Chris Jericho will wrestle Eddie Kingston on Sunday at AEW’s Revolution pay-per-view.
An icon of the industry, Jericho remains a timeless piece of professional wrestling. At 51, he is still performing at an elite level. He was AEW’s first champion, and he continues to play an integral role for the company.
In a wide-ranging interview, Jericho spoke with Sports Illustrated about the upcoming pay-per-view, as well as the ways in which the feud with Kingston has grown personal. He also shared his perspective on a continually evolving industry, including the recent AEW departure of Cody Rhodes.
Sports Illustrated: Eddie Kingston is one of the most dynamic talkers in all of wrestling. That has also been a description which captures your work on the mike for the past three decades. Did you anticipate last week’s face-off would get so intense?
Chris Jericho: That’s the reason why I wanted to get involved with Eddie Kingston in the first place. There’s a lot to unpack with Eddie. He’s not just the clichéd wrestler, and he hasn’t been since the start of his career. That’s probably why it took him so long to get to the big leagues. He’s very real. That probably hurt him a lot in this business with so many thin-skinned people, especially ones on top. In AEW, he doesn’t have that issue. I expected it to be intense, I anticipated it, and that’s one of the reasons why I booked the segment. I wanted to see what he had, face-to-face, in a promo. Eddie did a great job. I think it added a lot of intensity to the issue we have with each other, and it explained a lot of things. Most importantly, it got a lot of people interested to see us fight at the pay-per-view on Sunday.
SI: The Revolution card is loaded, but that segment instantly made this match stand out. You chided Kingston for suffering from “achievemephobia,” but what do you respect most about him? And does he remind you of anyone from your past?
CJ: He doesn’t remind me of anybody. My point last week was that Eddie is prone to self-sabotage. This is different from when people say, “Eddie Kingston didn’t make it because he didn’t deserve it.” I think he could have made it years and years and years ago, but he has a little bit of a self-destruct button.
Achievemephobia isn’t something I made up; it’s an actual thing where people are afraid of success. I actually got that from Gene Simmons talking about Vinnie Vincent, the former guitar player of Kiss, who Simmons said had a phobia of being successful. I think John Frusciante from the [Red Hot] Chili Peppers was the same way to a certain extent—when the band got too big, he had to split, twice. I think Eddie is the same.
I don’t think Eddie has the mental strength and toughness to really understand or comprehend just how much pressure there is when you’re the top in the company and the top guy in the industry, and I’ve known that pressure for years. I think, deep down, he feels that he is a failure. I don’t feel that way at all. Once again, I call ’em as I see ’em, and I’m a great judge of talent. As soon as I saw him in AEW, I knew he was a great talent. I wonder sometimes if he understands he’s something special. He does have achievemephobia, and I think that is the crux of why he doesn’t like me.
Backstage, he doesn’t say anything to me. Whenever he does interviews, he has no problem calling me a carny or saying I’m stopping Santana and Ortiz from being tag team champions. I understand why he’d be jealous of a Chris Jericho, who’s been atop the business for decades, and he's just now getting to the point where he’s worthy of standing in the ring with me. So he doesn’t remind me of anyone. I think he has what it takes to win the big one, but I don’t think he believes it. If he does beat me, I’ll shake his hand. But I don’t think he believes he can beat Chris Jericho.
SI: At one point, Kingston pointed out he is not a “sports entertainer” like you. You brought magic to WWE for years. Do you ever laugh that that’s become a criticism against you in promos?
CJ: I don’t see it as a criticism at all. This is something that makes me laugh about the internet wrestling community and how they think they know everything behind the scenes and have all this extra knowledge. Nobody has more knowledge about the business than Chris Jericho in the ring as a modern performer. Nobody. Not one person. I know exactly what fans like, I know exactly what fans want, and when you’ve been doing this as long as I have, people have a tendency to take you for granted. Sports entertainment, what’s the difference? It’s entertainment, which is why you watch wrestling in the first place. And wrestling is a sport, at least I consider it to be. So yeah, I’m a sports entertainer. And so is Eddie Kingston. Except he’s just not a really good sports entertainer because he hasn’t been around like I have. He hasn’t main-evented a WrestleMania or been the AEW champion or wrestled pretty much everyone that’s been anyone for the past 30 years.
Eddie’s always bragging about being a Japanese wrestling expert, a Japanese wrestling fanatic. Who the f--- does he think has been to Japan 65 times, wrestling there since 1991? I have. Don’t come and tell me you’re a Japanese wrestling fanatic. Eddie Kingston is a student of All Japan? F--- you. No one is more of a student of Japanese wrestling than me. I’ve been wrestling there for 30 years and headlined the Tokyo Dome three times. So that makes me laugh.
And like you said, using sports entertainment as a detriment just shows how stupid people can be. That’s what we all are. Either you’re really good at it or you don’t really understand it. I embrace the fact that I’m a sports entertainer. You could use it as an insult or write it on a tweet or post it on Instagram, but it’s all part of putting together a great match. It’s all part of understanding what it takes to draw money and understanding what it takes to survive in a political environment that is very, very prominent in every wrestling company, including AEW. Some people say, “There’s no politics in AEW.” Bulls---. There’s just as much in AEW as there is anywhere else. You have to learn all of that to become a top guy, and sports entertainment is the crux of it.
SI: In many ways, you are the face of AEW. You are the first AEW champion and a global superstar. Though this isn’t a title match, what would a win against you mean for Kingston?
CJ: Title matches are important, but there are certain matches that mean just as much as winning a title. I’ve said that Eddie Kingston doesn’t believe in himself enough to win the big one. Every match he’s had—Moxley, Punk, Miro—they’re all great matches, but he lost them all. I don’t think he should have lost them all. I’m trying to help Eddie Kingston get over this fear of success by giving him another opportunity to beat that. And I know a lot of people might not like to hear it, but beating Chris Jericho is bigger than beating Miro; it’s bigger than beating Jon Moxley and it’s bigger than beating CM Punk. I think Eddie Kingston can do it, but his lack of self-confidence is a killer. I don’t think he believes he can do it. He’s already made his mark in AEW. People love every time he’s on the mike. But if you want people to take you seriously, you have to win some of these big matches.
I just don’t know if he’s playing Eddie Kingston, or if he really is Eddie Kingston. There’s a big difference. So we’ll see if he can win the big one. Eddie acts cool and like he doesn’t give a s--- about anything, but watch the promo segment back. When I said he doesn’t believe he can win the big one, look at his face. The great Eddie Kingston, the loudmouth from New York, had nothing to say. Maybe he believes I’m right.
SI: During last week’s interview on Dynamite, Eddie Kingston referenced he wanted the Jericho who wrestled Genichiro Tenryu in WAR. That stretch of your career took place 26 years ago. What stands out to you about WAR and Tenryu?
CJ: I worked for WAR, Tenryu’s company, in 1995. I went there 12 times and spent 24 weeks there. I remember wrestling Tenryu a lot of times, and he’s one of the best bosses I’ve ever had and one of the greatest wrestlers I’ve ever been in the ring with. He’s also tough as nails. I had bootlace marks in my forehead after our matches. Can you imagine that? That’s the way he wrestled. I was young to the business, but he always made me look good, and that really helped my advancement. Eddie mentioned his respect for Tenryu. I had his respect. I was a draw for his company. How old was I, Justin? I was only something like 23, 24 years old at the time. When I hear how much of a student of Japanese wrestling that Eddie Kingston is, I think back to my experiences.
Tenryu was my boss, he was my opponent, he was my friend. Eddie says Tenryu was his idol. You’ve never even f------ met Tenryu; he has no idea who you are. So Eddie wants the Chris Jericho that had the respect of Tenryu and not the one from the Mimosa Mayhem match? What was wrong with that match? Eddie can complain it was sports entertainment, and you’re damn right it was. It was entertaining, and it made a lot of money.
SI: You’d be remiss not to include the fact it was a great spotlight for Orange Cassidy, which should not be overshadowed.
CJ: It’s easy for Eddie to say that. You mentioned earlier that I wasn’t an EVP. The only reason I wasn’t an EVP is because I didn’t want to be. They asked me and I said, “No, that’s way too much work for what you’re planning on doing.” And Tony Khan’s the boss, anyways. I knew that from the start. So I wasn’t going to play grab-a-- and use EVP as an ego boost. F--- that. Just give me more money. My job was to be a big star and make new ones so everyone is valuable. Look at the guys I worked with in those first three months. I helped Cody reinvent himself. Jon Moxley, Jungle Boy, Scorpio Sky, Darby Allin. The Elite, working with them on a national scale. Giving a stage for Santana and Ortiz and Sammy Guevara, reinventing Jake Hager. Then getting into it with Orange Cassidy and then a whole year with MJF. We needed to show we had some really big names in AEW, which we do.
SI: I have one more question about Revolution, but before I do, I have two others. The first is about Cody Rhodes: Does it surprise you that Rhodes, one of AEW’s founding fathers, would leave the company?
CJ: Is it surprising at first? Sure. But it’s wrestling, man. It happens all the time. The only reason why this was such a big one is because it’s the first AEW guy who left, and obviously Cody had a huge part in this company. But now there’s Bryan Danielson, CM Punk, Adam Cole and Keith Lee with us. The more of those guys we bring in, the less spotlight is necessary to be shown on Cody Rhodes. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why he left. I really don’t know. No one knows except for Tony Khan and Cody Rhodes. But he wasn’t happy in AEW, so he’s going to WWE, or be a stay-at-home dad, or do TV shows or whatever it is he’ll do.
I honestly think, in a few years, he’ll look back and think, “I had it pretty good in AEW. Maybe I should have stuck around.” But you can’t think that way. Guys come and go all the time. That’s the business. Look at WWE—Hulk Hogan left, Bret Hart left, Steve Austin left, The Rock left, John Cena left, Shawn Michaels left. It’s Saturday Night Live. Adam Sandler left. Eddie Murphy left. Will Ferrell left. What do we do? You build new stars and move forward. Good luck to Cody, and good luck to us. That’s the nature of the beast.
SI: I know it’s similar to what happened in the fall, but with your band Fozzy about to launch your “Save the World” tour later month, does that mean we will see less of you on Dynamite and Rampage in April and May?
CJ: I toured all of September and October. That’s the great thing about working with AEW. I’m not on every episode of Dynamite as it is, but I’m wide open to doing whatever we need to do. AEW and Fozzy are my priorities. I know we had the pandemic that took us off the road, but this is the perfect situation for me.
Here’s a scoop for you: the song “Judas” just went gold with 500,000 units sold. That’s huge for any band. So yes, I’ll still be with AEW, and yes, I’ll be with Fozzy, doing both at the highest level I can.
SI: Finally, what would you like Eddie Kingston to prove to you this Sunday at Revolution?
Justin Barrasso can be reached at JBarrasso@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @JustinBarrasso.
