Although he’s had several throughout his esteemed career, Chris Jericho has pinpointed the exact bump that scared him the most.
Having been a staple of modern wrestling for the last few decades, Chris Jericho has participated in a number of high-profile matches and storylines, bringing with him the possibility to receive a number of nasty bumps. However, his fall from atop the Blood and Guts structure is one that legitimately terrified him.
Speaking during an Inside The Ropes live show via Talk Is Jericho, the inaugural AEW World Champion discussed how the moment was actually inches away from potentially killing him, had he fallen back just a few more inches:
“Once again, I mean terrifying by the way, [that was] one of the most terrifying things I had to do, just all day thinking about it, and I knew that it was the finish that had to be done. You know, it’s surrender or submit, we’re on top of the cage, Max [MJF] is threatening to throw me off. Sammy surrenders, they win the match, and then he throws me off anyways, that’s a heel, that’s what he should do. So I would have loved to not have taken that bump, but it was the only way to end that match.
So it’s part of my job, like we mentioned with the light tube or, you know, talking about the spin [Claudio Castagnoli’s giant swing] on top of the cage, all that stuff. I would rather not do those things, but it fits the story, and that’s the most important thing to me. So, yeah, I was scared, I really was scared. And if you watch that, I dislocated my elbow on one side, but if you really watch, there was like a bunch of lights, that when I fell off, I went so far back that the back of my head missed a rack of lights by this much.
If I were to whack my head on the back of these metal spotlights, I would have died, right? But you don’t think about that. And when you’re doing it, just pray for the best.”
Chris Jericho continued, explaining how Sammy Guevara’s similar fall from a subsequent Blood and Guts match was actually scarier, given the increased height of the cage:
“So Sammy’s fall the other day at Blood and Guts was way crazier because it was higher, my fall on the stage wasn’t as high, but I’m not Sammy Guevara. I’m not talented, as far as being an athlete, and I have a thing called fear that goes into my head that he did not. But I remember all day long, just thinking about it praying like, ‘Please’, we just, every precaution you can take, we took but still you’re literally falling, you know, 12 feet on your back, can’t see anything. It’s just like, ‘Here we go.’
And they said, ‘Step off the back.’ So you’re standing and they said step off. So the guy just goes, you just step off and then you just fall. I’m like, ‘Well, it’s easy for you to say, Mr stuntman.’ So I’m on the thing and it is a step back, and I pushed myself off, which is why I almost hit my head on the back. But you know, we’re not trained stuntmen, but it’s part of what we do, so I thought it was a great finish.
And I think like I said, the reason why we did is because it just fit the story and just kind of really intensified the rivalry and the stakes between Max and Chris. Because at that point, we’ve been going for, I think, eight months, but there was still more to the story. And that’s why we end up going a whole year because that story played itself out in a year, it couldn’t have gotten shorter. Some people say it was too long, I don’t think. I think every week and every piece fit the puzzle of that overall tale that we were telling.”
Chris Jericho has competed in both Blood and Guts matches, losing both. As mentioned, Sammy Guevara surrendered to hand The Pinnacle the victory in the 2021 incarnation, while a dual Claudio Castagnoli and Eddie Kingston submission in the 2022 instalment handed the win to Blackpool Combat Club.
‘The Wizard’ has also taken part in various other gimmick matches in AEW, including an Anarchy In The Arena match, a Barbed Wire Everywhere Deathmatch, and two Stadium Stampede matches.
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