Chris Jericho Says Vince McMahon Is ‘Just A Lad At Heart’

AEW/WWE

Chris Jericho has opened up about his relationship with Vince McMahon, noting that he loved working with the former WWE Chairman and CEO.

Bar a few hiatuses, Jericho wrestled under the WWE banner for almost two decades before leaving the company in 2018.

Speaking on the True Geordie podcast, the AEW star noted that behind Vince McMahon’s intimidating front, he’s just a dude:

“Vince is just a lad at heart. You know what I mean? He’s just a fucking dude. And yes, he is very intimidating, and he’s a billionaire, and he’s the creator of this massive iconic company. But deep down, he’s just a dude that likes to hang out, likes to joke, and likes to drink.

“But everybody that surrounds him, not everybody but so many people, he’s surrounded by yes men, as most guys in that position are. He doesn’t want yes men, and I had a really good relationship with him. I don’t have much of a relationship with him now because obviously I don’t work for him so there’s a little bit of a career issue. But if I text him right now, he’d text me back in five minutes, always.”

“I loved working for Vince McMahon. I loved how Vince would challenge me and push me. And I also laugh when people say, ‘Oh, Vince has lost it,’ and oh, look at Vince, he’s a terrible Booker and all this other stuff. Maybe it’s not great sometimes, but you’re also dealing with a guy who’s been doing this for 40 years.

“Imagine doing this for 40 years. I remember when I left in 2005, I said I need to get away. And he said to me, ‘I wish I could get away sometimes, but I can’t.’ Kind of wistfully for like three seconds, then he was back to Vince McMahon.”

Explaining Vince’s creative mind, Jericho said:

“Of course, it’s hard to do this job, but what Vince does the best, and people don’t know this unless you really work closely with him, is that he used to say, like, ‘How am I supposed to do this, Vince?’ I don’t know, I just book the s**t, you make it work. Okay. So then I’ll come back with an idea, and I’ve got this perfectly formulated idea, and let’s pretend the idea is this water bottle here, right.

“And, ‘Here it is, Vince, here’s my idea, this water bottle, and it’s half full and it says Evian on it, and it’s gonna make fucking a dollars for us, I know.’ And he’ll look at it and think about the idea. Now most people, if we were talking right now, and I started thinking, after about 30 seconds, if you weren’t on the air, you’d feel compelled to jump in and talk, create sound. Don’t do that with Vince. If he’s thinking, let him think. He doesn’t wanna hear your stupid small talk.

“He’ll just sit there, and sometimes it’s 30 seconds, and sometimes it’s a minute, and it’s very uncomfortable. But he’s thinking. And then what he’ll do is, take the water bottle and like turn it let’s say 180 degrees. And then you see this idea that I came up with, that I thought was brilliant. And this one little small twist that he adds to it makes it from a good idea to a great idea.

“That’s the genius of Vince McMahon. With me, he never came up with the genesis and the foundation of the idea. I would, but when I would present it to him, he would add the one little part that made it great. And most of the big hits, and some of the stuff we discussed already, was made great by the little twists that Vince added to it.”

Also in the interview, Jericho commented on the allegations currently surrounding McMahon.

A new report from the Wall Street Journal has indicated that Vince McMahon has paid over $12 million in “hush money” over the past 16 years to “suppress allegations of sexual misconduct and infidelity”, including a $7.5 million payment to a former WWE wrestler. Click here to see the full report.

Transcription via Fightful. 

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• Creative
• chris jericho
• Vince McMahon
• wwe

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