Chris Jericho has revealed that his recent weight-loss was sparked by a chance meeting on New Year’s Eve while on holiday with his wife.
At the tail end of 2021, Chris Jericho was admitted to hospital in the UK were he received treatment for what was described as a “non COVID” related issue.
Upon returning to the United States, Jericho had a small break from AEW television and used that time to get healthy, losing a significant amount of weight in the process. By the time the former World Champion returned to AEW he was arguably in better shape than he had been for years.
Speaking on a recent episode of his “Talk Is Jericho,” podcast, the star revealed that the health issue he suffered while in the UK was a pulmonary embolism.
Reflecting on his return Stateside, Jericho explained that a chance meeting with the owner of a weight-loss clinic kick-started his latest fitness journey.
“I did every health procedure that you need to do. I did. And one of the things was I wanted this very intricate scale and the scale that measures everything. And one of the things that measured is your visceral fat. Well, what’s visceral fat? visceral fat is the fat that surrounds your organs. And he said, You need to lose some visceral fat. Well, how do you lose visceral fat? Well, you lose weight.
Go back to New Year’s Eve. I was with my wife in Tampa. We went there ourselves because there was nothing going on. We met a couple there where the guy had just opened a medical weight loss clinic in Tampa. Fate, hello. So I said well, I’m gonna go to this medical weight loss clinic because I have to lose this visceral fat.”
Jericho stated that he weighed over 240 pounds during his run in Japan, which was something of a conscious decision.
“I went in there I was 241 pounds. Now looking back was I was I too big, absolutely. Overweight? I guess, ever out of out of shape cardio wise? No, I never was blowing up or anything like that.
But I gained some weight after I worked with Kenny Omega at the Tokyo Dome, I was going through a Bruiser Brody phase. And I thought, well, I can’t I’m not tall like Brody, but I can be bigger than all these Japanese guys just because the way things are now I’m one of the taller guys. Everyone’s a little bit smaller and the Japanese appreciate the bulkier physiques.
So let me just get a little bit bigger and just beat the crap out of it, which is what I did, it worked out to the point where I had three Tokyo Dome main events. I just never lost the weight and then pandemic comes, and you know, you just don’t even realize it.
Chris Jericho’s lean physique may serve him well as he prepares to battle his foe Eddie Kingston in a Barbed Wire Death Match scheduled next week on July 20th as part of Night 2 of Fyter Fest. The Jericho Appreciation Society will be suspended in a shark cage, finally leaving the two men to settle their differences in the ring.
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