEW Dynamite taping in Chicago and touched on his ability to constantly reinvent himself and keep things fresh. Jericho said he can relate more to David Bowie in terms of constantly evolving, and says he can sense when it’s time to change things up and bring things current.
“I think it’s the same idea. You’re constantly evolving, updating and not living in the past. I think that I was never cut out for that. I never wanted to do the same thing twice and I know, I feel it, when the time is right to change. I knew when it was right to change out of ‘Y2J’, I knew with the countdown clock, The List,” Jericho said, “that’s one of the reasons I’m so excited to be in AEW because I know if I went back to WWE they’d want me to do The List because it’s so popular. It doesn’t fit anymore, you know? It’s one of those things where time moves on and it’s good to always update your act, update your look, update what you’re doing and still obviously pay homage to your history and your legacy, but constantly make it more contemporary. That’s not selling out.
“You talk about the new Ozzy [Osbourne] song ‘Under The Graveyard’—it’s number 4 this week. Ozzy with a top 5 song at 70 years old? But the reason is the song is still Ozzy, it’s got a different guitar player, it sounds more contemporary, it just sounds more now. That’s kind of what I’ve always done with Chris Jericho. If something starts feeling a little bit nostalgic, I drop it,” Jericho said, “and I have no problems dropping it. It’s great to go back and look at it and remember it, but The List was 2016. ‘A Little Bit Of The Bubbly’ and ‘Le Champion’ is 2019, that’s where I live now. I think it’s great to have a body of work that people go ‘I like this era best. I like that era best.’ but as long as you continue to keep your fans guessing, so they never know exactly what they’re going to get from you, they’ll be that much more engaged and that much more apt to continue to follow you.”
Another hot topic this week was Kellam’s interview with Jon Moxley, who said Jericho was smart not to mess with him. Jericho responded to Moxley’s comments and said he sees the real Moxley in AEW and that’s why he recruited him for the company, but he could eventually see something going down between them when the time is right.
“I saw it. Well, the thing is—here’s the best part—Moxley is not Dean Ambrose anymore. This is a completely different guy, he’s motivated. He knows exactly who he is and he went through the system in WWE and he wasn’t able to harness and work with it—I was. I could work in WWE for years,” Jericho said, “because I understand how to take what they want and make it good. He couldn’t do that to that extent.”
“We had a great rivalry in WWE. We did three or four pay-per-views together that I enjoyed so much, but it was a watered-down version of who he is now. Jon Moxley is the real guy and it’s one of the reasons that I orchestrated and—what’s the word I’m looking for—I scouted him and I knew that he’d be great here. I knew he needed to change. Selfishly, I knew Moxley would be a great opponent for me so I don’t want to fuck with him. I pay people to do that. That’s what the Inner Circle is for. I just look for great stories and a great confrontation between us when the time is right. It might be six months from now—I don’t know. I just know he’s another legit top star,” Jericho said, “a former world champion who came to AEW and the moment he walked through these doors he became an even bigger star just by being in AEW.”
