WWE: Chris Jericho talks about Daniel Bryan, Jim Ross, what the TNA is doing wrong and backstage politics

Chris Jericho reveals a lot of inside stories from the WWE

WWE Superstar Chris Jericho joined Busted Open with Dave Lagreca and Doug Mortman. Here are some highlights from that interview:

His current tour with Fozzy: “It’s something that happens quite often actually, it is called a bus share where it’s their band, our band and the crew. But it’s not as crazy as you think, the buses are just amazing. There are fifteen bunk buses, big lounge in the front, big lounge in the back, the lounge seat pops open when you’re parked and there’s a shower in it. It’s a cool way of traveling. It’s a different way of going as opposed when you travel with WWE. Where you fly into a town, then rent your own car, then drive your car, then find a place to stay and etc. You get on the bus and you go! You wake up in town and you’re there. It’s a cool way to go, it’s been going great.

We just got back from Europe, we were over there for a month and did a bunch of shows in Europe, bunch of shows in the United Kingdom, it was seven countries total. We had a couple weeks off and we are on this tour with Saxon which is really cool touring Canada and the United States for the next five week and our show last night was in Patchogue, New York which I just figured out how to pronounce today.

“Whenever you start a tour, it is like starting a match. The first match is kind of a feeling out, some things work and some things don’t. It’s like what Stone Cold (Steve Austin) used to say: ‘Get the junk out of your system’ and it’s the same way when you start a tour. The first couple of shows have a couple of behind the scene things, technical things which make it rocky and as the tour goes on you get it locked down. The shows are still great, it’s just when a guitar goes out of tune or this change over didn’t go quick enough, this Segway was not good enough.

But we are excited; it’s a great place to start. We always consider New York as our backyard in the States. We played more shows here than anywhere in New York City and we are excited to be playing at B.B. King’s. It’s a great venue and its funny, my hotel is right across from B.B. King’s and the big marquee has a sign that says Saxon and Fozzy and I took a picture and saved it. You can never take it for granted, I’ve been lucky enough to have my two goals come true but you never forget that it is cool as a fan to be doing this. To have our name in lights in Manhattan at Times Square with a band we grew up listening to is a very cool experience.

Jim Ross memories: “Jim Ross, to me, is the best wrestling announcer of all time. When they took him off the air, there is an attitude around WWE that you need to constantly prepare for the future which I agree with but there are certain things with Jim Ross as an announcer. Like John Madden, Don Cherry and Bob Cole with Hockey Night in Canada, they are the best at what they do. They are old, look old but it’s a certain voice that you have to this day is the voice for wrestling and Jim Ross is that voice. Same thing with Howard Finkel as an announcer, they never found anyone that can replace Howard Finkel ever. They have some good ones but it’s like Gene Okerlund as an interviewer, I’ll never hear a better voice then his and I felt like that for Jim Ross. I thought they sent him out to pasture a little bit earlier but there have been fireworks with Vince (McMahon) for years. That’s just the way it is.

“Beyond the announcing as he was the head of talent relations in 1999 and he and Vince Russo were instrumental in bringing me in. Jim gave me a hell of a deal and spearheaded the deal with Vince’s approval. He took recruiting very seriously, it was like an NFL team for him, he went out and found a lot of the best guys that ever worked in this business and he took great pride in it. When Vince Russo left two months after I got to the WWE, he was kind of my last supporter and there was ninety-nine percent of people that didn’t like what I was doing.

But J.R. never turned on me. Some of that was because of who I was and some of it was because of their perception and I always remember that and stood behind me when I was in this rough transition period and when I started to break out becoming ‘Chris Jericho’, he took great pride in that. He stood up a lot of the times when they were saying: ‘This guy is the worst’ or ‘This guy sucks.’ And probably saying ‘Give it time.’ like a good hockey coach will, if you get a number one draft choice and he comes in and he is still not ready. You see it three years down the line and J.R. was that guy for me. I always thought of him like that way and I will never forget that for what he did for me when I first started.”