AEW Star Chris Jericho was recently interviewed by Inside The Ropes on a number of topics. During the interview, Jericho talked about the various WrestleMania moments he has had throughout the years. Jericho revealed that the original plan leading into WrestleMania 25 was for him to have a one-on-one match against Hollywood Actor Mickey Rourke.
Both Vince McMahon & Chris Jericho knew at the time that a match with Mickey Rourke wouldn’t be an athletic one, but they still had to put on an entertaining match that was more to attract attention to WWE.
“Vince called me in to his office and said here’s what we’re going to do: you’re going to have a match with Mickey Rourke at WrestleMania, it’s going to be an attraction,’” Jericho recited. “Which is what I said, ‘Certain matches at WrestleMania are earmarked to be the classics, or at least given the shot to be, others are on the show just to give everybody a reason to be on the card, the others are attractions. Ronda Rousey at WrestleMania last year was the attraction.”
Unfortunately, the plan didn’t work out as planned due to Rourke revealing on a red carpet that there was a plan of him and Jericho facing each other at Wrestlemania. Rourke would just end up taking more of a backseat role in the storyline, as seen below:
“Then, because he called me out at the SAG Awards, his agents flipped out…[they told him] that you’re not going to win an Oscar if you’re involved with the WWE – the dirty scumbags of the WWE,” Jericho said. “You can’t do this match, you have to pull out. And Vince was so mad because he wasn’t going to announce the match until after the Oscars, but Rourke, whatever happened, I think he got excited, maybe he’s a little loaded, he announced it himself. Vince was like, ‘Fu–!’ I knew as soon as he announced it that the match was off.”
Jericho was then moved to a role that would have him take out legends who refused to let go of WWE, which allowed him a lengthy program against one of his heroes, Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat.
“Vince’s motto is take a negative and turn it in to a positive, and he was spinning his wheels, and the idea of The Wrestler was these guys that hang on too long, and I would now wrestle with three guys that have hung on too long…Snuka, Piper, and Steamboat, and I’m like, ‘Sh–, this is great!’ I know I can do something with Steamboat because Steamboat is one of my heroes when I was a kid, along with Owen Hart and Shawn Michaels. I never got to work with Owen, but I had this great thing with Shawn, and then I got to do something with Steamboat,” Jericho said.
“We did the match and it turned out so great and Steamboat was so good that Vince signed him to be, like, a player coach, and we ended up having about six or seven more matches… Roddy was great and I know he was mad because I beat him in, like, a minute with an Enziguiri,” Jericho continued. “I beat Snuka with the Walls and I beat Steamboat with the Codebreaker, but at least with Steamboat, it was really cool. And we built it up well – Flair was out there, and Rourke came in at the end and punched me in the face and gets the celebrity [spot].”
You can check out the interview in the video below: