Chris Jericho Says He Lobbied For His WrestleMania 18 Match With Triple H To Not Close The Show

Chris Jericho understood that The Rock versus Hulk Hogan was the main event of that show.

It was 17-years ago today that WWE presented the 18th edition of WrestleMania from the SkyDome in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. There were twelve matches on the card with the closing bout featuring Triple H defeating Chris Jericho to capture the WWF Undisputed Championship. Although Triple H and Jericho headlined the event, the match that is regularly associated with WrestleMania 18 is The Rock and Hulk Hogan‘s show-down which had the crowd buzzing for the entire 16 minutes that the match went on.

Chris Jericho himself, stated that he looks back at his WrestleMania 18 match with a bit of disappointment because he felt it was difficult to follow The Rock and Hogan’s match. Inside The Ropes released another portion of their interview with Y2J and in this particular video, Jericho shared that he lobbied not be the main event of WrestleMania 18 and recalled a conversation he had with CM Punk shortly before Punk departed from WWE that had to do with the former WWE Champion being frustrated about not headlining a WrestleMania.

“Yeah, let’s be honest, main event and the fact it was on last, but the main event of the show was Hogan and Rock, and I knew it, and I was actually — most people would be pitching to have their match on last. I was pitching for it not to go on last, because I said, ‘How do you follow Hogan and Rock?’ And Triple H, and you know, rightfully so was fighting for the title match to be last but we couldn’t follow it. We just couldn’t and you could see the air go out of the room. That’s a match, I’ve never watched it back, because I remember being kind of disappointed in it.” Jericho said. “Main event of WrestleMania. I remember talking with CM Punk years later and one of his big reasons why he left wrestling was because he was really mad that he wasn’t the main event of WrestleMania — he wasn’t on last. I said, ‘Dude, you worked with The Undertaker at WrestleMania. That’s the main event.’ He goes, ‘You can’t say that because you were on last’ and I’m like, ‘Okay, I was on last but I wasn’t the main event.’”

Jericho performed in front of 68,000 people at WrestleMania 18 and he’ll be performing in front of a sold out MGM Grand Garden Arena at All Elite Wrestling’s ‘Double Or Nothing’ show on May 25th where he’ll take on Kenny Omega.

If the quote in this article is used, please credit Inside The Ropes with an H/T to Fightful for the transcription.