Chris Jericho has had many versions of himself throughout his thirty-year career.
From the Lionheart, to The PainMaker, to Y2J, Chris Jericho has earned many nicknames in the world of professional wrestling. Accordingly, he’s also reinvented his character on multiple occasions. In speaking at the AEW Double Or Nothing post-show media scrum, Chris Jericho spoke about who could possibly reinvent themselves like he did.
“I think Bryan Danielson is doing a pretty good job. I think Moxley, if you look at Moxley now compared to three years ago, maybe not like a different gimmick or something, but he’s a completely performer than he was then. A lot of our roster is very young. So, they haven’t had to reinvent yet. You know when it’s time to reinvent when you start getting stale. But unless you have the experience, it’s to know that you’re getting stale. That’s what’s the in, you gotta listen to what the crowd is doing,” Jericho explained.
“Matt Hardy has reinvented himself really well over the years, but he’s also got years and years of experience,” he continued. “Swerve Strickland is very creative and I had him on Talk Is Jericho, and just listening to how he thinks about wrestling was very interesting. Malakai, a perfect example. [He’s] done it completely different of what he was in WWE, with still a kernel of the same thing. He’s created this whole new faction and vibe for himself. So those type of guys have a real proclivity to change. Reinventing is not just doing great promos and doing new angles, it’s a complete gimmick change.”
Chris Jericho then used KISS taking off their makeup in the 1980s to highlight how change could be so influential.
“I always go back to when KISS took their makeup off,” Jericho referenced. “You know what I mean? You knew that this was a new KISS because there’s no makeup. ‘That’s insane, why would they do this’. Because it’s different now, and for me, every time I change, there’s always different clothes, a different look, different catchphrase, different entrance. I remember when I walked out in trunks in 2008 in WWE, and I’d worn nothing but long tights for 20 years. I was like ‘Okay, I’m turning heel, and I want to get rid of Y2J, get rid of the countdown, and switch from long tights to trunks. I walked out, and the first guy I saw was Bruce Prichard. He said ‘you’ve got great legs. Why have you been hiding them?’ And I was like ‘oh great’. I walked three feet down the hall, I see Dean Malenko, he says ‘you look ridiculous. Why would you wear those?'”
“If I had seen Dean first, I would have went back into the locker room and would have put my long pants back on. But because I saw Bruce, I was like ‘okay, this works’. Same with PainMaker, the first time he wore that makeup, the only place you could walk into a dressing room and no one would bat an eye is in Japan, because they love weird shit there. I remember walking out and no one even said a word. I went to talk to Naito, and he didn’t even look. No one’s even commenting on this [look]. ‘This is great. I’m gonna do this and continue on as The PainMaker in New Japan.”
Jericho then reiterated the importance of staying confident in the process of reinventing. “Like I said, you just have to know and have instinct and be completely confident and not be afraid of what anybody says, as long as you see Bruce first and Dean second.”
Chris Jericho used KISS for inspiration himself, as he started a cover band called Kuarantine that performed songs from the band’s ’80s catalog. Kuarantine just released its fourth single; read more about the project at this link.
Jericho also spoke about his recent physical transformation and how it added to his AEW storylines; read more about what motivated him to get in better shape at this link.
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