Chris Jericho on Failed Plans with Finn Balor & Nakamura, List of Jericho

Recent episode of the Inside The Ropes podcast show had Chris Jericho as the guest discussing plans to feud with both Finn Balor and Shinsuke Nakamura during his last run in the WWE and The List of Jericho being among the biggest moments of his career.

On the topic of plans to feud with Shinsuke Nakamura, Jericho stated he pitched the idea to Vince for Nakamura’s first feud on the main roster to be against him and for their first match to occur at Wrestlemania 33. He was willing to extend his run in the company till Wrestlemania in order to make it work but in the end, he felt Kevin Owens would be a better opponent instead.

“We went to Japan in June and I came back in July and I came back and I remember talking to Vince, ‘you’ve got to bring this Nakamura guy up to the main roster. I want to work with him. Let’s debut him at WrestleMania.’ And Vince was like, ‘oh, that could work.’ And that was why I stayed till WrestleMania, if I could work with Nakamura. Done. And then, about a month later, I said, ‘that Nakamura thing, I think Kevin Owens and I could be WrestleMania.’ And he goes, ‘do you think?’ And I go, ‘I think.’ He goes, ‘yeah? Well, maybe.'”

On the topic of plans to feud with Finn Balor, Jericho stated he pitched another idea to Vince to face Finn Balor at SummerSlam but like with the Nakamura plans, it was changed to something else instead.

“And then, another funny thing. I was supposed to work with Finn Bálor at SummerSlam. I pitched that when I worked with Finn the previous year in Japan. Anytime I go to Japan, I come back and tell Vince, ‘why do you have these guys wasting their time in NXT? Bring them to the main league.’ So it was going to be me and [Finn] at SummerSlam and then Vince changed his mind. Then, put me and Kevin together as a team against Enzo and Cass.”

Later in the interview, Jericho felt the success of The List of Jericho gimmick was like being in a band and waiting a long time before having another major hit. He considered The List to be among the best moments of his career in the WWE.

“The List Of Jericho was the biggest thing, along with the ‘drink it in, man’ and different versions of that, those two things, ‘stupid idiot’, ‘it’, ‘quiet, quiet, quiet’. It’s like if I was in a rock band, like I’m in a late era of my career, and then, I put out this album and it has, like, five of my biggest hits ever when I haven’t had a hit in 10 years. And that’s what this is like.

I was in such a great place and so confident in my abilities that I could get anything over and that’s a good place to be.”