While there were thousands of wrestlers who worked for Vince McMahon during his tenure as WWE Chairman, only a very select few ever had a special relationship with ‘The Boss.’ However, one of those who did was now-AEW star Chris Jericho.
The former World Champion first appeared with WWE back in 1999, winning everything there was to win before leaving the wrestling world in 2005. After a two-year hiatus, Jericho returned in 2007 for another three-year stint before leaving again in 2010. This time the star was only absent for a year before returning to action in November 2011. From here Chris Jericho performed with the company and off until 2018.
Chris Jericho Had Special Relationship With Vince McMahon
Naturally, after working for Vince McMahon on and off for the best part of two decades, the star built up a relationship with his former boss. However, the pair were close enough that Jericho was granted me freedom to be more in control of his creative and appearances like stars such as Brock Lesnar. The clearest example of this came in early January 2018 when the star wrestled Kenny Omega at Wrestle Kingdom 12. During this period, Jericho was still under contract with WWE although he had already decided to leave.
The first-ever AEW World Champion also appeared on Monday Night Raw the same month, and wrestled his last match for WWE at the Greatest Royal Rumble in April.
Speaking on his Oh You Didn’t Know podcast, Road Dogg reflected on how Jericho’s relationship with Vince McMahon enabled him to wrestle for New Japan while under WWE contract.
“So look, I remember hearing that Jericho said he told Vince he was going to do this and whatever, and so I can imagine that happening. I don’t see why, I don’t have a reason to think Chris didn’t do that. So I don’t know if he was surprised by it. Or if or if he just thought, Oh, well, Chris is going there now. You know what I mean? Like, I don’t know. I don’t know exactly the inner workings of [it all].
Chris was one of those guys that has a special like Brock, like, like a lot of top stars that had a very special relationship with Vince. And so you didn’t always know what went on behind closed doors that you weren’t privy to. So you kind of had to go like okay, well, let me let me ask Vince if we can do this to you. But so that was, you know, it was what it was. I don’t think it shocked [Vince]. It shocked the wrestling world more than it shocked Vince McMahon. I can tell you that for 100%.”
This special relationship also paved the way for another unusual move in April 2021 when Jericho appeared on the Broken Skull Sessions with Stone Cold Steve Austin on the WWE Network despite being under contract with AEW.
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