The following is an excerpt from a recent Chris Jericho interview from Fanhuose.com:
Is your contract coming up? I know you’ve been back with the company for almost three years now.
Yeah, it’s coming up fairly soon, it’s coming up very soon. It’s one of those things we’ve been talking about for a while to get it rolling again. Like I said, to me, I’ll leave the business when I’m ready to and I’m not ready yet. I still want to continue to work. I still have some things that I can offer. I still think I’m among the best in what I do, if not the best just because of the fact I have 20 years of experience which is a rare thing nowadays. You can’t teach experience. You can teach someone to do a promo kind of, you can teach someone to do a move but you can’t teach someone experience.
What’s your thoughts about the Bryan Danielson situation because that’s really blown up of him getting released?
I think he got caught in a crossfire. I think he was the scapegoat for somebody getting angry at the choke thing. Obviously, that’s been a hot button topic for years. I don’t think he did it maliciously. I don’t think Vince (McMahon) fired him maliciously. I think it was one of those things where hands were tied and somebody got angry from somewhere and they had to make a knee jerk decision to do that. I think it hurts the NXT group because it’s great right now when you have seven animals ganging up on one guy. That’s a great visual but when it comes down, at some point they’re going to have to wrestle. At some point, somebody’s going to have to wrestle. And Wade Barrett is good but Danielson was the gem and could go out there and have five star matches with anybody. And they don’t have that right now. That’s the one thing I think is a little bit of a weak link in the NXT chain is the fact that they don’t have that. So losing Bryan is going to be, it’s going to be a blow. Hopefully, they’ll bring him back at some point because he’s a great guy and a great talent. I worked with him for about six minutes on the first NXT but it was a great match and I would love to work with him more and I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels that way.
With the company now being PG rated, was there ever any kind of adjustment period for you that you felt? That goes into this whole thing with Danielson.
Yeah, Not me. I was never really the big swearing guy. I had a couple of things – ass clown, shut the hell up and stuff like that. If you’re creative and you’re smart and intelligent, there’s a million more where that came from. No choking – fine. No chopping – fine. It takes two or three matches to get used to it but that’s it. And no choking, that’s no blatant choking with a wire or tie. I mean, it’s still wrestling. That’s one of the reasons why I’m still on top. I’ve been able to adapt to the changes anywhere I’ve gone. And PG, I think, is a great idea. To me, the Attitude Era was stupid. Hot Lesbian Action and Meat with a (expletive) (expletive) in his pants because he has a (expletive) and Mark Henry getting a (expletive) from a guy and necrophilia. That’s not entertaining by anybody’s standards. That’s just stupid and I never liked that stuff. For me, for them to go family oriented, I’m all for it. It’s family oriented but in this day and age where you can still go out there and have kick ass matches. It’s still edgy, there’s still great characters. I’ve got no problem with it. I like it much better than the Attitude Era because I thought the Attitude Era was just childish, dropping (expletive) on each another and stuff. C’mon, that’s not funny if you’re five years old.
Are you surprised that Batista walked away? Also, over the weekend TMZ caught him and he said he was going to try MMA.
Whatever. Dave is one of those guys where he got everything he wanted out of the business and maybe he wants to go find himself the way I did a couple of years ago. Will he come back? I’m sure he will. If he wants to do MMA, why not? He’s a big guy and he actually does train. I’ve seen him throw hands pretty good so hopefully he goes in and beats some dudes up and then when he comes back he can make more money here. Yeah, I think it’s great. Anytime somebody goes out of the wrestling business and does something on their own in another world, it’s just better for all of us. Better for the company, better for me, better for Vince, better for Dave. Good for him.
Check out the full interview at Fanhouse.com.
