Chris Jericho Says Vince McMahon Thought His Match With Kevin Owens Was One Of The Worst In Wrestlemania History

In an interview with Inside the Ropes (via Wrestling Inc), Chris Jericho revealed that Vince McMahon thinks that his match with Kevin Owens at Wrestlemania 33 was one of the worst matches in Wrestlemania history. Here are highlights:

On the build to the match with Owens: “I think the buildup for the Owens match, I mean, that’s one of the best years of my career. That whole 2016, the buildup, the whole “Festival of Friendship was amazing. Everyone goes, ‘Oh, we knew he was going to turn on you.’ You didn’t fu–ing know. Nobody knew because we had teased [the breakup] so many times. The “Festival of Friendship”, I wanted it to go from a 1980’s David Lee Roth video to “Game of Thrones” Red Wedding episode… One of the best segments in RAW history, people say.”

On the Festival of Friendship: “I had to fight for that. Vince was not there that week and all the stuff we agreed on was changed, and I had to fight back. Me and Triple H were not in a good agreement. I was like, ‘You’re wrong’, he’s like, ‘You’re wrong.’ I say, ‘It’s my segment. ‘It’s my show.’ ‘It’s not your show, it’s Vince’s show.’ Blah, blah, blah. Finally, we it went the way that we did it, and the way that I had envisioned it, he texted me later and said that it was amazing, that was really great.”

On Vince’s reaction to the match: “I thought [the match with Owens] was good but it seemed a little bit missing. The problem with us is we were on after Shane and AJ, which is funny because the year before was me and AJ and we were on after the ladder match. We were second both years and I’m like, ‘Fu–, I wish I was first.’ Because the AJ match was good, but once again, the people are so in to it at first and the second one is hard no matter who you are. So I thought the match was good. I was very surprised when I saw KO after and he’s like, ‘Vince said it was one of the worst matches in WrestleMania history. He wanted Kevin to be this type of heel and Kevin was doing a lot of stuff off the top rope and flashy moves, and Vince did not want that. I think Vince had a hard on for him at the time and it would have been very hard – see, Vince never said anything to me about the match, ever. Not once, never said anything like that, never said it was the worst match in WrestleMania history, never said a word about it. We talked about it the next night and didn’t go in to detail, but he just went, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ Vince told [Kevin] to lose weight and this is terrible, and you don’t know anything,” Jericho continued. “I’ve been through it. Vince told me you’re green as grass, you’re not worth the paper that your contract is printed on back in 1999.So I told him, you are now going through the Vince bootcamp and stick with it because you’ll be okay. Do I think it was a great match? No. Do I think it was one of the worst matches in WrestleMania history? Absolutely not.”