Chris Jericho is now a tenured veteran working in All Elite Wrestling, but back in 2002, Hulk Hogan resurfaced in WWE as a veteran and worked many matches with him. Speaking on his most recent Saturday Night Special Q&A session, Chris Jericho discussed what Hogan was like to work with back then and how it took Hogan some time before opening up and trusting the younger talent.
“I love wrestling with Hulk. It was great, too, because when I first started wrestling him, obviously you have this intimidation factor because he’s Hulk Hogan, I was a huge fan of his,” Jericho began. “And then we worked a few times, I think that actually the last great match Hogan ever had was against me on SmackDown in Pittsburgh and he really trusted me. We worked a bunch of shows together and he would always show up and always had some beer with him. ‘Hey, Brother, what are you doing? you got me tonight, you going to take care of me?’ And he would let me put together the whole match. And then I had him taking the Lionsault and hit the ropes for the leg drop and sweeping his leg and putting him into [The Walls of Jericho] instead.”
He continued, “he would even give me a second rope superplex, not from the top rope but from the second rope. He was working hard and too, he was really excited to work with me because he was thinking that back in the day and people would try and double-cross him and swerve him from behind, you know, but I think I think he enjoyed working with me and obviously our whole generation of guys.”
Chris Jericho is celebrating 30 years in the wrestling industry this month which will coincide with a new book release which will be an entire volume of all of his matches documented by Jericho himself throughout his 30-year career.
Should you use any portion of the quotes above, transcription credit should go to Robert DeFelice for WrestleZone.
