In an interview with GamesHub, pro wrestling legend Chris Jericho talked about various topics, including the moment he sang his popular song “Judas” acapella during his 2021 feud with AEW World Champion MJF.
This is what Chris Jericho said, “It was a great moment. We were doing the storyline with MJF, and he had all these stipulations — one of them was banning Judas from being played. The idea came up — I think it was collaborative, the whole storyline lasted exactly 366 days, a year and a day — that we should ban the song and see what the crowd does. There were a lot of theories in the production meeting about how to make it work. One producer was adamant we needed to put the lyrics on the screen with a bouncing ball. Someone else wanted to put lyrics under the chairs. Everyone had ideas. But Tony Khan and I talked about it, and he said, ‘When you go to a concert, people know the words or they don’t.’ That’s the organic nature of it. If you force it, it’s not going to be as cool. I thought, okay, if it doesn’t work, that’s fine — it makes the heel’s plan seem more effective. And if it does work, it’s something special. The first ten seconds were a little rough, but by the third line of the song everyone clicked and got on the same page. Some people had the lyrics on their phones — that’s fine. But that was one of the coolest moments I’ve ever been part of, and I think it’s actually a fairly underrated moment in AEW history and in wrestling history. That’s the only time I can ever remember that happening that way. It was the one time where Fozzy and wrestling collided perfectly.”
On which of his characters he finds most creatively unique:
“It’s hard to single one out because there have been so many reinventions over so many years. That idea comes directly from David Bowie, honestly. I’m a huge Bowie fan, and he was never the same guy twice. Every record was different in imagery and sound. At the core it was still Bowie, but you could go to a Halloween party and see ten people dressed as Bowie from different eras and recognize every single one of them. I think you could do the same with Chris Jericho. The ones people still talk about most are Y2J, obviously. Then things like ‘Never, Ever Again’ from WCW. ‘You just made the list’ was only around for maybe six or eight months, but it still resonates — I now do it on Cameo and people are constantly asking me to put them on it. The main thing for me is I never want to be a nostalgia act. I want to keep changing, keep doing things that make people angry at first. When I stopped using the countdown, cut my hair, changed from long tights to short tights — it was like KISS taking off the makeup. People want the makeup. But if you leave the makeup on forever, you die. You have to try something new, commit to it, and most of the time it works.”
