Chris Jericho has recalled Vince McMahon calling one of his WrestleMania matches the “worst” in the history of the ‘Showcase of the Immortals’.
Jericho is a WrestleMania veteran, having competed in 13 matches on the ‘Grandest Stage of Them All’. Y2J’s had his first bout at the annual spectacular on April 2nd, 2000 at WrestleMania 16, where he took on Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit in a 2 Out Of 3 Falls Triple Threat match for the WWE European and Intercontinental Championships. He emerged from the bout as the new European Champion.
In the following years, he took on a who’s who of WWE Superstars at the ‘Granddaddy of them All’, from Triple H, Shawn Michaels, and CM Punk, to Edge and AJ Styles. His final WrestleMania match came at the 33rd edition of the show he took on Kevin Owens with his United States Championship on the line.
The match came about after the infamous ‘Festival of Friendship’ which Jericho held on the February 13th, 2017 episode of Raw to celebrate his growing friendship with Owens. However, instead of the warm reception the future ‘Demo God’ expected from Owens, he was rewarded with a vicious assault that resulted in him being off WWE TV for several weeks.
Jericho made his return by distracting Owens during his Universal Championship defence against Goldberg at that year’s Fastlane event, costing him the title. This resulted in the pair having their WrestleMania match, which Owens won by powerbombing Jericho on the ring apron and pinning him to capture the US Championship.
Speaking to Alex McCarthy on talkSPORT, Jericho said that when he went backstage, WWE Chairman Vince McMahon gave him a thumbs up. However, he had harsh words for Kevin Owens.
“He told Kevin it was the ‘worst match in WrestleMania history’ [laughs]. I never heard anything about that. When I came through, Vince went [thumbs up], so I think he was on Kevin’s case at the time.”
He went on to speculate that McMahon thought Owens was maybe “carrying extra weight” or just wasn’t happy with his work.
“I think he was going through a phase where he thought maybe Kevin had some extra weight that he wanted him to lose or wasn’t happy with his work as a heel.”
Following WrestleMania 33, Jericho and Owens continued to clash for several weeks until Owens assaulted him after another clash on the May 2nd, 2017 episode of SmackDown, resulting in Jericho being carried out on a stretcher and written off WWE TV for some time.
H/T to talkSPORT for the above transcription.