Chris Jericho - SAS CLASSIC

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Steve Austin Show — Chris Jericho - SAS CLASSIC

Released: April 14, 2026
Host: Steve Austin
Guest: Chris Jericho
Duration: ~1hr 40min
Location: Hollywood, CA via Broken Skull Ranch

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Overview: Main Theme & Purpose

This episode features a long-awaited sit-down between two wrestling icons and podcasters: Steve Austin and Chris Jericho. Over an in-depth, wide-ranging, and often hilarious conversation, the longtime friends revisit their wrestling history together, discuss podcasting, musical passions, backstage wrestling culture, lessons from their careers, and the art of connecting with an audience. The tone balances banter and wisdom, providing a goldmine for wrestling fans and anyone interested in the entertainment industry’s inner workings.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Finally Linking Up for a Podcast

• After years of attempts, Jericho visits Austin at 317 Gimmick Street for his debut on Austin’s show.
• They recall early podcasting days, mutual respect, and the unique fraternity of wrestlers (“brothers and sisters in the squared circle”).
• Anecdotes about near-missed meetings, busy schedules, and the etiquette (and pitfalls) of inviting guests onto podcasts.
• Quote [04:05, Austin]: “There was a little bit of a beef between you and me… I did his first two shows. Guy’s gotta return the favor!”

2. Wrestling Locker Room Dynamics, Bond, and “Getting Over”

• The star power and camaraderie of Attitude Era wrestlers compared to today’s more homogenized roster. Jericho reflects on how wrestlers from that era were physically imposing and charismatic.
• Both reminisce about sharing coffee, stories, and their mutual love of Labradors.
• Podcasting as excuse and tool to connect deeply with friends and heroes (Triple H, Henry Winkler, Paul Stanley, Hulk Hogan).
• Quote [09:03, Jericho]: “At first, podcasting gave me an excuse to get together with my friends… sit down and talk for an hour and a half, undivided attention.”

3. The Meta of Podcasting: Invitations, Etiquette, and Energy

• Jericho’s enthusiasm for inviting interesting people (e.g., Method Man) sometimes backfires—"Like meeting a girl and asking, 'let's go make out'."
• Austin muses on balancing the “business” of podcasting with authentic friendship, noting it’s “almost like I feel I’m imposing my friendship on them.”
• How the best stuff often happens after the mics are off.

4. Wrestling in the Corporate Age: Speaking Freely, Company Oversight

• Evolution toward a more family-friendly, PG format both in the WWE and the podcast (less profanity = more ad dollars).
• Austin and Jericho note current WWE talent must be careful on podcasts and social media—Vince McMahon is always listening/watching.
  • [10:44, Jericho]: “You got to watch what you say… even if you don’t think they are [listening], they’ll find out.”
• Vince as a "Phantom of the Opera," observing without being seen; constant monitoring of talent’s public persona.

5. “Getting Over” — The Art of Connecting with an Audience

• Both dissect how wrestlers (and bands) get popular.
• Jericho details his journey from international territories to WWE—connecting with fans, surviving locker room politics, and being both heel and face.
  • [47:16, Austin]: “How do you connect with the people?”
  • [47:26, Jericho]: “It’s almost like saying, how do you sing like Paul Stanley? How do you get over like Steve Austin?... If you can connect with an audience… you’ll always have a job.”
• The importance of being fearless, trying new catchphrases/gimmicks, and learning from failures as well as successes.
  • [50:14, Jericho]: “You gotta be fearless. The only failure is not trying.”

6. Music as Metaphor: Parallels with Wrestling

• Deep dive into why technically brilliant acts like Dream Theater don’t become household names; mainstream success is about broad accessibility and a “gimmick” or hook, not just skill.
• Comparison of frontmen with/without instruments: David Lee Roth, Freddie Mercury, Paul Stanley, among others are hailed.
  • [25:48, Jericho]: “You have to go with David Lee Roth, Freddie Mercury… Bruce Dickinson…”

7. Behind the Curtain: Vince McMahon, Creative Process, and Branding

• Origin story of “Y2J” and entrance into WWE—creative spark, Vince’s tweaks, and the importance of becoming a brand (“He called me Y2J for years, like Stone Cold Steve Austin.” [34:23, Austin])
• Relationship with Vince: Jericho learned he needed to build a rapport, break down barriers, and show Vince his talents firsthand.
  • [40:11, Jericho]: “Your job when you get to WWE is to basically start from scratch and show Vince what you can do.”
  • [41:14, Jericho]: “You really have to establish a relationship with Vince… nervous to go in his office even to this day.”

8. The Evolution of Wrestling Styles, Rules, and Freedom

• The experience of working under WWE’s corporate rules versus the “liberating” chaos of NJPW and the Omega match.
  • [59:39, Jericho]: “Liberating… There’s this freedom. I had 17 years where everything had to be approved by Vince or agents… and now, nothing.”
• How crowd connection, drama, and awareness of “little things” are more important than just big moves or violence.
• [64:45, Jericho]: “The difference between a good worker and a great worker is the little things.”

9. Addiction, Survival, and Locker Room Life

• Talk about the turbulent wrestling lifestyle, peer pressure, and real dangers of the era.
• Jericho describes avoiding drugs almost by accident, sticking with the “drunken four horsemen” and steering clear of pills despite the wild industry environment.
  • [69:59, Jericho]: “Never did any of the pills… I just never had the desire.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• “You got me hooked up with the gig—I owed you one.”—Chris Jericho [04:39]
• “When you turn the recorder on, it's a different conversation.” —Chris Jericho [09:00]
• “As a promoter, you never want a talent to know what they're worth.” —Vince McMahon (relayed by Austin) [37:20]
• “If you can connect with an audience, whether you make them love you or hate you, you’ll always have a job.”—Jericho [44:41]
• “The only failure is not trying. A lot of people are afraid to try… and aren’t given the option to try.”—Jericho [50:14]
• “It's like Tom Hanks, Captain Phillips: ‘Hey, I'm the captain now…’”—Jericho, describing seizing control when producing matches [85:16]
• “I've always been the type where when the bell rings for the finish of the match, I know if it was good or bad.” —Jericho [87:21]

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Detailed Segment Breakdown (Timestamps)

• 00:13–05:00 | Opening banter, years-in-the-making appearance, labradors, podcasting etiquette
• 05:00–10:00 | Podcast guest etiquette, mutual connections, Method Man, wrestler bonds
• 10:00–14:00 | WWE talent's need for caution, Vince's ever-present oversight, social media
• 14:10–26:45 | Comedy wrestling stories, “Talking Shop” with Gallows & Anderson, improv and podcasting
• 18:15–26:45 | Why some in-ring/backstage personalities don’t translate on TV; comparing wrestling & bands’ mass appeal
• 27:00–36:00 | Entrance into WWE, the “Y2J” story, frontmen in music and wrestling
• 36:00–44:00 | Locker room atmosphere, surviving as an outsider, earning respect from upper card
• 44:41–50:14 | The art of connecting with audience, fearlessness, catchphrases (“never, ever again,” “razzle dazzle”)
• 52:24–56:17 | Modern vs Attitude Era promo structures, WWE backstage interviewer awkwardness
• 56:17–62:56 | Getting ‘over’ in today’s WWE, pushing boundaries, the importance of fighting spirit
• 62:56–71:49 | Locker room excess, avoiding drugs, the “Drunken Four Horsemen”, anecdotes with Curt Hennig
• 74:00–86:11 | In-depth discussion of Jericho vs. Shawn Michaels ladder match, blood feuds, match psychology
• 86:11–92:18 | Highs of performing: pools of blood, ring chemistry, feeling when “everything comes out aces”
• 92:26–96:41 | Jericho’s projects: “But I’m Chris Jericho,” “Nothing to Report,” podcasting vision
• 96:41–99:00 | Jericho on Fozzy, balancing music and wrestling
• 99:00–End | Outro, gratitude, and final reflections

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Final Takeaways

• The chemistry, collective history, and mutual respect between Austin and Jericho creates an effortlessly engaging listen—a must for fans of wrestling, podcasting, and show business.
• The episode is filled with practical wisdom about success, risks, creative freedom, and building lasting connection with audiences both in the ring and on the mic.
• Listeners gain rare, behind-the-scenes perspectives on iconic wrestling moments, the realities of dealing with wrestling’s corporate machine, and insights on managing personal vices in an intense industry.
• Jericho’s ladder match with Shawn Michaels and his “liberating” clash with Kenny Omega in NJPW are highlighted as career pinnacles, both from a storytelling and personal fulfillment perspective.

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For More:

• Steve Austin on social: @steveaustinBSR
• Chris Jericho’s podcast: Talk is Jericho (Westwood One), two episodes weekly
• Jericho’s show: ButImChrisJericho.com
• Fozzy’s latest: “Judas” and touring details available via official channels

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Summary prepared for listeners seeking full context, memorable soundbites, and practical takeaways from one of the most insightful conversations in wrestling podcasting.

Transcript

[Chris Jericho]

The following Program is a podcast ONE.com production from Hollywood, California by way of the Broken Skull Ranch. This is the Steve Austin Show.

[Steve Austin]

Give me a Hell yeah.

[Chris Jericho]

Hell yeah. Now here's Steve Austin.

[Steve Austin]

All right, everybody, welcome to Steve Austin Show. I am sitting here with a microphone in my hand conducting the open this podcast and I think you're gonna enjoy today's guest. Finally, after four years. Well, I've been in podcast business five years. Chris has been in it four years. Finally, we've been one and only. Chris Jericho stops by 317 Gimmick street so he can be a guest on my podcast. Way back in the day when Chris started his podcast, I believe that's been about four years. I think he's got about 430 episodes out now. I was a guest on his first two shows when he started podcasting and obviously he's come a long way since then. He's got an extremely popular podcast. I'm real happy for his success. Finally he gets a chance to return the favor and be a guest on my show. Always like talking to Chris, one of the hardest working guys I know, one of the smartest guys in the wrestling business and pretty much entertainment business. He always stays on top of things. He's a hard working guy. He stopped by the crib and man, we just had a good time catching up. You know, we talk on this podcast for about an hour, hour and 20 minutes, give or take. And then we shut down the microphones and you can hear me as a guest on his podcast talking about music. I think I even sang part of a few song. And as you can see, that's why I didn't pursue a career in the music business because I cannot sing. But I'll tell you what, when we shut down the microphones and just shot the breeze, that's what was really fun. And next time Chris rolls into town, I think we're just going to kick back and have a couple of cold ones and shoot the breeze. It's always good catching up with one of my brothers that spent so much time in Ring in the Squared Circle doing what I chose to do. And my passion is. Their passion is just a mutual love. And just the brothers and the sisters being inside that squared circle is a special bond. Chris Jericho was my guest today and I'm not going to ramble on on a bunch of horseshit today. I've been getting a lot of tweets though, and emails about my feed. My show has kind of been morphed into one, I guess. Basically everything is kind of a family friendly show. Now we're not dropping so many f bombs. I got a lot of questions about that. Tons of emails, tons of tweets. Just seems to be that the. It's a little bit easier to sell ads and stuff like that when you're dealing with a family friendly type format. And yeah, there'll be a few odd cuss words there, here and there and stuff like that, but the f bombs are kind of gone. And that's just kind of what happened. And that's about as far as I can explain it. I'm really actually quite fine with that. I have a great conversation with Jim Florentine last Tuesday and Chris Jericho. I don't really have to cuss that much to have a good time, but that's the answer to the question if any of you guys are asking or if anybody's cur. It's all been morphed into one feed and it is what it is. I still continue to open two cans of audio whoop ass with four letter words or not, but I just wanted to take a quick minute to explain that to you. And that's about all. I've delved into it. I hadn't done all the research on it, but that's what's being told to me and that's how it's happening and I'm totally cool with it.

[Chris Jericho]

This is the Steve Austin show.

[Steve Austin]

Hell, I'm sitting here Rolling Sound, 317 Gimmicks Street, Chris Jericho, Y2J sitting right in front of me. Jesus H. Crash on a popsicle stick. I ain't seen you in a long ass time.

[Chris Jericho]

You know, it's funny, and this happens to me quite a bit when I see the boys that I hadn't seen for a while. I forget just how big everyone is from the attitude era compared to me because now on the show, everybody's kind of the same size. But as soon as I saw you, it's been, gosh, I don't know, five, six years. And it's like, oh my God, like Austin's huge. I mean, you look great, but you're tall. Like, even with the Hardee's, I saw Matt and Jeff for the first time in a few years. I couldn't believe how tall they were. But yeah, man, it's great to see you. And I never knew that I hadn't done your show. I thought I'd done it before.

[Steve Austin]

No, dude, actually there was a little bit of a beef because this between you and me, nobody knows. Well, you didn't even know, I called you or sent you some text messages because I know you're going to be. Or you. You told me you're going to be in la, but you're filming one of your rock videos for Fozzie. I was like, hey, man, I'll come by to set if you don't mind, and we can knock out a podcast. And you blew me off. Or you had other things to do. I can't remember that intentionally. I would never blow you off, but I'm just saying. Yeah, they didn't have nothing. Like, God dang. I was kind of perturbed because I was like, I did his first two shows. Guy, guys, got it. You got to return the favor.

[Chris Jericho]

You got me, pretty much got me hooked up with the gig. I mean, you were the one who was the contact that took me there. So like I said, I had thought for sure that I had done it. And when you said, I still owe you one, I'm like, oh, man, this is a debt that has to be repaid.

[Steve Austin]

I know. It is one of those things where I'm so bad about holding a grudge. It's like, God dang. Chris K. Faved me on the show. I got he with this guy.

[Chris Jericho]

I don't even remember that. That I could. I would have loved to have you come to the set. I'm not sure what happened, that maybe we were busy filming or something.

[Steve Austin]

Dude, you know how the boys get. I mean, it's like, you know, halftime. It's interesting. I don't know how you are with this and Trevor out there listening. We'll probably talk about wrestling in a minute, but it's also, dude, when. When you get around the boys, sometimes you just want to catch up and just talk about shit. And Chris is over at the house for about 30 minutes. We was drinking coffee, talking about labs. I can't believe you got a silver lab and a black lab. Just like I got.

[Chris Jericho]

I walked through your door, the gate that you have, and I saw the front door. I'm like, you got to be kidding me. I saw a silver lab and a black lab, and I saw your wife, and I was like, is that. Oh, yeah, we just got them two months ago at the same time. So it blew me away. It's the exact same pairing, except for my black labs, a boy, and yours is a girl.

[Steve Austin]

So we got that going for us. But, you know, it's like, I'd ask you a couple times, and you're busy or whatever. Life happens and vice versa, and, you know, so. But then it's also kind of like, you know, you do really well at spreading yourself around and you're traveling a lot more than I am, so. And you've got your rock and roll connection, you've got your wrestling connections, you've got those out there connections. Me, I mean, I really like talking to the boys. You know, I just spent a lot of time talking to these, some of these cats. I don't think every A lister in LA is going to come over here to 317 Gimmick street debris with me, nor do I really want to shoot the breeze with them. But sometimes it's like, you know, sometimes it's like, you know, it's cool to ask somebody if you want to be on a show, but when you keep asking, when they're a good guest or you enjoy talking to me, almost like I feel like I'm imposing my friendship on them. Or it's like, hey, you know that hold up that crucifix because Dracula's there, right?

[Chris Jericho]

Well, it's one of those.

[Steve Austin]

Are you like that? Or he's like, hey, anybody want to do it?

[Chris Jericho]

I was just talking this morning to some people and I was telling them I've become that guy that because I'm so podcast centric, I could meet. Like, for example, I did a show for TBS called Drop the Mic. It's like a battle rap show and the host is Method man from Wu Tang Clan and he's a jerk. Oh, what a guy. I'm a big fan, so automatically, oh, I'm, yeah, well, you should do my podcast in three seconds of meeting this guy. And I think a lot of people would be very honored by that. And other people, like you just said, like, calm down, dude, like I just met you. It's like meeting a girl for the first time going, let's go make out. Like, I like to kiss. So I think, and I don't, I just get excited at the concept of talking to these different people, that when am I ever gonna see Method man again? You know? And it turned out a week later we had a show in, in Long Island. I went to Staten Island, I did the show at his house. We had a blast. It was a great conversation. But I always think in that way and I'm sure it does turn some people off and it has, but it's, you know, I think for the most part people enjoy talking to someone that they either respect, there's mutual respect. Obviously Steve Austin asks, you know, somebody from this generation to the show, they're going to bend over backwards to do it because it's stone cold Steve Austin. So I think it's, it's, it's, it's. It's an honor for. For some people to do it and maybe a little bit of a. Of a hardship, but if they really like you, they'll do it.

[Steve Austin]

Yeah, it is a funny thing because every time WWE or most of the times when WWE comes through town, you know, some of the guys or girls, give me a heads up, they're coming through. And I knew Bailey was in town one time she was working with a CrossFit coach, and I said, hey, man, you want to go over and do the show? And she did, because I really like her. I like Sasha. And they were coming back through town. I said, hey, you want to come by and do the show? And so they did, and she had to go do a meet and greet. And so then I hung out with Sasha and we did a show, and I got to talk with BAILEY for about 30 minutes, kind of together conversation. But it was like, you know, she said, hey, man, it was good. Good seeing you. And she said, maybe, like, next time we can just hang out. And I was like, oh, yeah. I said, man, I'd be great. Just drink a beer or whatever and just shoot the breeze. Because, you know, things change when you hit the record button, Chris. Yeah, you can get some honest, come to Jesus interviews, but when you hit the off button, just like some of the stuff we talked about over my

[Chris Jericho]

house, some stuff you don't want everybody to know.

[Steve Austin]

You don't want everybody to know.

[Chris Jericho]

One of the things I like the podcast at first is it gave me a chance to give me an excuse, for example, to get together with my friends. This perfect example right now, to do a podcast. But at work, too, like, you know, I remember the first time I had Triple H on. You know, I'd never talked to Triple H for an hour and a half before. Never had the chance. Usually he's doing one thing, I'm doing another thing. Maybe you're putting together a match, but to actually sit down and talk for an hour and a half, it was a lot of fun. And I like that about the people that I know in bands behind backstage wrestling. But even, like, we all grew up, for example, fans of the Fonz, Henry Winkler. I got invited to do a Comic Con, and I don't do them a lot, but I always said, who else is on the show? If there's somebody else on the show that I want to interview and you can get me an Interview with that guy. I'll come do the Comic Con. And Henry Winkler was on. I said, I want Henry Winkler. And the guy was able to work it out. I got a chance to sit down with Henry Winkler for 45 minutes, like my childhood hero and Paul Stanley, too. Those two guys were like, right up there for me and Hulk Hogan. And to get. Sit down with these guys and actually talk to them one on one, undivided attention. Nobody's coming into, you know, we got to do this. This is. That, to me, is the best part of podcasting. I would almost do it for free for those reasons.

[Steve Austin]

Yeah, and that's cool when you. When you mention people like that, but. But you know, when people from our business, it's like if they're currently in the system and employed, you're kind of a free agent, but someone that's, you know.

[Chris Jericho]

Yeah. So they're.

[Steve Austin]

They're in the trenches. Well, if you ask Big show, because I talked to him on the podcast, on the Stone Cold Podcast, he'll straight up tell you I ain't being buck worth of shit and get away with it.

[Chris Jericho]

He don't care.

[Steve Austin]

Yeah. And. But you just can't do that.

[Chris Jericho]

But you can't say that if you're, you know, Bailey, for example. I mean, you got to watch what you say because they're watching you. You know what I mean? At all times, even if you don't think they are.

[Steve Austin]

Why? They're listening. They're watching. They'll find out.

[Chris Jericho]

You know, the boss will find out. And I often wonder. It's not even wonder. I'm sure it happens where he probably gets a report every day. Here's the social media report, here's the Twitter report. Here's the podcast report. This person said this, or that person said that. I don't know. But I would think, like, you know, whenever we were in Madison Square Garden back in the day doing house shows, and Vince was. Would always go to the Garden, and sometimes he wouldn't be there. I'm sure he was always there. I'm sure there was times he was hiding up in the rafters, like the Phantom of the Opera, watching the show to see how the guys worked when they didn't think he was there. You know what I mean?

[Steve Austin]

Interesting concept.

[Chris Jericho]

And I even said that to him once. I said the same thing, used the Phantom of the Opera. And of course, he gave me the Vince laugh and kind of just didn't answer and walked away.

[Steve Austin]

The Vince laugh.

[Chris Jericho]

Phantom of the Opera. And that's it.

[Steve Austin]

Yeah.

[Chris Jericho]

There's no answer either way. I'm like, okay. And it's like that. I don't know for sure, but I'm sure they have people who are watchdogs, because you get some of these guys that go on and they talk really bad shit on Twitter, which is the worst place you can do it, thinking that no one in the company is going to read it and go, you know what? If that's what you feel, then go away. Right? See what happens to you, buddy.

[Steve Austin]

You know, it was interesting when I'd been trying to get Gallows and Anderson to be on the podcast, and the time they were set a couple of months ago, man, Gallows got stranded and. And just because they live in different locations. And so he got stranded and it blew the podcast off. And I'd been really wanting them on the show. Finally they made it. And I said, man, I said, you know, if you guys want to sit down, have a couple of beers or whatever, you know, and I'll have some of my beer, but what do you guys drink? Because you might not like my beer. And I said, well, you know, Bud Light. So I had a case of Bud Light, I had a case of Melonlite, you know, on Backup as another flavor. Some Brovisco ipa. Rocky Romero was here with Gallows Anderson. And I'd never heard any of you guys podcasts, but I heard they were like, a riot. And I guess you guys, I don't know, it was them that invented the term or. Well, it's been around forever.

[Chris Jericho]

Talking shop. Yeah.

[Steve Austin]

So anyway, you know, I was like, you start off with some ABC shit, but I knew it was just gonna be a laugh fest. So, man, those guys were absolutely awesome. And so that was a case where on my Unleashed show, which is unfiltered, uncensored, anything goes. Like, okay, it's cool for me to be as profane or whatever as I want to be, but I don't know that because you guys are in the PG system, what your language parameters are, of course. One thing after another, dude, this whole table. I took a picture on my Twitter account. It was a case and a half of beer. Broken Skull ipa. Rocky Romero was drinking my beer with me, and those guys were just drinking, reading novels like it was water and it was Katie Bar the door. And that was an awesome success.

[Chris Jericho]

I said to both those guys, because I just met them when they came to WWE, I think in 2015 or 16, whatever it was, I said, you know, I thought for a long time that I was the biggest piece of shit I'd ever met in this business. And then I met you two guys. And now I know I'm not the biggest piece of shit in the business, but those two guys, we had so much fun because they go back to the days of, like, you know, when we were talking about how it was for us when everybody was super crazy and a lot of it was dangerous because there's a lot of drugs. These guys are not drugs. It's drinking. But they have so much fun. And that, to me, it was so much fun to be around them and be on the road with them. It reignited my love for being on tour as well, meeting a couple of kindred spirits like those guys.

[Steve Austin]

And they told me that same story.

[Chris Jericho]

Yeah.

[Steve Austin]

And it was like. It was like, you know, like someone passing the torch or like, you told me it's cool to see someone that's as out there as I was immediately,

[Chris Jericho]

you know, we would do Talking Shop, which is there was the worst podcast ever they would do in Japan. They told me about it the first time I had them on Backstage San Diego Coliseum. And I said, we should do a Talking Shop, you know, presented by Talk is Jericho. Like, what do you guys do? Just pick a night when we're going to be somewhere together and we'll just start drinking and see what happens. Okay. We go to Honolulu. It was going to be me, Gallows and Addison. We got there early. We're going to go walk down the beach, check out some places. Seven hours later, we're still at the same damn beach bar. Johnny Ace has passed out because of us. We're still awake. Let's go do a podcast. Bring in AJ Styles, who's Uncle Allen to those guys, AKA Malibu Al, because that's all he drinks is Malibu Rum. And we had this frickin podcast that was the most ridiculous. Like, you're almost like, what the hell is going on? There's nothing going on. No one's listening to anybody else. Everyone's interrupting everybody else. The security's knocking on the door. So we bring the microphone out, talk to them. This podcast did, like, a million downloads. People loved it. And then we. So we did talk and shop Australia, talk and shop China, talk and shop Nuremberg, Germany. And that one was the worst. We were so drunk, you can. You can't even listen to it. But Gallows plays this character called Reptile.

[Steve Austin]

I mean, that's a compliment. He's hilarious.

[Chris Jericho]

You'll love this, though. So he plays this character called Reptile. Like, I'm a luchador. I'm here to do some things because all they do is voices. Sour boy. Hell yeah, man. You know, mountain man, like Gordy Canuck. So he's doing this reptile. So we always have a rotating fourth. And the rotating fourth at this point is Primo Colon. Carlos son. So we call Carlos Colon in Puerto Rico. And Eddie's like, hey, pops, I got this guy, his name is Reptile. He wants to get booked. And Carlos is like, who is he? Yeah, he's a pretty good kid. So Giles gets on the phone with Carlos Cologne, the legendary Carlos. My name is Topics. I like to do the coat to coat juice. And Carlos Cologne's like, who is this guy? Primo's like, you know, he talks to him for a bit and if I go, so what do you think, Pops? Is he booked? And Carlos like, sure, whatever. So we actually got Reptile booked in Puerto Rico with Carlos Colon. But like you said, like, these guys, they are a perfect example, like Dean Malenko, like Brad Armstrong of these guys that are so funny backstage but haven't found a way to transfer that on screen yet.

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[Chris Jericho]

Another pina colada. Yes, please.

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[Steve Austin]

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[Steve Austin]

You're hired and you're hired.

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[Steve Austin]

How do you figure that is? Because you just mentioned Dean Malenko is just One of the fastest guys on a verbal conversation. Just popping you so funny. And Brad Armstrong could light up any dressroom. Supremely funny. And also highly respected as a worker in any style.

[Chris Jericho]

Technicians.

[Steve Austin]

Yeah. And Dean Lego, man of a thousand holes. And of course, you were men of a thousand and one we're going to talk about.

[Chris Jericho]

Although now I'm down to about 235 at this point in time. I forgot a lot.

[Steve Austin]

Okay.

[Chris Jericho]

And just to answer your question quickly, before you said, why is that? I think some guys like you mentioned. Sorry to interrupt, but what you mentioned, when the red light is on, I think a lot of guys weren't comfortable playing a character that wasn't like. Like. Dean was trained by his dad, very serious, very much exchanging holds. Carl Gotch, that sort of thing. I don't think he ever felt comfortable letting go and being funny. Dean in the ring, because I don't think he wasn't. He was not taught that way. And Brad, I think, was the same. Some guys just don't have. Like you said, when you turn the recorder on, it's a different conversation when the recorder is off.

[Steve Austin]

But I mean, they were still spectacular in the ring, though. But it almost kind of gives me a parallel into another business or living or passion that you're in rock and roll music. So, you know, you see, let's take for instance, a. A band that would be technically extremely good but didn't have a run that they should have had. Okay. Like, Dream Theater comes immediately to my mind. I mean, great band. Yeah, great band. Wouldn't you agree? Should have a bigger run.

[Chris Jericho]

Well, here's one thing I've learned over the years because. Excuse me, I was a huge Dream Theater fan from about 94 to 2004. Like one of my top three bands. But then you grow older and you realize it's like the. The best band of all time is AC dc I've. I've learned that from being in a band and from watching band.

[Steve Austin]

My wife is going to tell you, Rush.

[Chris Jericho]

Well, the thing is, Rush is great. DT Dream Theater is great, but it's a style of music based around playing, based around, you know, it's like wrestling. It's like going to a lucha libre match. How many flips and flops and flies can you do until it just starts running together? Now, if you're into that sort of thing, Dream Theater is the best thing.

[Steve Austin]

The best, right?

[Chris Jericho]

It's incredible what they can do and nobody can touch them. But there's something. Why didn't they get a bigger run because it's a very limited style of music. I can't play dream theater for my wife. She doesn't want to hear a 10 minute song. She want to hear 30 minute, you know, guitar solo. Whereas AC DC 3 minute punch. It's. It's sex. It's like Stephen Tyler used to say, it's music. It's music you can get off to. That appeals to everybody.

[Steve Austin]

Interesting. Yeah.

[Chris Jericho]

I just think that when you're talking about, like, Russia's a little bit more accessible because they had a little bit more of a pop element. Dream theater won't do that. And that's why dream theater, they've had a huge run for who they are as a band. Had they done a couple more Fly By Night type songs, for example, you know, Closer to the Heart maybe, type of a thing that Rush did, they might have been a little bit bigger. But the time when they tried that, the fans revolt. They didn't want to hear dream theater do that. Whereas Rush had 40 years of having all these different styles. So they could go play, you know, La strangia, you know, 14 minute instrumental. You go nuts. And then they play Closer to the Heart, you go nuts as well. Tom Sawyer again.

[Steve Austin]

But. But because everything's so subjective, I think it's whatever the crowd is in unison or from the biggest piece of the pie, you know, what. What people are looking for?

[Chris Jericho]

Well, yeah, Yeah.

[Steve Austin]

I mean, are you looking for technical excellence? Are you looking for. Or technical sound? Or you're looking for entertainment or someone just grabs you by the throat or like. Like for instance, Stone Cold stunning Steve. I didn't really grab too much Stone Cold. I finally came up with the right gimmick, had enough talent, was good enough mechanic timing. But here's another band, and I don't know if you ever. And we're going to shift off of music because I want to talk to you about your ladder match with Shawn Michaels, and I want to talk about Alpha Omega, some other things, but were you ever into at all Y and T from San Francisco?

[Chris Jericho]

Never really. And I'll tell you the reason why, because I know a lot of people. Like Eddie Trunk, our merch girl in Europe. Well, actually, she's now Zach's personal assistant. She will be Y and T for life. And she's 30 years old. For me, when I got into real deep into music, Y and T was going through their glam phase of summertime lipstick and leather, Summertime girls contagious. So they just came across as like Bon Jovi light to me. I never Got into the mean street Black Tiger.

[Steve Austin]

That's what I.

[Chris Jericho]

Late 70s, early. And I missed that. I missed UFO. I missed Scorpions with Uli, John Roth. And if you go to a Scorpion show, like I went with Scott Ian before Kirk Hammond. Those guys worship at the feet of 70 scorpions. I'm like, I don't get it. I like 80 scorpions because that's when I came in.

[Steve Austin]

I'm with that.

[Chris Jericho]

So I never got into the YMT because of that, because I just thought they were kind of Bon Jovi light and never bothered to delve back further into their catalog.

[Steve Austin]

God dang. But Dave Minetti, with the vocal talent and the guitar talent, a double threat.

[Chris Jericho]

Well, yeah, and. And it's still well respected to this day. I mean, he's the. The last remaining original member in the band. And they still tour and they still, you know, do good business, especially in Europe. But it's just one of those bands that missed. For me, I never got.

[Steve Austin]

You know what I think about that? I was thinking, okay, it was a unique sound. It's not for everybody. It's not like, like, like you said to your point, AC dc. When you hear AC dc, dude, I mean, if you have any metal in you at all, it's really hard not to like that. So if you have any rock and roll in you at all, you know, Y and T just might not float your boat. Well, you know, but I think it was the gimmick. Y and T. Hey, it's hard for me to, you know, I got it on a personal level from the gimmick.

[Chris Jericho]

I agree. And that's what we're talking about, the gimmick of ynt. Obviously, it was yesterday and today when they started change it to yt. Doesn't make sense. I don't know what it means. I see a picture of the band, and this is a. Made a big deal. You'll understand this. They weren't all that hot, for lack of a better term. There was nothing really sexy about ynt, you know, because when you're growing up, like, obviously, I'm not attracted to Bon Jovi, but you look at the guy go, man, this guy picks up chicks. I want to be like that guy, you know, or David Lee Roth. Like, that guy would have that, man, he's kicking and he's sexy and he's funny. You never got that with the Y and T guys.

[Steve Austin]

Well, and you would just from the music. I don't know what you lean toward, towards as far as their music goes. But along those lines, like when you look at AC dc, there's was four guys that weren't that good looking, but you didn't expect them to be good looking because they're playing this badass, kick ass rock and roll. Same with Skynyrd. I mean, yeah, like maybe one good looking dude, but everybody else, I mean, and I don't mean this is a knock, you know, I'm just talking straight up. But it was a different style. Skynyrd was a badass band. Absolutely.

[Chris Jericho]

But different type of vibe. Once again, you're talking about a southern rock band. They're not like ynt's in the gene pool competing with Bon Jovi, Motley Crue, you know, whoever else was hot at the time. Leonard Skynyrd. Southern rock. They should look like they're from Florida, from the bayou, you know. ACDC had the biggest gimmick of all time. Angus Young and then throwing Brian Johnson with the hat. That's two gimmicks for the price of one. So you could use. There's something about them you can latch on to. And I found that over the years is that you always. And especially a band like yt, once again, it's hard to be a great front man when you have a guitar. Now, Paul Stanley is the best at it. James Hetfield's right behind him. But you got to be a huge personality to be a front man and play guitar at the same time. And that's another thing that hurts that band.

[Steve Austin]

Okay then. Okay. And duly noted. What about a front man without an instrument?

[Chris Jericho]

Best frontman.

[Steve Austin]

Yep. Oh, my gosh.

[Chris Jericho]

You have to go with David Lee Roth. Freddie Mercury, I'll throw Bruce Dickinson in there from Iron Maiden. Those are kind of the three that, that, that you had to put Fred

[Steve Austin]

Mercury in there because I was gonna say.

[Chris Jericho]

Absolutely.

[Steve Austin]

He's got to be either one or two. Absolutely. David Lee Roth, his rap wasn't that great, but he was just. It was. He fit the part. He had that vibe and all the stuff that he got from, you know, because he got his routine from. Who's the guy? There was a southern, kind of a southern rock.

[Chris Jericho]

Oh, it's Jim Dandy.

[Steve Austin]

Jim Dandy. Yeah.

[Chris Jericho]

Yeah.

[Steve Austin]

He kind of stole his gimmick.

[Shopify/Pluto TV Advertiser]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris Jericho]

He kind of the same vibe, but Roth was almost like a stoner. He was like Spicoli in Fast Times in that his rap wasn't great, but just the way he delivered it, you know.

[Steve Austin]

Well, one of the things about that guy was when he was doing interviews, he was so out there and so, you know, Jesus, Christ. I mean, he's articulate in his own way, but highly intelligent. He can ramble and he can get out there. He's full of himself, but God dang, is he interesting. Yes.

[Chris Jericho]

And that's one. I know you didn't like the episode, but I loved your episode with Roth because he was just being Roth. And I know that you were trying to ask some certain questions, but, like, I enjoyed it because I hear I got Steve Austin talking to Davely Roth. Two very iconic characters in their different worlds colliding. I thought it was great.

[Steve Austin]

But you know what, as you know from doing all your podcasts, as long as you've been doing it over 400 episodes, it's so much better when you're talking to someone in person. So, yeah. And this is way back in the day when this is in a glass studio where you could see everybody. Like if this room was glass, you could see everybody else working in a cubicle. There's no atmosphere, there's no vibe. I think he's in New York City at the time I'm in L. A.

[Chris Jericho]

It's hard.

[Steve Austin]

I got all these notes. I mean, I didn't know my producer. I was green. It was one of those. Yeah.

[Chris Jericho]

It's hard to do a podcast over

[Steve Austin]

the phone as a front man. I gotta. I'm not as an all time great. No. But someone that I have to put in there is Anne Asbury.

[Chris Jericho]

Oh, yeah.

[Steve Austin]

Wow.

[Chris Jericho]

Interesting. Interesting. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, did you ever get into them? I loved the Cult. As a matter of fact, one of my favorite albums of all time is called Electric. Came out in 1987. It was like, at the right time of year, was like. Is like. Think it came out in May. That whole summer we just spent it at the beach. That was kind of the soundtrack to the summer. I never saw the Cult as being a great live band, though. The times I saw the Masper, it was cool. But he, he was. He wanted to be more Jim Morrison. He wanted to be mysterious, you know, great singer, great list of tunes. But as a band, they never grabbed me as very. Being super exciting.

[Steve Austin]

And I. I get that. But for me, from not being a concert guy, I think I've been to, I don't know, 10 concerts in my entire. Dude. My first concert was Axe in Heaven. Probably before your time. And they were opening for Motley Crue.

[Chris Jericho]

Wow.

[Steve Austin]

And I know we're going to do a podcast together. We're going to talk about music. Right. But my. When I was growing up, my dad was in a country Western band. He played league guitar and he sang. So, dude, I, I couldn't sing even then. So I was going to be a, you know, lead guitarist, you know, but I didn't apply myself and he's my stepdad technically, so I get his musical genetics. Right, right. Tried to bass. No, they weren't buying me a drum kit, you know, so that didn't happen. But anyway, I was really into the rock and roll stuff in old country. My brother Kevin, who's 10 months younger than me when this is when Motley Crue first came out with Shout at the Devil. And he goes, hey man, check us out. And I was like, I went into the crew because I never heard of them, but this is before I went to the concert, obviously. And I looked at the COVID I said, man, pretty good looking chicks in a manly kind of way. I didn't know that there was guys.

[Chris Jericho]

I remember looking at Vince Neil on that cover and going, how can that chick be so flat chested? And how can they let her be on the front cover with no shirt on? Because he looked like the hottest chick. But he's his, his chest is hanging up with his no boobs, you know,

[Steve Austin]

I mean, Molly Crude going to be, you know, one of my favorite bands of all time. I put him up there and you know, they had a great run.

[Chris Jericho]

Right.

[Steve Austin]

But anyway, hey, let's shift gears and make a segue into a little bit of wrestling. You just come off a high profile match with Kenny Omega. It was awesome. I watched it. Standing match. But by the same token, I had to get back and watch some of your stuff from wwe. Now here's the deal. You've been doing a podcast forever. I've been doing for a little bit over than forever. 500 episodes, man. I didn't want to jump on Wikipedia and research your ass. I don't know how long we known each other, man.

[Chris Jericho]

20 years.

[Steve Austin]

When did you roll into WWE? Was it 98 or 99?

[Chris Jericho]

99. 99. I met you a couple times before that on the plane one time and you gave me the all time greatest line of all time.

[Steve Austin]

What was that? Dick.

[Chris Jericho]

You know, you said it was a great line. I was walking on the plane. It was one of those rare moments when you would see WWE and WCW on the same plane. And you walked by me, you said, hey. And I didn't even, I just knew Steve Austin, hey. He's like, hey, because you know there's a gay guy on the plane. I said, really? Goes, yeah, give me a kiss and I'll Tell you what, you. I'll tell you who it is.

[Steve Austin]

No, you said, who is it? I said, kiss me. I'll tell you.

[Chris Jericho]

That's right. Yeah.

[Steve Austin]

So, yeah, you can't blow the punchline.

[Chris Jericho]

Let's see, that was your line. That's very. I just remember, like Steve Austin just told me a joke and then I saw you again at Brian Pillman's memorial show in Norwood, Ohio. I was working with Benoit and you were there to give your support as well. So that was about 98. So that's technically when I, When I met you, man.

[Steve Austin]

I remember seeing you coming up when you first show up in wcw. I said, man, he's a good looking kid. Long tights, his long hair pulled back in a little gimmick ponytail or whatever you call it. I was like this mother talented. I can see you coming. You feel the charisma coming through the TV screen. I was like, this kid's pretty good. Then you came to New York and I guess when you made your debut, when you interrupted the Rock's promo, shit, was I even into Bella or had I taken my ball and went home at that.

[Chris Jericho]

No, you were there.

[Steve Austin]

Okay?

[Chris Jericho]

You're there, dude.

[Steve Austin]

That was, that was an. That was An. An awesome debut. Whose idea was the whole Y2J thing? Was that collaboration with anybody?

[Chris Jericho]

No.

[Steve Austin]

Are you going to Gene Simmons me on this? Everything was you. How did, How'd it go down, brother?

[Chris Jericho]

I invented Air Steve.

[Steve Austin]

I'll tell you that right now.

[Chris Jericho]

What happened was, it was at the time for. Because people ask me now kids ask me, what does Y2J mean? I'm gonna go ask your parents. So at the time frame, 1999, you know, as everyone who's our age knows, there was supposed to be a giant computer bug called the Y2K virus that was going to shut down the entire infrastructure computers, the whole, you know, don't fly a plane because it's going to drop out of the sky. I remember I had $5,000 cash and a box of. I had this protein drinks at the time with Tang. And I was going to live off the $5,000 cash and I had my, you know, liquid meals with me so I could survive when the, when the riot happened end up, nothing happened, right? But still, everything was Y2K, Y2K, Y2K. And I just thought, Y2J, I'm going to the WWE, obviously, Jericho for J. I thought, that's a great name for my finish. I'll call it the Y2J or the Y2J problem or whatever. It may be. And I was at the mail. The mail, the mail house, the post office. I used to have a self address stamp envelope to sign pictures to people. I wasn't doing all in wcw so I was at least trying to start a rapport with the fans. Early days of the Internet. Send me your self address, I'll send you the thing back. So I was waiting in line at the post office and it said like, you know, 122 days, 7 hours, 4 minutes and 3 seconds until the new millennium. And I thought, wow, counting down, what a cool idea. Countdown to the new millennium. That would be a cool way for someone to come into the wb. Wait, that'd be cool for me to come into the wb. So I came up with the idea of the millennium man, with the countdown. Vince's contributions to it were that the countdown, my idea was it would end at the beginning of Raw. I think it was August 9, 1999. Vince's idea was it would end right in the middle of the Rocks promo, which classic Vince, you know, come in as high as you can possibly get. And his other idea was what's your finish called? And what is it? And I said, well it's, you know, it's a Boston Crab and it's called Y2J problem. And he's going, no, no, that's not the name, you're finished. He goes, your finish isn't Y2J, you're Y2J. And that was his, you know, moniker. And for the first year or two, I'm sure you got this too. It was never Chris or Chris. Jericho was always Y2J. How are you Y2J. Good to see you. Watch it. Because that was his creation. Even though it was my idea, he took it and that's what he called me. I'm sure it's the same with Stone Cold. I'm sure he called you Stone Cold all the time. I remember we always had to reference you as Stone Cold Steve Austin. I could say it four or five times. But because Stone Cold Steve Austin, let me tell you what I'm doing. I'm going to come down the ring, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and I'm going to beat you up. Stone Cold. Because that's the name, right? Not Steve, not Austin, Stone Cold Steve Austin.

[Steve Austin]

And Steve almost humanizes me. And we didn't want to humanize you.

[Chris Jericho]

You are now a brand, right? Stone cold Steve Austin, Y2J. And that's kind of where it all started, you know, and, and I think you'll appreciate this. I'm sure. I've ever told you this before, but when I came into the company, I was a really popular baby face. Eventually started as a heel turned baby face. If you look at all the beach towels and seven eleven cups at the time, there's always three guys on it. You, me, and Rock. And I started realizing that, like, I'm the George Harrison of the Attitude era. I'm super popular, I'm super over. But I'm in a band with the two most popular over characters possibly ever. It doesn't matter what George does. He's never going to top Lennon and McCartney. Right. No matter what I do as a babyface, I'll never top Rock and Austin. So what can I do? I'll turn heel. And that's where that whole started pitching to turn heel on you and on Rock to start working with you guys. Because I knew I could never get past. You guys are higher than you guys. You guys need someone to work with that can hold the microphone and go toe to toe with you. Because it wasn't easy to go toe to toe with you. Wasn't easy to go toe to toe with Rock. You guys were so good and had the crowd in the palm of your hand. You needed a good heel to be able to work.

[Steve Austin]

Oh, absolutely.

[Chris Jericho]

Could go, but could go on the mic with you as well. Yeah. And that's kind of where I think we had some really good times with that.

[Steve Austin]

Out of all your times in the business. Jesus Christ. How long you been in the ring now?

[Chris Jericho]

27 years.

[Steve Austin]

27 years.

[Chris Jericho]

October 9th or. Sorry, October 2nd, 1990 was my debut.

[Steve Austin]

Yeah. Heal a baby.

[Chris Jericho]

To give you the wishy washy answer. Honestly, heel I love. I've been a world champ six times. All of them as a heel. Never wanted as a baby face. I think a lot of that's because of the George Harrison thing. But to me is. I think it's a very rare character in the business that can portray a heel and a baby face at the same level. You know, you look at like flair when flair was he could never really play a baby face as good as he could as a heel. Same same with Hulk. I'm Hogan. He was okay, heel, but as a baby face, it's Hulk, so. Oh, right. So to do both is a very hard skill. And I take great pride in the fact that I can do both. I prefer heel, but I always say it's a lot easier to make somebody hate you than it is to make them like you. But once they start hating you, it's hard to keep Them hating you. It's like the greatest heels of all time in movies. Darth Vader, Terminator, Hannibal Lecter, the Joker, all of those characters. Freddy Krueger. As the movies went on, they became the baby faces. I used to go nightmare and elsewhere just to watch Freddy Krueger kill the kids. He wasn't scary anyway. He was cool. That's what happens. Terminator 2. Arnold's the baby face at this point, because he's so good as a heel, you start liking him. That's the true key of wrestling. If you can be a heel and stay a heel, it's very hard to do.

[Steve Austin]

What was your relationship like with Vince when you first came to Company? Y' all started Talking about the Y2J thing and how that morphed into your communication process with him. Because I'd been with Vince several times and I've told this story many times. I've apologized to my listeners for making me tell it again. Or making you listen to it again. Sitting in a Jeep one time was going to do a gig, throw a belt off a bridge, or do something with no shenanigans at the time. Vince drove a Jeep Grand Cherokee. I'm riding shotgun. He's driving. We're at a gate. It's locked with the chain. No one's there to unlock the chain so we can go do the gig. And so we're just sitting there with a thumbs up our ass. It's weird, you know, because we don't know each other, man. I just turned from the ringmaster from the Stone Cove. Now I'm starting to get a little momentum. And he's personally, we're in his car to do this gig just out of blue. He looks over at me, dude, out of the blue, and he says, you know, Steve, as a promoter, you never want a talent to know what they're worth. Yeah. I was like, what do you say? I didn't say nothing. I just sat there like, man, that was weird. It was a third generation promoter, one of the smartest guys walking planet Earth. About two minutes later, he fires up the Jeep, runs through the gate. We go do the gig. Just blast it straight up, shoot. Blast the chain off. And so, like, man, that. That right there forever opened my eyes and my brain to, okay, here's what's up.

[Chris Jericho]

Yeah.

[Steve Austin]

And then one time, we're in the Garden again, and you know from working msg, we're about to go do Monday Night Raw, and they're at the Barclays center and the Manhattan Center. I don't know Where I'm going to be. Whatever's going to happen, happens. But in msg, that's a short entrance. There's that blue curtain. Like you said, when Vince is there, he's watched that curtain, or maybe he's prowling around at the top. We don't know he's there. One time we was watching those matches go down, watching everybody go to the ring. I was probably working in Maine and sold out house. Steve Blackman goes to the ring, gets a hell of a pop. Pretty good pop, you know, and he was. He was on his way, you know, Steve. Steve Blackman had really good worker, really good physique.

[Chris Jericho]

Believable, believable.

[Steve Austin]

Just solid and. But he's never hit that. That next level. And boy got a pretty good pop. And I looked over Vince, I said, damn, pretty good pop. And Vince goes, yep. I really hope he can get over. And I'm like, there it is again. You know, Vince doesn't just wave a little wand over there, hit you with that pixie dust, that magic dust. All of a sudden, somebody's over. So how was your meaning, Vince? Don't just come at somebody. Just take Roman Reigns, for instance. I mean, they're like, just point at a guy and say, you're over. It does not happen like that. So going back to. Man, I don't go back in history. Just. Let's start off with the old man. Then I want to peel it back a little bit to go through WCW and your territory days, because one of the things I've always respected about you, I caught you in ecw. I didn't see you when you was in Mexico or when you was up in Canada or all those other places. You got over in ecw, you got over in wcw, you got over in wwf. You got over everywhere you went.

[Chris Jericho]

Well, that's. And I'll answer your question about Vince, but that's one of the reasons why I was able to get over in wwe, because I'm not sure if you went through it. I think you did. Obviously you did with the ringmaster. When we came from this other territory, other company, it doesn't matter what you've done anywhere else in the world until you go through the WWE curtain and Vince can see you. He doesn't care if you're Steve Austin, Triple H, Mick Foley, Chris Benoit, AJ Styles or Chris Jericho. I would say he probably doesn't watch any wrestling whatsoever. He might hear some names. I don't think he cares. Your job when you get to the wwe is to basically start from scratch and show Vince what you can do. And if you can get over with him, you'll get a chance to get over. Not the pixie dust, but you need to get over with Vince first to get the chance to really get over, if that makes sense. So with Vince, actually a wise man, a bald guy with a goatee, who's sitting across from right now, you said to me, you know, you really have to establish a relationship with Vince. It's so important you told me that and I've told a lot of guys that. Now you have to get over this. Vince is very intimidating and he's very scary. Like waiting outside his office, you feel like you have to wait to go into the principal. Even to this day, I'm nervous to go in his office. But you have to establish that relationship with him so you can break that wall down of Vince McMahon, the boss and Chris Jericho, the employee, and then two guys who are working together to create a good product. And then if you're really lucky, like Vince. I consider him to be a friend of mine now. I asked him to go to AC DC with me last year when they were at the Garden with Axl Rose. And then he ended up tearing his quad. And he. And you know, he never said he would go, but I invited him. I'm like, what if he wants to go? Like, what am I going to do? Like, do I. Do I stand in the seats with Vince and like air guitar with them? Like, what are we going to do if he shows up? Like, are these seats going to be good enough for him? Do I have to get a box now? Like, what do I do? Like, how is he as a guy? But there's a couple times over the years and it took me a long time to really get to that relationship. I would say it took me till 2008, eight years of working for Vince, until I lived up to the potential that I think he saw in me. But I never really delivered it to that level. Then I created that kind of hypocrite suit and tie, very slow talking character. Worked with Sean. We had this amazing chemistry. Obviously, Sean, as you know, the best baby face a heel could ever work with. And we were perfect match, great baby face, great heel, great chemistry in the ring and out. And we had this whole big long seven month angle. And that's when I think Vince saw me as legit top guy that you can put the, put the rocket to. And I was world champion four times during that run. And ever since then we came closer and closer from that.

[Steve Austin]

What did you learn? I was. I was watching. God dang. Is it Bruce Hart?

[Chris Jericho]

Bruce.

[Steve Austin]

Bruce still with us?

[Chris Jericho]

Yeah, Bruce is still alive.

[Steve Austin]

Bruce. It might have been a Bruce interview talking to the dude from Northwest Rust in Hannibal. Now you started over, right? How long were you in that Calgary area?

[Chris Jericho]

A long time, man. Like I trained there with the Hart brothers. Even though there was no Hart brothers at camp. Thank God Lance Storm was there because

[Steve Austin]

first y' all met from day one.

[Chris Jericho]

Day one. It's like playing strains and automobiles. When John Candy when the kids train breaks down, he's got the big giant trunk and he's trying to carry it across the plane. And then Steve picks up the one side. That's exactly what happened. I had this big trunk and we were living in a hotel called the Willy the Willingdon in Okotoka, Alberta, which is about 30 minutes outside of Calgary. And I had to climb the stairs to get to my room and I had this big trunk with all my worldly possessions and. Lance. Hey, are you here for wrestling school? Yeah, yeah, my name is. Last name's Chris. You need a hand? Sure. Picked up the one side of my trunk and that's how I got it upstairs. So day one, first day I showed up was. Was him with him.

[Steve Austin]

So how long were you there?

[Chris Jericho]

I lived in Calgary till about 94. So I was working on and off. But also I had a. I've been working full time since 92.

[Steve Austin]

Okay.

[Chris Jericho]

Mexico was full time. Then it was Japan got full time Smoky Mountain. But I still lived in Calgary.

[Steve Austin]

Time in Germany as well.

[Chris Jericho]

Right. I did. I went there in 93 for six.

[Steve Austin]

Okay. My question to you as you're making those rounds and. And then let them talk a little bit about. About the communication process in Mexico because I'm not imagining. You speak Spanish.

[Chris Jericho]

I learned.

[Steve Austin]

Okay. Yeah. Smart guy.

[Chris Jericho]

Yeah.

[Steve Austin]

What about your early years taught you how to get over? I mean, because, dude, you're 27 years in now.

[Chris Jericho]

Yeah.

[Steve Austin]

When I talk about getting over, I always like to talk about with people who got over because I still think it's a lost art. Yeah. I always like to hear how anybody else vocalizes or intellectualizes it to finish up.

[Chris Jericho]

The point that we were making before is that I got over in wwe. It was very hard when I first came in because there was a lot of. There was. There was a target on my back because there was still the wrestling war was real. WCW and wwe.

[Steve Austin]

That was a fierce dressing room.

[Chris Jericho]

It was.

[Steve Austin]

When you came in, I mean, I. I don't know how you felt But I mean, I saw, yeah, I saw talent. I said, man, dude's got, you know, he can talk and he can work. I said, you know, I'm on my game.

[Chris Jericho]

Yeah, yeah. But I also came in as a WCW guy, you know, by myself. I didn't come in with Dean and Eddie and Chris and those guys. I didn't come in Big show came in by himself as well. But he's a giant. It's hard to, you know, I'm, you know, 5 foot 11, 220 pounds and long blonde hair. There's other guys in the company that had long blonde hair that probably didn't like that aspect of it. And also too, I came in with not a bad attitude, but I came in with some attitude. I wasn't afraid to.

[Steve Austin]

Was it an attitude or a chip on you shoulder?

[Chris Jericho]

It turned into a big chip. At the time I just came in as a heel, so I had no problem. I didn't know that you weren't supposed to talk about the Undertaker in a promo or talk bad about Steve Austin in a promos. That's what heels do to baby faces, right? But I learned very quickly that's not what heels do when they first come in. I had no idea. Nobody ever taught me anything about that in wcw. They didn't even tell me how to bump and feed a comeback. I worked WC for 3 years and had no idea what that even meant. As crazy as it sounds right now. Long story short, I eventually got over because I'd been over everywhere I'd ever been to. For one reason and one reason only, I knew how to connect with the fans. If you can connect with an audience, whether you make them love you or hate you, you'll always have a job and you'll sell tickets and you'll become valuable. If you can connect with the audience, they'll be excited to see what you do. And the other thing I did in WWE was I knew, okay, I can't, I can't win with like, you know, Hunter and DX and you know, Rocky was always cool and you were in and out and you were, you know, you were onto your own. But you're always cool to me. But what I did was I worked really hard always. But I knew if I could get over with the bullpen, with the mid level guys, that, that would bleed up to the top. Bob Holly, you know, those type of guys. JBL Bradshaw at the time, you know, working with those type of Rikishi, having great matches night after night with those guys, which is where I was Programmed. The word gets around. You know, this guy is not an asshole. You guys are talking shit about him. He's really good and he's a good guy. That kind of helped to alleviate some of the tension that was there. So that's basically how I got over. I believed in myself and I connected with the audience.

[Steve Austin]

Then how do you. How do you establish or communicate to an individual, one of the boys or gals listening, how do you connect with the people?

[Chris Jericho]

I don't know, it's almost like saying like, how do you sing like Paul Stanley? Or how do you get over like Steve Austin? How do you throw a football? Like, you know, I don't even know anything about Brett Favre or whoever's a good quarterback. I don't really know. I think it's something that you have inside of you. It's that charisma, fearlessness. You can't be afraid to. Some of you can relate to. You can't be afraid to be stone cold Steve Austin and put on a little cowboy hat and sing Kumbaya on a frickin ukulele, out of tune and horrible. Like that was you committing to the character? I committed to the character every time. As a heel, as a baby face. Anything I could do to, you know, never ever again. For example, start in WCW when I ripped Dave Penzer's tuxedo off. And the next week they made me go back in there with a tuxedo. And I said, I promise I will never ever, like just over the top. Like I got it from Sally Field, you like me. You really like me. And it's like, I don't like you anymore from that. So I'll never ever do it again. And then you see people with signs. And Jimmy Hart taught me. He said, Jimmy was great, man. I love, love, love Jimmy Hart. But he told me, he said, you can't make people write signs. You know, you can plant them, but these weren't planted. You can't force somebody to write Austin 316 or never ever again with 14 pieces of cardboard with 1e, 1e, 1e, 1v. You can't. This buddy say, dude, let's take an ever sign. And that's how you know you're starting to connect.

[Steve Austin]

That's like the ultimate compliment.

[Chris Jericho]

It is.

[Steve Austin]

And so you have to connecting.

[Chris Jericho]

Exactly. You have to be fearless. Just like you with. With Austin 3 6. You took a chance. It might have stuck. It might not have. If not stuck, something else would have. And I always laugh because I have so many kind of, let's say hits for catchphrases. If I was in a rock, and I am, but, you know, like, hit with Ayatollah of Rock and Roll, a hit with Roz Jericho. But there's been some misses. I remember that. I thought, razzle dazzle. That's going to be huge. That'll be the next catch. I'm a little razzle dazzle. Razzle dazzle. And then just die to death. And the other one was. Was get it. Got it. Good. And I would say, get it. And the crowd would say, got it. And then I would say, good. It just. I tried it a couple times. It sucked. It stunk. You had one. Do you remember what? I'll tell you one that you had.

[Steve Austin]

Which one was it?

[Chris Jericho]

I can put a little stink on it.

[Steve Austin]

What?

[Chris Jericho]

I'm gonna put a little stink on it.

[Steve Austin]

Oh, you know, through the phase.

[Chris Jericho]

That was your thing. You would say every time before, what? I'm gonna put a little stink on it. Then I'll put a little stink on it. And just kind of like, man, when you.

[Steve Austin]

When you. When you throw out a turd,

[Chris Jericho]

it humbles you.

[Steve Austin]

It's just sinking feelings. Like, God damn, I can't let them see me. I'm not going. Let them see me sweat. But inside, I know this shit ain't working. But you got to try.

[Chris Jericho]

But you got to try. And that's the thing, like, you got to be fearless. The saying is, like, the only failure is not trying. But a lot of people in the business are afraid to try. And also, at this point, aren't given the option to try. And that, to me, like, when I thought of the idea of the highlight reel, My initial idea was learning from one of the greatest. I don't even know what you would call him backstage interviews is Gene Okerland, who could lead you through a backstage promo even if you didn't know what you were doing. Right? That's how I learned how to do promos. I used to go sit in the box. WCW had a box where you do localized promos. We're coming to Jacksonville. We're coming to, you know, the Odessa or whatever. And I would just sit in there. Because you're sitting around all day, there's nothing to do. I'll go watch guys do promos. Then I watch Arn Anderson and Rick Flair and, you know, the Mountie or Glaser, whoever's there getting promos. And then maybe one day they'll ask me. And one day, Luger didn't show up because he wanted to go to the gym. So what about that guy? He's always sitting in the corner. You want to do a promo? Sure. And I remember it was for where's the van? The van and Del Arena. I think it's Kalamazoo. No wings. Wings calls it. No, it's Grand Rapids or some one of those Michigan cities. And I had to do a promos rotten. But Gene Okerlund was the guy who was doing the interview and led me through it. And then the next week they gave me two and then they gave me three before. That's how I learned how to promo. No script, just on your own instincts. And my idea, when I started the high levels, I wanted to be the Gene Okra and have guys come out that didn't get promo time and let me do an improv promo. Let's see what they got. That of course did not fly with Vince. He wanted it to be an actual promo segment with top level guys and. But my idea was I wanted to see what can people do when they're not being scripted and they don't have handcuffs. You know, I still think they should do that. This day at every show, you know, in between Main Event and raw, there's a 10 minute period. Send somebody out there. You got three minutes and you don't tell anybody who, who the. Who it is during the day. You just be like, Xavier, Xavier Woods. Go out there for three minutes. What am I supposed to talk about? I don't know. And see what they got. And woods would kill it. But give somebody else, Heath Slater or Curt Hawkins or whoever you would see then who can do a promo and who can connect with the audience? You would get it right.

[Steve Austin]

Like that question before I go between Today's locker room versus that attitude era locker room or when you came in 99, it was attitude.

[Chris Jericho]

Yeah.

[Steve Austin]

So one of my big pet peeves, one of my big pet peeves is when the announcer backstage, whoever it is, whether it's male or females, talking to the talent. Ask talent a question. Talent gives the answer. If there's an interrupt, there's an interrupt. But talent gives the answer. And it's an awkward feeling. And then all of a sudden it's back to Michael and the guys at the desk. And the camera stays on the interviewer who's got this awkward answer. There's been some intended. You want there to be some heat there. And all of a sudden it's just an awkward reaction to the person that's part of the broadcast team. It'd be like Aaron Andrews not throwing back to the guys calling the game. What are your thoughts on that? Because I think she should. I think whether it's a male or female, they should throw back to the announce team. Because I don't think the heat, the point or anything goes anywhere because I'm so focused on that weird look that the interview has on their face and

[Chris Jericho]

you can't look at the camera, so you're kind of just staring off into the distance.

[Steve Austin]

Yeah, I mean, I don't get it.

[Chris Jericho]

Well, I mean. And, you know, I don't have to tell you this. And it's, you know, Pat Patterson said it best. It's like, you know, it's Vince's ice cream shop, and sometimes he likes chocolate and sometimes he likes vanilla, and sometimes he likes neither one. It's his. It's his. Gets his ice cream store. That's the way Vince wants it. In Vince's mind, that's how he wants it. So you have to work within those parameters. Do I think it's good? Not necessarily. I think the backstage interviewers, now, could they be, and I say this respectfully because I know they're just doing what they're told. Could they be more robotic? I loved that. I know it's 80s wrestling, as Vince would say, but the Gene Okerland and Lee Marshall as well, who's passed away since, they were great. They were great at it because they would have some energy and like, Gene. Oh, what are you talking about? You can't talk to me like that. Bobby Heenan. Oh, my God. And they would throw back.

[Steve Austin]

Right.

[Chris Jericho]

There's a lack of energy sometimes to the show when you don't let people be themselves. Like, I'm a ham, You're a ham. I will scene or eat you worse than William Shatner if you. If you let me.

[Steve Austin]

And if.

[Chris Jericho]

But even if you don't, there's still a way to captivate even as that quiet talking heels. If I talk quiet, everyone has to shut up and listen to me. I remember sometimes I do promos like that and people in the crowd be like, we can't hear you. And then I'd go even quieter. Then, you better f cking listen, man. And that's like one person captivating a whole arena of people. People. I find sometimes that guys aren't given the opportunity to take that ball and run with it because it's very regimented.

[Steve Austin]

The regimentation or the. I don't. I just feel like there. There's a kind of. Everybody's walking on eggshells these days just because there's nowhere else to go. And everybody's just micromanaged to a degree. And I'm not indicting the system. Hell, I'm going to be up there on Monday Night raw for the 25th anniversary. But it's just one of those things that just kind of, man, from back in the day, you know, when I came in as a ringmaster and I knew it was a suck ass gimmick, right? But hell, I had a wife, two kids, you know, log cabin on 10 acres. Shit, I gotta pay my bills. They're gonna take all my shit from me. So I go up there. I'd already went to visit Vince twice. I knew they didn't have anything planned for me. I needed to bring me as a mechanic. So, shit, I never came. Then finally, after I busted my arm, went to ecw, got under the learning tree apartment, Paul Heyman, you know, I said, okay, it's time to go. You know, eventually. Oh, God. God damn, pal. We're bringing in million dollar champion Ted DiBiase as your manager. And I love Ted DiBiase. Right. So anyway, so I came up. I knew that wasn't going to work after six months. And so that's when, you know, whatever started thinking about it and, you know, drinking beer, you know, whiskey, whatever. It was watching, you know, television came up with the stone cold Persona. Anyway, whoever came up with it, came up with it. And that was my name. And when I went out there and I remember Scott hall came up to me and he goes, because all of a sudden it was on the backstage. Remember they used to have boards there. So and so versus so and so.

[Chris Jericho]

They still do.

[Steve Austin]

Yeah, they still do. So, you know, Razor Scott sees it now I'm called Stone Cold Steve Austin. He goes, stone Cold, what's that all about? And I was like, yeah, I didn't really have a definition of the gimmick yet. I had a sense of where it was going to go and what I do with it. I said, oh, man. I said, just. Just give it time. I'm telling you, it'll work. Just watch. So anyway, I was. I always went out there, dude, and you know, when I guess Russo was doing a book and he was on my show the other day, he says, you know, he had, you know, created the opportunity for me to go ringside and do some color commentary. I went out there and did it. And, you know, that's when I noticed that they were, you know, they weren't. This is when we're going live, tape live. Yeah, they started editing on my shit. And I talked with Vince, I said, hey man, why are you adding my stuff? And he goes, well, quite frankly, Steve, you're popping the guys in the truck, you know. And he wanted me to be a heel. But so anyway, I told him right then and there. I said, Dude, I'm 6, 1, 2, 5, goatee, you know, 610, 7ft, guys, 300, 320. I'm speaking fast because everybody's heard my story so many times. I said, if you give me my personality, I said I can compete. If you take my personality from me, I can't compete. Okay, I've said that story many times. And I, I just told you. My point is, dude, back in the day, because there's still wcw. There was still, you know, ecw. Hell, I wasn't making no money. I was making, you know, a little bit of money one night a week working for Paul. So I didn't know what did I have to lose. So finally, you know, every time I got a chance to go out there, I didn't give a shit. I was going to, you know, go out on a limb, push the envelope, do whatever it took because it didn't make a shit, right?

[Chris Jericho]

Didn't matter. The Steve Austin Show. The Steve Austin show. And it's funny because I just did this in Japan with the Alpha versus Omega thing where. Thank you. But the, the angle beforehand in Fukuoka a couple weeks before. Then the press conference. Then after the show, I did another press conference. I didn't care. I was like, you know, I'm not a big dude, but over there I'm a big guy. And I was thinking, I want to be like Bruiser Brody and Stan. I want to scare these guys. Like these reporters and shit. They don't deal with that nowadays. But there was no rules. I was swearing. I was, you know, during the match, I grabbed the camera and took a picture of me flipping the bird to the crowd. Took pictures of it. They that put that in the magazine, which like, I came across as this like lunatic who could, would do anything and didn't care. Ripping up reporters books and yelling at them and you know, throwing tables and threw a garbage can full of like cigarette busts in water on one of the reporters from Tokyo Sports. He got covered in like cigarette butt water. But I'm like, you know, I don't care. I'm doing it and everybody's flipping out. Jericho.

[Steve Austin]

Jericho.

[Chris Jericho]

Jericho, Jericho. Because there's no restrictions. And like you said, I didn't care. I might never come back here. I want to have some fun. I Want people to know I'm different from any other foreign guy or any of the Japanese guy. I don't give a shit what the rules of Japan are. I don't care what the. You know, we went to a press conference in this very nice hotel. Like don't throw anything off. If the table costs a thousand dollars, I'll pay for it, but you're going to sell tickets because of it. And it was really, what's the word I'm looking for? Gratifying and whatever. There's a word for it where there was this freedom. After 17 years of having to have stuff approved by Vince or agents or whatever, I'd have to have anything approved, anything I wanted. And what a cool feeling that was

[Steve Austin]

as far as the match goes. And I saw the build up stuff.

[Chris Jericho]

Liberating. That's what I was looking for. Sorry, liberating.

[Steve Austin]

But I don't know if you remember the conversation I told you, I said, dude, to me you just look free out there. Yeah, I said exactly that. And that's what came across to me. I said, he doesn't give a shit. He's not being held back. He can do anything he wants.

[Chris Jericho]

And like I said, there's not like, you know, there's a kind of a misconception in WWE that you get held back and it's not getting held back. But there's certain rules that we have to abide by because that's the corporate company now. There's no juice allowed, no chair shots. And thank goodness for that. I mean, I send you that GIF a couple months ago of you just wailing guys with chair shots. Did you think of how we used to do that and you took them too. That was just part of the business. And to look back at that, it's so barbaric. It's like we're stabbing each other with like, you know, maces or something. But there's certain things you just cannot do in the wwe.

[Steve Austin]

Correct.

[Chris Jericho]

And to have the restrictions to do whatever you want, like, okay, I want to go through a table, let's do it, let's put up a chair. There's a no DQ match. That's why I wanted no dq. Didn't want to bury the referee, even though everyone else does. I wouldn't feel good about that, you know, so we had the permission to do it, let's use it. And not having to get it approved was kind of a cool feeling.

[Steve Austin]

But they're being. With the, with the rule system being in place that is there now, there were Rules back when I was running wild over there, right? But you just push the envelope due to whatever the rule structure is, just because here's the thing, when you are limited, you know, physically or from a standpoint of picking up chairs, tables, this out, whatever, dude. I mean, you've seen matches inside the squared circle where no one left the ring and assumptions either goes haywire or goes off. Or the guy, the baby's got so much fire that heal. Such a piece of shit of that mean streak or whatever he's doing within. You know, I'm talking about today's system you can get over. I mean, it's. It's all about. And I was just like, someone asked me that day, you know, it was a whole different conversation. But I said, man, you got to be a fighter. And whether you're a heel or a baby, you got to be a fighter to get over. I don't mean to segue out of it, but people say, could Stone Cold Steve Austin get over in today's wwe?

[Chris Jericho]

Absolutely.

[Steve Austin]

Hell yeah.

[Chris Jericho]

Absolutely. Absolutely.

[Steve Austin]

Same rules, same guy.

[Chris Jericho]

That's something that, like, I know Batista said something at one point of like, it would be hard to get over him in the PG13 environment or something along those lines. Dave's a great guy, and I disagree with him because he could get over because a good worker is a good worker. And I don't care if his attitude era or PG13 or ECW or Lucha Libre, if you know what you're doing doing, you can incorporate any style or any rule that needs to be done and still get over. That's. It's easy if you're good. I had no problem switching from attitude air to PG13.0. Stop saying son of a bitch, stop saying jackass, you know, all that sort of stuff. And, you know, it was. Wasn't that hard because I know what I'm doing.

[Steve Austin]

It's not bad, but it's also. It's just delivery.

[Chris Jericho]

Absolutely.

[Steve Austin]

Not everything is content. Not everything. You ain't got to go out there and recite a rush, you know, lyrics to get over.

[Chris Jericho]

Yeah.

[Steve Austin]

And by the same token, in the structure of a match, you don't got to do a million moves and a bunch of whirly gigs and flips and shit off the top turnbuckle to get over.

[Chris Jericho]

You don't, you know, and just to go back to what you're saying, this is just something I always have noticed, I don't think I've ever told. It's not really much of a story, but I remember was In a tag team match one time with Undertaker, and he was on the apron side while we were getting heat on whoever. Getting heat on. And a couple of false tags. And he couldn't get any. Could. And at one point, he just. He jumped on the floor, he grabbed some water, he poured it over his head, he hit the damn steps. Like, bam, bam, bam, bam. He looked like he was going nuts. And I was like, people loved it because who did that? Undertaker. And why do you have to stand on the apron holding it? He was like, I'm a caged animal.

[Steve Austin]

Water and.

[Chris Jericho]

And chaos and plunder around ringside. You knew he wanted this tag. And he. Everyone else would just stand there, tag me, tag me, tag me. He was like, I can't stand anymore. I'm gonna go crazy. Hit the damn thing. And you know he's ready to go.

[Steve Austin]

He's jumping up.

[Chris Jericho]

And this is Undertaker showing like a Brian Pillman, 1989, Babyface Fire slapping the mat. And I just always remembered that. Of course, I tried it a couple times. I was never as good at doing it as Taker was, but just little things like that shows that is a true professional. He knows what he's doing. And there's no gimmick, dead man, anything of that shit. It's just a guy who knows he's connecting with the audience. He's letting people know, I want this tag and I'm going to get this tag. And you guys know I'm going to get it. And everyone's like, yeah, you're going to get it. And when he got the tag, you know, it blew the roof off, as you can expect, but it was just a little extra little bit. I learned this in Mexico from a guy called Negro Casas, who is the best. One of the best wrestlers I've ever worked with. Not in Mexico anywhere. They call him the Ric Flair of Mexico. He understands the psychology of where he is. He's not a flipper or flyer. He's just. His details taught me that the difference between a good worker and a great worker is the little things, really.

[Steve Austin]

I agree.

[Chris Jericho]

And if you know how to do those little things, you will transcend from good to great. But it's amazing how many guys don't know the little things well.

[Steve Austin]

That's why I was like. And I was on YouTube the other day, and I was just looking old random videos, and it was you. And this is so many years ago, because Dallas Page was still living in Playa Vista. And that's where I used to live with him when I First came out to Los Angeles, and you guys had went through a yoga workout, and y' all were talking about Eddie Guerrero.

[Chris Jericho]

Yeah.

[Steve Austin]

And you know, it was me and Eddie. Yeah, you had that. Whatever. That meeting with him where you first met him, and he was grouchy. Grouchy.

[Chris Jericho]

But then he was drunk.

[Steve Austin]

Yeah, super nice, Eddie. Anyway, the guy was phenomenal. But I don't mean to ramble. Eddie was one of those guys that if you knew anything about wrestling, you picked up on the little things he did. If you didn't know anything about wrestling from a technicality standpoint, just from watching him, for some reason, it resonated with you at a deeper level because you were seeing a guy who was so detail oriented. The little things meant so much. I mean, it's just something. Even that little thing. If the. The baby face, let's say baby face, is laying on his back, face up, and there's just that little peel out

[Chris Jericho]

on the damn face, put his heel and crush. Crush out a cigarette butt on your.

[Steve Austin]

How many people do that? There's a couple that do it, but who. Ain't nobody does it like Eddie does

[Chris Jericho]

it, but does it where it looks like he's. He's putting on a cigarette with the stink on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With a little stink on it.

[Steve Austin]

Just. But it's those little things that made Eddie so.

[Chris Jericho]

Eddie was really, really good at that sort of stuff. And, you know, like, I was thinking about this the other day. Man, I missed Eddie. I wish he was still around because he was such a goofball, but, like, just very. Just a really good guy, obviously. But he really took everything very personally. And we talked earlier about back in the day when we were running, we were a little bit nuts. He never really went nuts. He took everything so personally. Like, if the house was down, like, 200 people when he was a champion, he would be really legitimately sad, you know, if he heard one person booing him when he was supposed to be a baby face. Actually, you went through that phase, too. I mean, we had a match in El Paso, of all places. We tore the house down. And you were pissed off. After I said, what's wrong? He said, there was one guy on the front rows. Give me the finger. I'm like, dude, there's 10,000 people chanting your name. But at the time, that bothered you. You couldn't get over it. Eddie was like that, too. So involved and so into it that anything that he felt was a slight against him and his abilities, he would take it very, very personal. And that's why I don't think. I think you eventually would have gotten over it. But I don't think he. The first time he was a champion, they didn't keep it on him long because I don't think he could take it. It's a lot of pressure to be the champion, and I think it kind of made him go a little bit crazy because of it, you know, it

[Steve Austin]

seemed to me as little as I knew Eddie and I knew him a little bit.

[Chris Jericho]

And did you ever work with them?

[Steve Austin]

Yeah, I requested to work with him because I'd kind of been running hard and I was kind of just getting caught up in. I want to work again. I don't want to rely on a gimmick, man. And Eddie was a worker. He was a worker's worker. And so I requested to work with him. And after about a week's worth of shows, they pulled us apart because they needed me to work with.

[Chris Jericho]

Yeah, whoever was on top or whatever.

[Steve Austin]

Yeah, someone on top. But I requested to work with a guy and met as many guys as we both know that have gone down. I did. Not a big funeral guy. I went to Eddie's funeral.

[Chris Jericho]

I remember that.

[Steve Austin]

I remember that.

[Chris Jericho]

Yeah, I remember seeing that. It surprised me because I remember you had talked about that before, not being a funeral.

[Steve Austin]

I want to get to you. I want to get to a match with you and Shawn Michaels. But you mentioned earlier. No, I was thinking earlier about Brian Pillman when I was thinking about you as far as your freedom in that match against Kenny Omega and didn't just say, oh, that's Brian Pillman. It just resonated, man. He's in the zone. He's really free. But then also just talking about Eddie Guerrero, it would be great if Brian was still around and that guy was so far ahead of his time, just from a gimmick standpoint. Remember back in the day when you would run with a guy and we were tagging and you're on the road with a guy for three weeks? It's kind of like, okay, man. When I go home for these two days, I just want to chill out and not hear from anybody. There's Brian, called me kid, got a scoop. It was always good to hear from him. So he's a guy that I wish was still around. I guess the point, the thing I'm getting to, a lot of guys get lost on the road into a bunch of shit. I hung out with the drinking crowd. I kind of was the drinking crowd. If there wasn't nobody else, that's just kind of what I did. How did you get away or stay away from? Just the gamut of pills that a lot of guys fall into to. Because some of the guys that I've talked to, survivors like Del Wilkes, Del Wilkes, the Patriot and you know, guys that are telling, man, I'm taking 40 to 60, you know, Oxycontin or Percocets or whatever, I'm like, I don't understand that. I don't know how you do it. I mean, because back in the day, dude, a couple cups, a couple of pots of coffee, rather two bikes, I'm done. That's it. And I didn't take any pain pills if I was hurt. I mean, when I broke those bones in my back, I had a doctor, you know, shooting me up with Tordahl before I went out there every night. My point is, I just didn't go down that road. I didn't get lost in it. How did you stay away from it or did you not?

[Chris Jericho]

I don't really know the answer to that. I just know, like, when I grew up, you know, 80s, I started wrestling in 90. This might sound really dumb, but whatever. At the time, it was really still say no to drugs. That was what was hammered into our heads. When I was in high school, a teenager. Say no to drugs. Don't do drugs. Don't do drugs. Don't do drugs. And some guys that I knew smoked a little weed and stuff, but I just never was interested. Don't do drugs. I don't want to do drugs. I don't know why would I want to do drugs. And I just never started with that. I never did any of the pills. Even back in Calgary and Mexico, guys that I would hang with would be doing all the pills. I just didn't. Didn't. I don't know why I still to this day, I've never done cocaine in my life. Never. I just never had the desire to. For whatever reason.

[Steve Austin]

Dude, out of all your years, music scene that you're involved in turn with foz.

[Chris Jericho]

Never once.

[Steve Austin]

Worldwide wrestling, all the. Dude. Yeah, there was a couple of stops where there would be, you know.

[Chris Jericho]

Yeah. With the gimmicks, I went through the. You know, I did shrooms and that sort of.

[Steve Austin]

There's no problem.

[Chris Jericho]

That sort of thing. But I just never, for whatever reason, but I just liked having a drink. And yeah, the guys that I ran with just liked having a drink. I remember we. Raven will tell you this too. We used to have this. This gang that we called us the Drunken Four Horsemen. And it was me, Raven, Kurt hanning and Mongo McMichael. Now I don't know if Mongo and Kurt knew that was the name, but it was always the four of us hanging out. We were called the Drunken Four Horse. That's what me and Raven called each other. And there was never drugs with those guys. It was just drinking. Here's how you gargle Jack Henning. Here's how you gargle Jack Daniels, Kid and fly fool people. You, you let it dribble out the side of your mouth. Let some other sad sack gargle Jack Daniels, which will kill you. Anybody that's listening, it will kill you. Like it will get you super drunk. And. And McMichael, I remember he broke his arm one time and he drank a bottle of Jack and started hitting his broken arm.

[Steve Austin]

Listen to this.

[Chris Jericho]

Hitting his arm on the damn table. Like, what are you doing? It doesn't hurt. Those were the guys that I had fun with. So it was never a pill atmosphere. And for whatever reason, and then, and then when I got to the point where I didn't have to worry about peer pressure or anything, I just made the decision. I'm not going to bother. I'm not even in ecw. Nobody ever approached me to do it, you know, I don't know, it just never kind of came my way. I remember just to finish off when I did break my arm in Smoky Mountain Wrestling. And I came, I broke it earlier in the day trying a shooting star press because somebody ultimo Dragon convinced me I could do one. And of course I had no idea what I was doing. Tried one earlier in the day, broke my arm, went to the hospital, came back, we had a big show. It was the semi main event of this sold out thing that Cornet had. It was me and Lance against the Heavenly Bodies, Jimmy del Rey and Dr. Tom. I worked the match with a broken arm. Dr. Tom, they were taking one arm body slams for me. Those guys were so good to do that for me. But I remember they gave me some pills, whatever the pain pills were for having a broken arm and I didn't take them. I remember Brian Lee was really concerned. Are you okay, man? Are you all right? Did you get any pain pills? Yeah, here, take them. So I had a broken arm and never took pain pills. Who does that? A plate in my arm. You can still see the scar to this day. Just decided, I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna fall down that path. So. And here I am.

[Steve Austin]

That's good for You. I'll tell you what. Because there was a lot of shit going on back in the day and we were at our stops. It was a good time. One last Curt Henning story. The thing with Kurt was when he was in WWF or when we were in WCW or vice versa, whichever one, for some reason, you know, the. Kurt was a legend.

[Chris Jericho]

Yeah.

[Steve Austin]

A living legend among the boys. He was just beloved because he's always in a good mood. He's always up to hijinks. He was a world class worker, highly charismatic, a ton of fun. If he was having a bad day, I don't think anybody would ever know. Yeah, but when you cross paths with Kurt, you had to do a shot of Jack with him and you had to gargle it. That was a rule. And so, man, I'd be, you know, like, it happened to me twice. I'm walking through an airport, man, I got my sunglasses on, I'm pretty haggard. And you know, there's Kurt, you know, got a gargle a shot with him. Come on, have a shot. Yeah, that was the deal.

[Chris Jericho]

Yeah.

[Steve Austin]

Hey, before we leave, because I know I want to do your podcast. I want to leave time for that. That match with Shawn Michaels, it got match of the year. It was the ladder match. It was in 2008. What wrestle was that? Wrestlemania or.

[Chris Jericho]

No, no, it was no Mercy. It was in October of 2000.

[Steve Austin]

Jesus Christ. I remember. I probably remember watching it back in. I don't know if I'd taken my ball and went home because I wasn't even on the card.

[Chris Jericho]

I was reading the card. I don't think you were there at the time, but.

[Steve Austin]

Jesus Christ. I watched that match before you came over, before I scanned through some of your facts. But real quick on a comparison. That match, Kenny Omega, obviously two different things on your list of accomplishments. Well, I know you're proud of the fact that you drew money in Japan.

[Chris Jericho]

Yeah.

[Steve Austin]

Buy rates, subscriptions and all that with

[Chris Jericho]

Omega, but that drew money to the.

[Steve Austin]

Okay, but I just thought, you know, the way you. No, no, but was earlier with Bully Ray, I was like, okay, I didn't know if you had a grudge or whatever this was. That letter match was so awesome up

[Chris Jericho]

until the Omega match. And it's still. I don't know, but if people ask, what's your favorite match? I'd always say the ladder match with Sean. There's a lot of reasons for that. I think a, this is being completely biased, but also just saying how I feel. It kills the Sean Razor ladder match. It blows it out of the water. But it wasn't as monumental because that was the first one. Another reason why I love it is because it was the culmination of a seventh month, seven month feud that was supposed to go one day started when Batista and Sean had a match and I was the guest referee and Sean, the idea was Sean would hurt his knee, I would wave off the match and then we would find out later on that Sean was faking it. And I knew he was faking it, but he would claim that he wasn't. And then it would lead to a match. We would work each other. Sean would win the end. But Sean is so good, his original idea was, was there'd be some kind of a finish and then we'd have a match. And then Sean was like, no, this is too. We can do something with this. We'd worked at WrestleMania 2003. You and Rock work that night in Seattle. And we had great chemistry. And he said, this is a waste to do this and just pay it off with one. One show, one pay per view. And I remember we asked Vince, it's a classic Vince question, an answer, what do you want for the finish? And Vince goes, I don't know, I just booked the shit. You guys figure it out, all right? And then Sean came up with this idea where he tweaks his knee. I believe him. Am I the fool? Is he the fool? And we started this big long angle that went through all these shapes and phases. And we had. The first match was a real technical match. The second one was the match where Vince decided there was no more blading because he gigged so hard. You go back, he's bleeding everyone. After that, Vince says, no more blading. That was at the time when he was thinking about it done. And then we had, then we're going to pay it off at SummerSlam. And Sean said, it's not good enough because we have this great, great chemistry where the edge and taker and there was Hunter and somebody. We're gonna be third, you know, Sean will be third or fourth on the bill at best.

[Steve Austin]

I'm not gonna waste that. I love his attitude when he.

[Chris Jericho]

Attitude, man. And then he had the idea, well, I don't. Why don't I say I'm gonna retire? Because I'd done something where I dropped Hill holding him into the corner of a desk and he sold that his eye was all messed up. And the thing is, is I really started to go a little bit cross eyed. People think it's because look at you. See, Sean now, he's a little bit of a wonky eye, but people think it's from that angle. It's not. So he had the idea of bringing in his wife, and then he would say, everybody, I'm retiring. But I came down to spoil his retirement ceremony. I go to punch him, he zigs, I zag. I punch his wife in the face. For real, by the way, which was awful. But she was okay. And in hindsight, it made it real. Everybody in the building is like, listen, this wrestling stuff, I don't know, is it showbiz or not? If someone punched my old lady the way I would kill this guy? My aunt, my, my mom, my sister took a different. So anyways, long story short, we finally got to the ladder match for the World championship in the main event. It was never supposed. This feud was never supposed to be for the title. But I got so hot off it, and Sean got so hot off it, it became a world title angle. And that's why I love that ladder match, because A, it was a great match, and B, the story to get there was one of the greatest angles in WWE history.

[Steve Austin]

But how long had you had that title going into that feud? Was that the.

[Chris Jericho]

I won the title. Once again, it all tied in. And this is classic Vince booking. I punched Sean's wife in the face. Then we have to do an unsanctioned match, which means whatever happens, the WWE is not held liable for any of this. And it was basically a street fight. That, that, that table bump. I took an Alpha versus Omega I got from the Sean sanction, where he hits me with a chair, I fall off the corner through the table that set up earlier, and he beat the shit out of me. He killed me. And the finish was he just beat me. He beat me up, he beat me to submission. They rang the bell, he came back, beat me up some more, beat me some more, whipped me with the belt, hit me with this cowboy boot. I was beat up right then. Guess what happens? The last match on the show is a scramble match, a five way match. CM Punk gets beaten up. Who's the fifth guy? Me. I come in, get the kicked out of me by everybody. And it's one of these things where you could win the title, win the title, win the title, and whoever has it at the end, hot potato wins. And Batista is the champion. And he powerbombs Kane. And I roll Batista up. One, two, three, bell hits, zero. I'm the champion. So I walk out of there as a champion. Even though Sean had Beat the shit out of me. So that led us to the ladder match.

[Steve Austin]

See, going into that, and I didn't know the whole buildup, but it was just an awesome match. And the thing I liked about the match was it was so smart because, you see, and first of all, the first ladder match between Razor and Shawna or whoever else had one in a small territory. I don't know. Okay, we're talking about wwf. So we had to raise a shot master. Then the way you guys started this thing out, you started putting the work in, solid work, but it was just laid out in such an intelligent fashion. You were using the ladder as a weapon. You're using it as a means to an end to try to get to the belt. But you didn't do everything from the top of the ladder. And so I like the fact that it was so ground based and using a scissors action, using pivot points. The spot, you know, in the corner coming out of the figure 4, which he reversed on you, and then you kick the ladder into his face. I mean, his cell job on that. Oh, you know that one bump where you're climbing to the top and, you know, you pinned him. You pinned him. You're climbing to the top and Jesus Christ, he's got to watch you ascend to the top of the ladder now and get this damn belt. You become the chair and he's helpless. You take a mega bump. That was a masterful bump. I mean, you do things like that. And there are several other instances as well, great bumps that were done from a high angle and on top of the ladder, which are extremely high risk. And you guys both stayed safe. I don't know how you felt after the match. You can tell me. But I just like the scissor action, using it as a weapon, you know, you need to climb it. But the Hardy Boys, Christian, Edge, Dudleys, you know, all those guys have unbelievable matches. Yeah, this was a match that out of all of. And they've all been, for the most part, they've all been spectacular. This is one of the best ever.

[Chris Jericho]

Well, I appreciate that. And actually, the idea of that was to not. You can't compete with the Hardys and Edge and Christian. Those guys. Let's use the ladder as a weapon. It's something that actually, there's another great ladder match I had against Benoit. Royal Rumble in New Orleans 2, 2001. That's the first time I ever did the Walls of Jericho on the ladder. It's a famous moment. But our idea was, let's just. It's a ladder. Let's use it as a weapon. Let's not even climb this thing took the same concept with Sean. After all we've done, we need to just beat each other up with this ladder. And instead of thinking of ways to take bumps off it, let's look at ways to take bumps using it. And that's why it worked, because you have to think this is a seven month, this is a literal blood feud. Like, even at the unsanctioned match, even though he beat me, Sean was still crying at the end because he still couldn't erase the pain he went through from punching his wife. So you had to make it violent and real. Another thing about this is, dude, it hit me in the. I lost half a tooth. And that's real. I mean, and that horrible thing to lose your teeth in the ring. But once again, I remember when it came on, I looked up and I smiled and I had half a tooth. And I remember I thought to myself, I look like the ghost of Benoit kind of freaked me out. But to see, see that, that made it real. And the next night, I didn't go to the dentist the next day because I wanted to go on Raw the next night and show the world that I had lost half a tooth. I look like Jim Carrey and dumb and dumber. And, you know, I want to show people this is, this is what happened. Yes, I won, but this is the price I paid. For real, this is not a gimmick wrestling thing. I lost half a frickin tooth that I still might lose at some point because they said it might rot and die because the root got messed up too. But that, to me, you have these happy accidents, you know, alpha versus omega. I got my lips split, so I'm spitting blood. It just makes it that much more. It's the classic Austin Brett double turn. If you hadn't got the color on that hold when he had you in the sharpshooter, it wouldn't have been the same. Obviously you did that getting color, but still, it needed it. The half, the tooth, the whole thing. It made it a classic, classic match with all of the elements that happened in spite of the match and because of it.

[Steve Austin]

I didn't know the finish to the match because like I said, I remember watching it. But as we were talking before we hit the sound button, the record button. Dude, I've forgotten so much. She had some believable. Yeah. And that's just life, right? No steel chair. The finish, that match, I'm thinking, God damn, it's where Sean's going to get the belt. And you retained.

[Chris Jericho]

Yeah.

[Steve Austin]

And it was an unbelievable finish. And then preceding that, you know when you're hanging from the. You know when you hooked your leg in the rungs of the ladder and you were hanging upside down, and a couple of times when y' all had taken them, there was just a couple of bumps using that ladder and the times you draped yourself over in the corner. But going to the finish, who came up with that finish? I can't remember, dude, because you started sliding down that thing. Yeah. Gonna let go.

[Chris Jericho]

We were, we were having a tug of war for the, for the, for the title. He had one end of it, I had the other end, and we were both pulling. I almost fall down and then I kind of come up and push it into his face. So he gets hit with the belt, he falls off. See, the thing I loved about this is that Sean and I worked together to come up with that whole angle with Brian Gewirtz, as you would call him as well, and Michael Hayes. And then Vince was involved too. But every week we'd show up. Where are we gonna go with this? There was never a seven month plan. It was a week by week. What can we do this week to make it cool? So Sean and I worked. So it's like Lennon McCartney. I don't know what part of the song Paul wrote, song Lemon wrote. It was just a team effort. So I'm not sure exactly who came up with it, but I do know at that point in time we were both, what about this? How about that? What about this? How about that? So it's probably something that both of us came up with together. I would say that was probably a little bit more Sean, because, as you know, Sean was losing. So Sean was always going to make sure he's coming up with something that's great. He's not just going to fall flat.

[Steve Austin]

Oh, yeah.

[Chris Jericho]

You know, especially at the end.

[Steve Austin]

Because he cares.

[Chris Jericho]

Because he cares. And once again, he's losing this big blood fuel that was involving his family.

[Steve Austin]

Yeah.

[Chris Jericho]

So it was just once again, that's. That's the thing when you do ladder matches now. So much stuff has been done. What can you do that's never been done before? And just the psychology and the drama of that, like, that's what I loved about that. One more little thing is we had a ladder match, money in the bank ladder match last year I think at SummerSlam or something. It was me, Owen, Zayn, Cesaro, Del Rio, Ambrose.

[Steve Austin]

That's a good match.

[Chris Jericho]

It's a good match. But here's what happened. Those guys started getting so obsessed with, like, you got to get powerbombed on the ladder and you got to fall off the top of the Titan Tron because if we don't do something cool, no one's going to buy it. And I just sat there listening and I threw in. And finally at one point, I just went. It's like Tom Hanks, Captain Phillips. Hey, I'm the captain now. Everything now is going to be decided on and approved by me. If anybody here has any problems, go tell Vince you got a problem with because I know who's going to side with you Guys are way off base. This is not what a ladder match is about. A ladder match is about this. Climbing, climbing, reaching, reaching, knock down, climbing, climbing. That's all it is. You want to take bumps in the ladder, go ahead. Not on my watch. Not on my match. And we put it together using the drama of the ladder match, and it turned out to be a hell of a contest. It was a great match. And afterwards, I remember Sami Zayn was like, man, you know, you were right. Of course I'm right. Listen to me.

[Steve Austin]

You know, one of the best feelings I ever had in all my years in the business was passing out in a sharpshooter in Chicago. Double turn. And I laid there in a pool of blood. I didn't have to do anything after that, but stunned the referee while Shamrock and Bret Hart would do a little bit of physicality to further the storyline. And I remember just laying in a pool of blood and I was just like, God damn, we just hit a grand slam. No, man, there was five people on base, not just three. That's kind of. And I was just laying there when you guys both tumble down, you know, and it's over and everything comes across. I mean, I love the match because the calls were protected. The calls that were made are all protected, but there wasn't a whole lot of communication. Everything was tight, everything looked great. Everything came off like it should have or if it didn't, you covered what are you feeling at the end of Alpha Omega, when that's over, what are you feeling? And you drew money. You filled that house up. Your sense of satisfaction from an accomplishment standpoint. Shawn Michaels, ladder match. You're laying there. The match is over. Well, I know what it was for me. What do you feel?

[Chris Jericho]

I mean, I've always been the type of guy where as soon as the bell rings for the finish of the match, I know if it was good or bad. To me. I don't need anyone else to tell me. I don't have to go on social media and look up if it was good or bad. I don't need everyone wants, you know, compliment from even Vince. I don't need it. I know if he says it's great and I didn't believe it, I don't care if he says it sucked and I thought it was great. I can only judge what I feel. But there's those certain nights and it's something that we all tried for in the business. Even with Fozzie. When you have a. When you have. When you do a live show, you hit the jackpot only once in a while. And that's why it's a special night. And both those matches were very special feelings. Now, the Sean one was a little worse because I had half a tooth and I was still spitting out pieces of my tooth. So you don't even think about that out there. You just think like, wow, what a match. What a great contest. Amazing. The Omega one, I think there was just. I played real pitch man in that I wanted to sell tickets. And everything I did leading up to it was selling tickets, selling tickets, selling subscriptions, selling subscriptions. So the match is almost like, okay, I'll worry about the match when I get there. But when the match is coming closer now I get that nervousness because, you know, I'm 47 years old, right? And there's a lot of experts going, well, he's never going to keep up with canny Omega. And they're not going to even do anything. It'll be smoke and mirrors and it'll be fine. But come on. Jericho's 47. I don't think that I'm 47. I never feel that way. I never realized it. I said 47. Who me? Let me check my driver's license.

[Steve Austin]

Wow.

[Chris Jericho]

I'm 47, but I know. I know who I am as a performer. And once again, I came in. We met up a couple days before. I came in with the first finish the match. I came in with the beginning. Kenny had the whole middle. We had a couple little details, switches and stuff. We left a couple days later. Was the show changed a couple things and do we had. I knew it was going to be great because of what was set up. What you don't know is once again the middle things. Grabbing the camera, sticking it up. You know, there's one point where we were gonna do a move. Someone else did it earlier. Let's just think of it out there. Kenny puts the table on me, jumps off the scaffold, gives me a double foot stomp on the table. That was just all improv. That stuff makes you. Like when you improv and it's working, you get off on it. Now it's the Tokyo Dome. So the sound goes up. I don't know, like, people aren't really aren't reacting to it. And as a performer, you know, it's like, man, this is good. But the crowd's not really into it. You watch it back. They're going nuts. But you can't hear it in the ring. It's like a WrestleMania in a stadium. So I knew it was good at the end, but I didn't expect it was gonna get the type of reviews and feedback that it got.

[Steve Austin]

But just on a personal level, like you, like you said before, all that comes in, I mean, you know, you went out there, you gave everything you had, and every. Everything comes out aces. I mean, to me, and the same thing with 17 with rock and at the Astrodome, you know, 25 minutes is a heel turn. Yeah, I beat the. Got him with that chair, you know, and good color and all that stuff. And, you know, I was turning heel. If I go back and do it again, I'd call an audible, say, I've already said that, and you're right. But just. Just walking around even before going into that match, dude, no nerves, no nothing. I knew the mission. I was going to get it done. And do we just. We blew the roof off that place, but that landing, that pool of blood, or just. Dude, in any house show, but on the biggest stage, like the stage that you were just on, to me, dude, the satisfaction level when you've crushed it validates all the. Well, first of all, we love to be on the road, we love to be in the ring, but all the bullshit that you go through. But, man, to be out there, to be able to perform, do something you love, and then to crush it is the best.

[Chris Jericho]

It's the best of which, you know, it's funny. And this is something that Ken and I were laughing about when. When we talked about it the next day was there were some things in the match, I don't even have to tell you, that didn't go the way they were supposed to. And that's what you focus on, because you don't know, like, until you see it back. And it's like it didn't even. It made it even, maybe even better. But at the time, you're like, where the was the referee? What the. Was he Doing so I'm always thinking about that. But then when I came through and actually the first guy I saw was Tiger Hattori, longtime New Japan referee. One of the. One of the office guys there, he came up to me, he was almost crying. Oh, that was so good, man. Thank you, man. Like, really? You thought it was like, oh, best match? Like, really?

[Steve Austin]

Wow.

[Chris Jericho]

And then someone else comes over and someone else. I'm like, these guys think this is like the best. And then Melcher, this is the best match of your career. I'm like, wow. So now I'm feeling even better about it. But when I came out of it, I enjoyed it, but I was too busy thinking about the things that didn't work, not realizing that in retrospect, it made it even better. But I knew what we had and I knew I never touched Kenny. Except for that beat down of Fuko. We never had a match together. I never had a match with Shawn Michaels before WrestleMania 2003, whatever number that was. 18, 19. Sometimes you just get in there with somebody and you got that chemistry and it's just easy, easy, easy. Everything of the match was smooth, it was crisp. Like I said, man, I can't even think now. Anything that I would change. There's one thing that I would change, but that's just being a real super stickler. But other than that, it was. It was a great, great night.

[Steve Austin]

Before we ride off in the sunset, I know you're out here in Los Angeles promoting something, so I want you to talk about what you're out here promoting and then also talk about where people can find your podcast.

[Chris Jericho]

Yeah, it's. So there's a show that I did called But I'm Chris Jericho. And I came up with this idea back in 2005 when I got burned out from wrestling. I left and I came out to LA not to become a movie star, but to study acting. And I would go into these auditions where there'd be like 15 people that look kind of like me. And you'd be doing one line for CSI Sheboygan. Like, these pretzels are making me thirsty. And then they go, okay, thanks. And I'd be like, that's it. Like, I'm Chris Jericho. Like, I have a fan base, I have a name. They didn't give a shit. You know, they didn't care. And I was like, what would happen if I got blackballed out of wrestling? And I had to get into acting and I had no steam and I had to start from the bottom. So I came up with this Idea. But I'm Chris Jericho and kind of a Curb youb Enthusiasm style Seinfeldian type thing where I'm playing myself an exaggerated version. But what would happen if, you know, if I got, like I said. So it took me eight years to sell it and I sold it back in 2013 to Canadian company and it did really good. Won a bunch of film festivals, one LA film festival, one one in France. And like we had a bunch of momentum and then that's it. It's done. About a year ago, cbc, who's the biggest network in Canada, called me, wanted to do season two. So in season two, Chris now is the fourth lead on Star Crusaders, a really kind of shitty sci fi show. But he's still pissed off. I over exaggerated prima donna version of myself. And it was so much fun to play because I can play a real dick who. It's like Archie Bunker. I always get screwed in the end. And I mean, we had Kevin McDonald and Scott Thompson from the Kids in the hall. We had Andy Kindler from Bob's Burgers is in it and like all these great performers and it's really, really funny and I had a really good time doing it. And because it's fun to play a version of yourself that you don't usually get to do, you know, people think, oh, Chris Jericho's gonna be the hero and he's got to be. No, this is the opposite. He's just a prima donna, always kind of angry. And it's just a really fun show that gave me a chance to, as you know, we love comedy. Give me a chance to show this comedic skills that I've learned over the years on kind of the big screen.

[Steve Austin]

So when's that gonna be on?

[Chris Jericho]

It's on right now. It's. But I'm ChrisJericho.com season two and you can, if you go there, you see season one, season two and season one is like 10 bite size, you know, episodes. But season two is a story arc. You start at the beginning, go all the way through to the end. So it's been a big hit, man. Like I said, it's a good way to kind of do something else other than just always resting in.

[Steve Austin]

Rock and roll, dude. What's that? What happened to there's nothing happening here? What, what. What's it called?

[Chris Jericho]

Nothing to report.

[Steve Austin]

Nothing to.

[Chris Jericho]

Yeah.

[Steve Austin]

Jesus Christ. That I called you. That's so. It was so. I loved it. It was so hokey. It was wonderful.

[Chris Jericho]

Same idea. There was nothing going on in the same vein. That was two Guys, two cops on a stakeout where nothing ever happened, just kind of talking about their own personal problems.

[Steve Austin]

That should have went somewhere.

[Chris Jericho]

Dude, it was. It was for comedy. It was right when their whole infrastructure kind of went to shit. We got caught kind of like, you know, they switched bookers right in the middle of it.

[Steve Austin]

Hey, buddy, Kelly's making a.

[Chris Jericho]

Your black Lab. Maybe smells my black Lab. But yeah, we wanted to do something with it. It did so good. And Comedy Central just kind of dropped the ball on it. But it's fun to do those things. And the thing is, nowadays with, with, you know, digital, it's on demand. People like, it's like, is it on tv? It doesn't have to be.

[Steve Austin]

Right?

[Chris Jericho]

You watch it whenever you want, you know, so. Yeah, but I'm ChrisJericho.com check it out and you'll have a couple laughs and it's a lot of fun.

[Steve Austin]

I. Man, you got your podcast. You're doing two a week now.

[Chris Jericho]

Yeah, two week talk is Jericho on the Westwood One radio network, which is really cool. Just made a move over there and, you know, still doing the same thing I do. Keep it diverse. Something that you said when we first started doing this, like, it's not my competition and what I want to be is Corolla and Joe Rogan and Hardwick and those guys. And that's kind of the shows that I do. Some weeks it's wrestling. Some weeks, rock and roll. Some weeks it's comedy, some weeks it's paranormal. Whatever I find interesting. So it's been going really good, man.

[Steve Austin]

And last question, what's up with Ozzy? Are you on the road making music right now?

[Chris Jericho]

Well, Judas went top five for 10 weeks. Biggest hit of our career. We sold. I just found we sold like over a hundred thousand singles, which is this day and age. Might as well be like a million. Second single is Painless that comes out this week. It's already gone top 40. I'm hoping that goes top 10, maybe even top five again, number one. We go out with Steel Panther in Europe January 28th, and then we play here in the States February 20th. We start. We're doing the whiskey here on March 10th.

[Steve Austin]

Dude, give me a yell before you come into town. I'll come check you out.

[Chris Jericho]

Join it.

[Steve Austin]

We'll do a podcast. Yeah, sorry, there's got to be a deal. It's like Bailey said, let's do a deal where we just hang out and shoot the.

[Chris Jericho]

We've done the podcast, now you're going to do mine after. And so now we got the podcast out of the way, we can just hang out.

[Steve Austin]

We've got the podcast out of the way. Cali's ruthless. We're gonna try to keep her silent on yours because you actually are professional. I don't really give a. It's all for free. Chris Jericho, awesome guy. We're out. All right, everybody, give me the go home Cuesta, wrap up his podcast and ride off in the sunset. But before I do that, I want to thank my guest, Chris Jericho, for coming by the house at 317 Gimmick street and shooting a breeze with me live and in living color, face to face, man to man, eye to eye. It's always good talking to Chris as a guy. I tell you what, with everything that he's doing, it's hard to outwork Chris. You better get your ass up early in the morning if you want to outwork Chris. One of the hardest working guys I know just had a badass match with Kenny Omega over there in Japan for New Japan Pro Wrestling. Everybody's still talking about that. You ought to check that match out if you hadn't seen it. And also, man, that match with Shawn Michaels, that ladder match was such a smart match. So intelligently laid out. The execution, the finish, the whole nine yards. I love that match. Those are two Chris Jarrett Co classics that you can find real easy, and they're badass and essential watching. Hey, man, if you're trying to learn about the business, if you're in the business, even if you're at a high level in the business, you can learn something from watching both of these matches. And if you're just a wrestling fan, these are two awesome matches that you can really sink your teeth in as they get a lot of time to tell their stories, tell them in a great, outstanding building fashion, and deliver on the finish and all of the execution. So I enjoyed both those matches, y'. All. Go check. Check them out. Hey, I want to say thank you one more time to all the fine sponsors of the Steve Austin Show. That's how I'm able to do this podcast for you twice a week for free. And you can find all my [e-mail] just click on the Killer Deals button at the top of the page and then click on the Steve Austin show banner. And speaking of Podcast 1, the new Podcast 1 app is now available for download at the App Store or Google Play. And there ain't another podcast app like this one anywhere. And that's because the new Podcast one app is loaded with some cool ads, features that let you do a lot more than just listen to your favorite shows. You can access behind the scenes photos articles and connect with other fans of the shows you like. Watch over a thousand 360 virtual reality videos. You can actually watch some of your favorite shows in virtual reality. It's like you're sitting right in a damn room with them. So get to the app Store, Google Play and download the new Podcast one app. Now folks, if you want to follow me on social media, I'm on Twitter and Instagram teveaustin bsr. Folks, until next time, my name is Steve Austin and I will keep catch your ass down the road.

[Chris Jericho]

This has been a Podcast one production. Download new episodes of the Steve Austin show every [e-mail] that's podcast.com.

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[Steve Austin]

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[Chris Jericho]

Huzzah.

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