There’s been a fair amount of speculation and gossip about what WWE and Vince McMahon knew about Chris Jericho’s plans to work a match with Kenny Omega at New Japan’s Wrestle Kingdom show in January, and when they knew it.
While Jericho didn’t go into that level of detail during a recent conversation with Bully Ray and Larry Dallas on Busted Open Radio, he did talk about his relationship with the Chairman and how he thinks the Omega match and working with Ring of Honor for his upcoming cruise is actually good for WWE:
“I think I’m in a very unique position in the WWE where I have a great relationship with the company, one guy [specifically], where normal rules might not apply. But I also do it with respect and with relevance to what they’re doing and realize that WWE is still my company, it’s still my home, but I’m not handcuffed to WWE. If I want to go to New Japan to work a main event at the Tokyo Dome or put on my own cruise and work in tandem with Ring Of Honor, that’s OK, because guess what? At the end of the day, when I go back to the WWE it makes me that much bigger of a star.
It [the Omega Match]’s an old-school, something that you would see Hogan or Flair or Bockwinkel or somebody do back in the 80’s when they would do a big shot in Japan just because it meant something… I’m not a world champion, but it’s a big deal for Jericho to go there and I love that sort of intrigue and I think certain guys in the WWE appreciate that as well in the office because it makes for a better business.
The good thing about New Japan and even Ring Of Honor to an extent is showing that WWE is not the only place in town, and I think the first people that would be happy about that are the guys that are running the WWE because it just makes for a better business, for a healthier business. And not just for the boys but for the fans. It pushes everybody to think more and to be more clever and creative and to work harder.”
It’s a good sales pitch, and it sounds like Vince bought it.
Doesn’t sound like great news for anyone hoping for an extended New Japan run for Y2J, though.