Chris Jericho’s recent rivalry with Eddie Kingston split opinions – but the original plan for the pair is even more shocking!
‘The Wizard’ was embroiled in a rivalry vs. Eddie Kingston for the first half of the year, first losing to ‘The Mad King’ at Revolution and then defeating him in a divisive Texas Deathmatch a few weeks ago on Dynamite. However, the original plans for the two would have saw quite a different conclusion.
As Chris Jericho revealed on the Swerve City Podcast, the inaugural AEW World Champion noted that he and Eddie Kingston were initially slated to be a tag team:
“When we first started doing our angle, the idea was we would end up as a team, Eddie and I, but as we were going along, [I] had some medical issues, and Eddie had a broken orbital bone. Then he had mentioned something to Santana and Ortiz and said, ‘Jericho’s the one that’s been holding you back from the titles.’
Well, I couldn’t work with Eddie because he was hurt, well, maybe I could do something with Santana and Ortiz because they’re kind of locked in with Eddie, and there’s a thing there.”
Eddie Kingston had previously declared that Ortiz and Santana would have held the AEW World Tag Team Championships by now if it wasn’t for ‘Le Champion’. Kingston’s issues with Jericho seem to stem beyond this, however, going as far as to say he wasn’t excited to face Jericho at first.
In 2022, the rivals have shared the ring six times. Outside of their two aforementioned singles clashes, a multitude of multi-man outings have come their way, which included a Dave Meltzer-rated five-star Anarchy In The Arena match. In total, Chris Jericho is currently 4-2 up.
Both Jericho and Kingston are no stranger to the AEW tag team division, having both challenged for the AEW World Tag Team Championships alongside Sammy Guevara and MJF, and Jon Moxley and Penta Oscuro, respectively.