Chris Jericho is excited to continue his career with All Elite Wrestling on the mic and in the ring.
Chris Jericho appeared on Sports Media with Richard Deitsch and talked about how commentary added a new outlet for him. Jericho first debuted on commentary during the pandemic out of necessity, but now says it paid off as he’s become a regular on Rampage in addition to continuing his in-ring career.
“We did that broadcasting basically by necessity. When everything was shut down and we had to do — ee filmed 26 matches in one day last April. Tony [Khan] probably does know the exact date, I don’t remember, but we kept the show on for four weeks with, I think it was 29 percent of our roster when everything was getting locked down. And I was like, ‘I’ll come in and do commentary.’ The plan was for me to be a guest commentator that week and I said, ‘Well, instead of just doing it for the week, I’ll just do it the whole time and then you’ve got me locked in. So that’s what we did and it worked out good.
“Tony Schiavone and I had great chemistry, it was lot of fun. I enjoyed it. I took a real Bobby Heenan / Jesse Ventura mindset toward it and I think Tony Khan kind of put that into his library to keep for later. When Rampage came up he said, ‘I want you to do commentary on Rampage.’ I said, ‘that’s great. Sure, I love it.’ So, yeah, it is something that I would probably transition to. I have fun with it, I enjoy that side of things, I like being on camera. Behind the scenes, I like giving advice and that sort of thing. Being a producer or an agent or a coach, as we call them, I don’t know if I could do that well. I don’t know if I could explain ideas. I like helping, but I like kind of being on camera. And also like you said, on Tuesday I’ll be 51 years old [Jericho’s birthday was November 9], and I don’t feel it.
“I think that I’m still contributing at the highest of levels. I was never the fastest wrestler or the most high-flying, but I can still do all the stuff that I always did, but now it’s the storylines, the promos, keeping things kind of really interesting and moving forward. Not to mention, my demos and ratings are always near the top, thanks to everyone watching, but I think it’s because I keep it interesting for people. You can’t teach experience, and if there was not an AEW, I don’t even know if I’d still be wrestling. But because there is, it’s exciting for me. I love being a part of it. I love working here, I love showing up for work every week and I think that goes a long way. If you are satisfied and excited mentally and creatively, that makes the physical go a lot longer too. When you start feeling stifled and start getting angry and feel that you’re not really doing what you want to be doing, I think the physical gets a lot worse as well. So, those two combined is really keeping me excited and really, really enjoying what I’m doing and being part of AEW. I feel great, I have zero injuries, so there’s no reason to not continue going.”
Jericho also spoke about the demo being more important than overall viewership; read more about his breakdown of the situation at this link.
If you use this transcription, credit WrestleZone and link back to this post.
