Chris Jericho worked with Vince McMahon for a long time, so he knows the former WWE Chairman very well.
The former WWE Champion spent nearly two decades with the company, aside from some hiatuses. At times, he was one of McMahon's top stars before he ultimately left WWE in 2018. He signed with AEW in 2019, and he has been a featured member of the roster ever since.
Speaking on the True Geordie podcast, Jericho explained that McMahon might be an intimidating billionaire, but he's just a guy that likes to have fun. He then noted that while he doesn't have much of a relationship with him now, Vince would still text him back quickly if he reached out.
“Vince is just a lad at heart," said Jericho, describing McMahon's fun-loving attitude. "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."
Jericho continued by emphasizing that he enjoyed working for McMahon and noted that the man has been doing his job for 40 years, so some dip in quality is natural.
"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," Jericho added.
Jericho went on to describe the specific nature of McMahon's creative genius, saying, "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 shit, 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."
Specifically, the former world champion noted that McMahon came up with the idea to have the countdown clock end during The Rock's promo, and he also changed Y2J from the name of Jericho's finisher to his nickname.
In the same interview, Jericho shared his thoughts on the allegations that have been made against McMahon. You can find his comments by clicking here.
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