Chris Jericho Discusses The Similarities Between His Wrestling And Musical Performances
Y2J speaks.
The 28-year veteran of the wrestling game Chris Jericho is the current holder of the IWGP Intercontinental Championship. While New Japan Pro Wrestling is busy wrapping up the G1 Climax 28 tournament, Chris Jericho is on tour with his band FOZZY as they have been touring the world performing hits from their latest album. While on tour Y2J spoke with ‘Hysteria Magazine’ and during the interview Jericho was asked about the differences between his performances in wrestling and his performances in music. Jericho shared that there are no differences between the two and that they go hand-in-glove with one another in terms of how he will perform.
“Absolutely not. They both face the same form, it’s connecting with an audience. They’re both really high in energy, aggressive forms of entertainment that are very much based on having that reaction from the crowd, and the energy that you have from the crowd. So, it’s exciting and like I said, I think when I first started wrestling, I took a lot of tricks from the great front man of rock and roll, and used those in wrestling, and then when I got into FOZZY, I took some more tricks that I learned from the great wrestling characters, and you put them all together and it’s all about entertaining a crowd, and I think that’s one of the reasons why I have a reputation of being a great rock and roll front man.” Jericho explained. “It’s all about connecting, being the party host and making sure that people have a great time. It’s hard to do properly but if you can do it, in any form of live entertainment, the show, you can get the people into it and make sure they have a great time, and that’s what it’s all about.”
Jericho briefly discussed his current standing as a professional wrestler as he is not contracted to WWE and is holding one of the more prestigious championships in NJPW. Jericho stated that as of right now all of his focus is on FOZZY but he will be competing for NJPW in the coming months.
“Well, I’m not working for WWE now. I’m doing some stuff in Japan, and I’ll probably do some more there over the next few months but for right now it’s all FOZZY.” He said. “I mean, you know, we finish up this short little run, then we go to Europe for three weeks, then we do the states for five weeks, then we got the Jericho Cruise, then we go over to Australia, so there’s a lot of stuff going on with FOZZY right now. I’m excited about all of the aspects of what’s going on, all the places that we’re going around the world and most importantly, returning to Australia. It’s been a long time coming, like I said, we’re very, very excited about it and I’m really looking forward to returning, and like I said, we’ve got a great relationship with the Australian FOZZY fans and I expect these to be the biggest shows that we’ve ever done there as a headliner.”
As mentioned, NJPW is currently in the midst of wrapping up the G1 Climax 28 tourney. To take a look at the updated standings for the tournament, click here.
