There has been an influx of celebrities in wrestling in 2021 with Bad Bunny, Logan Paul, Mike Tyson, and Shaquille O'Neal all getting involved in the action.
All four have received positive feedback from fans and performers with Tony Khan saying Shaq had the greatest celebrity wrestling match ever and Randy Orton calling Bad Bunny an official WWE Superstar.
Speaking to Jason Brow and Russ Weakland of Hollywood Life, Chris Jericho commented on why he believes celebrities have done so well in wrestling this year.
"You [now] have guys that have a large amount of respect for pro wrestling. You can throw the Jay Leno name in there, and I will raise you a Karl Malone and a Dennis Rodman. Lawrence Taylor, way back in the day," said Jericho. "There are athletes and guys like Bad Bunny who have been lifelong fans of wrestling and really respect what we do and want to be involved. Those are the ones that always work the best. If you take a guy who doesn’t want to do the training and do the things to put on a good match, you will not get one. Then it becomes more of just a stunt casting, shall we say."
Jericho continued by saying, "Shaq, he took it very seriously. He worked very hard to put on the match he did. The same thing with Bad Bunny — you can tell the training was there because what he did was very much like the match we had with Shaq. After the match, [Shaq] said, 'I wanted to make you proud, brother!' I don’t think [these recent celebrities] want to come in there and embarrass themselves or, more importantly, embarrass the sport with all the respect that they have for it. It’s the same thing with Mike Tyson. He loves being around the business and respects the business, and he has since he has been a kid. All he wants to do is his best. And at the end of the day, he is Mike Tyson, so there is always that element of what he is going to do. But if he didn’t want to be there for the right reasons, he wouldn’t be there."
Bad Bunny teamed with Damian Priest at WrestleMania 37 to defeat The Miz & John Morrison. Logan Paul took a stunner from Kevin Owens at the same event.
Meanwhile, Shaq teamed with Jade Cargill to defeat Cody Rhodes and Red Velvet on the March 3 episode of AEW Dynamite and Tyson served as the special enforcer for Jericho's match against Dax Harwood on the April 14 episode of AEW Dynamite and was named an auxiliary member of the Inner Circle.
Fightful will have live coverage of AEW Dynamite beginning at 8 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
