Chris Jericho On Needing To Beat Adam Page, Making Him A Star And The Excitement Around His Upcoming Championship Match

After AEW Fight For The Fallen, Chris Jericho spoke to the media. He talked about Adam Page, the man he attacked at the event and the man he’ll face for the AEW Championship at All Out. Transcription credit to Bill Pritchard for Wrestlezone.com.

Jericho talked about a lesson he learned years ago, when he faced an older opponent. “You always should do that,” said Jericho. “It’s something I learned back in 1991 when I was doing a program with a guy called ‘Bulldog’ Bob Brown. He was probably 50 at the time, I was around 19-20, and he seemed like he was 100. Miserable prick, not a good guy and not a particularly great worker, but he was the boss. I did some kind of promo like ‘hey old man, I’m going to beat you up…’ and he said ‘come here and let me tell you something; if you call me an old man and I beat you—and I’m going to beat you—you got beaten by an old man. You’ve got to go out there and let this person know that this person is a tremendous performer.’ Which Hangman is.”

Jericho also questioned how the match against Page will impact his career. “If I go out there and beat the ‘old man’, who am I?,” said Jericho. “If I go out there and beat Hangman Page who I’ve described as one of the best up and coming talents that I’ve seen in years, which I really feel that, then it’s good for him and it’s good for me. ”

Additionally, Jericho discussed the excitement surrounding the match. “That’s how you build a match, said Jericho. “That’s how you get people intrigued in a match. We don’t know who’s going to win that match. I don’t know, and I think that’s one of the reasons that you go see Floyd Mayweather versus Conor McGregor. Who is going to win? We don’t know what to expect. “When you have that really coveted match-up for a title, the World title, it’s all there. It’s very easy, it’s not rocket science—championship match for the first-ever AEW Champion with the guy that’s one of the hottest in the business, we all know he’s been deemed the ‘chosen one’ indirectly because you’re talking about Kenny and you’re talking about Cody and the Bucks and Jericho, and Hangman’s kind of the ‘other one.’”

Jericho said he has to win the match but, in doing so, he’ll boost Page’s profile. “So we have a job to do at All Out to put on a great match, which we will, and to make Hangman into a bigger star and to make me the first AEW Champion, which is the only way it’s going to go,” said Jericho. “If it doesn’t, where do I go from here? If Hangman Page beats me, what do I do? You get one chance to make your way up the ladder and you lose, you don’t get another chance, you go back to the bottom. Helter skelter, you go back to the top of the slide, so I have to win. The problem is, and like I said—no disrespect—but I kind of wish it was the kid with no legs [Dustin Thomas] that won the battle royal in some kind of fluke. It’d be a lot easier.”

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