Earlier this year, Chris Jericho faced Shawn Spears, Juventud Guerrera, Nick Gage and Wardlow ahead of his match at All Out with MJF in what was labelled “The Five Labors Of Jericho”.

Speaking during a recent interview with Stephanie Chase, Jericho revealed the original plan for the five labors, which was simply to have him face each member of the Pinnacle in turn, rather than bring in either Gage or Guerrera.

He said:

“The original plan was going to be the four guys from The Pinnacle. Because that’s what we had kind of done with [Jon] Moxley when he beat me for the title. He had to kind of go through the whole Inner Circle. And I think it was MJF who had the idea of let’s use Nick Gage.

“And I had never heard of Nick Gage prior to Dark Side of the Ring. They kind of intrigued to think ‘Okay, maybe they bring in some bounty hunters. But I still wanted it to start and end with The Pinnacle because that was the story. Start with Spears, end with Wardlow. It was never the plan of go through this memory lane of Jericho’s friends or opponents, or whatever.”

He discussed exactly how the conversation regarding his opponents came round to Juventud Guerrera.

“So, we thought the Nick Gage deathmatch would be cool, and then we were trying to think of another guy. Then one of the ideas was Chris Hero, then I thought ‘Well, Juventud Guerrera might be a good idea’ because he just seemed to fit. He seemed to fit best. It seemed like a good idea to have just one guy from my past in there. I didn’t want to make it a ton of guys from my past. Like, it’s gotta be Lance Storm, it’s gotta be this or that, I didn’t want that.

“I just wanted The Pinnacle to start and end it. I thought the Deathmatch was a cool idea, then have someone from my past. Which, we thought Juventud was the best choice for that. And we had worked on that for a few months, to get his Visa and everything. So, that was always the plan to do those four guys.”

He revealed there was once the idea to have him face members of his own Inner Circle faction, but he wasn’t a fan of the idea.

“Then there was the idea of maybe to face [Jake] Hager or have Sammy [Guevarra] come in. But I didn’t like that either. Because why would those guys fight me. ‘They have to or else.’ Then we would just quit. We don’t turn on each other. So, Juventud was the way to go, and Wardlow was the way to go to finish it.”

Thanks to WrestlingInc for the transcription.

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• Juventud Guerrera
• mjf
• chris jericho
• AEW

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