Chris Jericho Reveals What WWE Employee Came Up With ‘The List,’ Who Gives Bad Interviews
Chris Jericho has done a successful job finding ways to reinvent himself throughout his nearly 30-year-long professional wrestling career. From a pompous character who turned his nose up the the “parasites,” “troglodytes,” and “sycophants,” to ominously remaining silent for weeks, to making scarfs and lists a national trend, Jericho keeps alive the age-old wrestling strategy of making sure to maintain the importance of the character.
Jericho was recently on the Bailey and Southside show to promote the current tour with his band, Fozzy. He compared his time on stage with the band to performing in front of pro wrestling crowds. To Jericho, wrestling and music are very similar. Specifically, in regards to going on a big stage and becoming a character in order to please the fans. He stated that it does not matter how good the band or wrestler is, if the crowd is not into it, it does not matter. This is a primary element of concentration for Jericho when he performs in front of both crowds.
The conversation then went on to Jericho wondering how fans are able to locate exactly what plane he is on, as he constantly gets people waiting for him to get off a plane so they can rush him for pictures and autographs. He stated that when someone calls the airport to find out what flight a friend or family member is on, most times they are not given that information for security reasons. However, somehow a “stooge” knows when he gets off a plane, and somehow informs others as well.
The discussion then took an interesting twist, as Jericho commented on “shoddy journalism.” A huge pet peeve of his is when he is getting interviewed with someone with a list of questions in front of them. In his opinion, not only does this seem as if the interviewer is distracted by waiting to go to the next question, but it does not feel organic. He mentioned one time he was being interviewed about being a host on Tough Enough, and noticed that the interviewer was not paying much attention to him. Jokingly, his answer was that he wanted to go to Mars and “bang a bunch of chicks.” The interviewer then proceeded to plug the Tough Enough show, proving his point of it not feeling organic.
Conversely, Jericho also mentioned that there were people who could not give good interviewers as well. The radio show host stated that he had a number of wrestlers on his show, and Randy Orton gives bad interviews. Jericho added that Orton does not like to talk.
Shortly after, Jericho revealed who come up with “The List.”
“Working with this guy who’s a writer in the WWE named Jimmy Jacobs, he used to be a wrestler. And he came up to me one day and said, ‘What it we put somebody on this list?’ He goes, ‘I knew this guy once who had a list of people that he didn’t like.’ I go, ‘Oh. That sounds funny.’ So I said it, and it kind of got a reaction. I was like, ‘We should continue to doing this.’ And the original list, if you go back and watch, was like the orange little crappy clipboard that you buy from Walgreens or something.
“And then it really started to get over, and I was like, ‘We should make an actual list. I want to make it out of steel, and I want it to be thick, so I can hit somebody with it.’ Even though I never really did, I was gonna use it as a weapon; that didn’t work out. But, the whole concept of the list just went through the roof. The list is more popular than 85 percent of the guys on the show. It is. It’s more popular than me. That’s why you never know what’s going to make an impression with fans.”
He would then go on to speak about how Vince McMahon told him that nobody in the the world would be able to get by with calling someone a “stupid idiot” but Jericho. When he first started saying the phrase, it got heat. However, people started loving it. The list was first a bad thing, but now it is ambiguous, as it could be used both in a good or bad way.
[Featured Image By WWE]
