Chris Jericho: "We're having fun in AEW and it shows" [Exclusive]
Chris Jericho is undoubtedly the god of reinvention. With his in-ring career spanning 30 years, you'd be forgiven for thinking the AEW star might be in the twilight of his career. But the truth is, his character has never felt fresher.
Now, a huge chunk of that is, of course, to do with the fact that the 49-year-old has had the Midas Touch - or the Judas Effect - for the past two decades, constantly innovating, from character changes to churning out catchphrases. Another part, though, as Jericho himself discusses, is due to the environment he's working in.
In All Elite Wrestling, Chris Jericho is thriving. And his recent, freshly-squeezed rivalry with Orange Cassidy only further cements the legacy of Chris Jericho, as we recently discussed ahead of the monumental Mimosa Mayhem Match at AEW All Out.
Sportskeeda meets Chris Jericho
Ahead of All Elite Wrestling's All Out pay-per-view - which airs exclusively on Fite TV for viewers outside of the United States - we caught up with the man himself to discuss all things AEW, what it's like working with Orange Cassidy, whether he'd like to see MJF as Champion, whether Jon Moxley should have topped the PWI 500, and more!
You can watch the entire interview with Chris Jericho below via our YouTube channel or read on for the full transcript.
This weekend, you compete in a Mimosa Mayhem Match as Chris Jericho goes one on one with Orange Cassidy at AEW All Out.
We all know Chris Jericho is the god of reinvention, you're the person that can do everything, adapt to anything.
You've been involved in many legendary feuds but this feud with Orange Cassidy has maybe taken a few people by surprise as to how amazing it's been. How much of that has been down to you? How much has been down to Orange Cassidy and just how much have you enjoyed this rivalry?
It's all me.
No, I mean, any time you have a feud... It's coming up to 14 weeks that we've been feuding, which is kind of my specialty. I like the long-term storylines and all the best feuds that I've done, if you look over the years, has been over months, not over weeks and I think the reason why this might have taken a lot of people by surprise was a lot of people didn't really know what Orange was capable of - including Orange.
I've had the opportunity to put him in some positions that he's never really been before, or maybe not a lot, including the debate, showing a lot of violence and fire and intensity. But this all stemmed from the fact that, when I first saw Orange, I didn't like him, I didn't like his gimmick, and then I started understanding it and started realizing, "This is really genius" and the reason why people like him is because he's very unique and original. And that's what the whole concept of "getting over" in wrestling is and once I "pulled my head out of my a**e" as you would say in Scotland, and realized that over is over and it doesn't matter why he's over, he just is.
So now that he is, let me just kind of dissect this guy and figure out what it is that makes people like him so much and what is it that they haven't seen from him. 14 weeks later, we've created a legit, main-event drawing card for AEW, which is one of the missions that I sought out to do when I had the idea to work with Orange in the first place.
Next: Chris Jericho discusses AEW and being the Demo God