Chris Jericho's contract negotiations to return to WWE breaks down

A couple of months ago we reported that Chris Jericho was attempting to procure himself a sweetheart deal to return to WWE for WrestleMania 28.  He was wanting a limited dates contract with the freedom to pursue other outside projects, something he's become accustomed to since leaving the company in late September 2010.  With the likes of The Rock, Mick Foley, Kevin Nash and Booker T all returning to the WWE fold this year, surely Jericho's return would be a mere formality?

Apparently not, as Jericho recently tweeted that a WWE return would be never in his future and not to hold your breath at seeing him in WWE's latest video game as downloadable content:

Let me get something straight...I will never wrestle for the WWE again. But there is some big news coming up in the world of dance....

Followed by:

Dont hold ur breath... RT @bmaciel17 @RealCoryLedesma any chance @IAmJericho will be announced as one of the legends DLC? #WWE12=epicfail

At the time, I thought this was just Jericho trying to swerve his Twitter followers into falsely believing that a WWE return was completely off the cards, given his reputation for always wanting to keep his fans guessing about when he'll show up on Raw next.  After all, he seemed like such an obvious candidate to be CM Punk's big name opponent at WrestleMania 28, something backed up by Jericho occasionally trolling his real life friend on Twitter.

However, there was more to this than initially met my eye.  According to Dave Meltzer of f4wonline.com, on both his message board and November 20th radio show, Chris Jericho's volatile love hate relationship with Vince McMahon is back to being hate again and him returning to WWE is currently a "dead issue".  When asked in a recent YouTube interview for Wrestledope while on tour in the UK with his band Fozzy, which can be seen after the jump, about the rumours of him facing Punk at WrestleMania he gave this blunt answer:

Well, I mean, like I said, for me to go back to the WWF I would have to have something that interested me personally, you can say any name it could be CM Punk, it could be The Rock, it could be Funaki, you know, but to me it's like I have to feel it, and right now I'm happy doing all the stuff I'm doing.  And when I'm finished with this tour we're doing a new record and then I have a bunch of stuff going on out in Hollywood too that's kind of coming to fruition, that I have to leave that block of time open, you know, January, February, March, April, May, so um maybe some day?  Punk is great, he's doing a great job, but as of right now, you know as much as people don't like to hear it, sorry I don't have any plans to right now to go back to the WWE.  But I never said I wouldn't go back, just now is not the right time for me.

Maybe a return to WWE would thwart his Hollywood ambitions, as Vince McMahon is known to be very controlling about the outside ventures his stars can and cannot do.  Indeed, it was Vince's deep unhappiness over Jericho hosting the failed ABC game show Downfall towards the end of his last WWE stint that, at least partly, led to his departure from the company.  There's still a couple of months for Jericho to change his mind before the WrestleMania card becomes etched in stone, but it now looks unlikely that he'll be wrestling on the Miami super show.