Chris Jericho On Criticism Of ‘Crash Pad’ Finish To AEW Blood and Guts Match, How AEW Gimmicked Stage

In a recent interview on Talk Is Jericho, Chris Jericho discussed criticism of the finish to the AEW Blood and Guts Match, taking the bump off the top of the cage, and much more. You can read his comments below.

Chris Jericho on the surrender finish to the Blood and Guts Match on AEW Dynamite: “We thought, ‘How much of a piece of shit move would it be if the guys do surrender and you throw me off anyways,’ and that’s kind of where it all came from, which was a combination of a Tony Khan idea, an MJF and a Jericho idea. And listen, I don’t pretend that I want to take crazy stunts bumps. I didn’t want to take a bump into the thumbtacks in the Ambrose Asylum match, and I didn’t really want to take the bump from the top of the cage to the floor, but it was best for the story. What’s best for the story? What was best for our angle and our story considering that we started with Blood and Guts and didn’t finish with it. The Inner Circle was up. They were winning. Everything was great, until MJF cheated, and then all he had left was threatening to kill me because we said, ‘You’re going to have to kill us to make us surrender.’ And when he threatened that, Sammy surrendered. The original plan was for Santana and Ortiz to do that, and then Santana had the idea for Sammy to do it, which is much more of a babyface thing for Sammy. Once again, we’re always working together with each other to try and think of the best moments and the best ideas for what’s going on with the story and the characters, and that was it.”

On taking the bump off the top of the cage: “I’ll be honest with you, I was really, really nervous about this all day long. We thought it was the best way to go for the finish, and I’m not about taking crazy bumps like that, but it was the perfect way to continue the story. So, a few weeks prior, a month prior, six weeks prior, kind of came up with the idea along with Tony and MJF and said, ‘Well, what do we have to do to make this happen?’ Now obviously, here’s the thing, when you’re doing kind of a live stunt show, which is what wrestling is. People use the word ‘fake.’ That’s a word that’s very, very unacceptable because that’s not something that’s ever the case. Obviously, we’re telling a story, and we know what’s going to happen to a certain extent, but it is also a live show with a live element to it. We’ve seen instances where stunts do go wrong, where they go very wrong. I mean, all you have to do is just think about Owen Hart to think about a stunt that went wrong live. There is no second take. There is no camera angle take. It’s live, and I think that’s something that’s very unique about pro wrestling.”

On how AEW gimmicked the stage for the fall: “So, earlier in the day, when they were kind of building everything – actually, the day before – they had a big giant air mattress that was probably a big yellow mattress that was about 10 feet high let’s say. And I was thinking, ‘Wow, that looks like a pretty easy thing to fall on. Maybe they’re just going to put a sheet over it or whatever the hell they’re going to do.’ So, Sammy Guevara was falling into it from the cage, and they’re like, ‘Do you want to try it?’ I’m like, ‘No, I don’t want to try it. I’ll just save it for later.’ It turns out that it was one of those things where you’re not going to be falling into that, we’re just testing that for the trajectory of how the body’s going to fall and try and figure out where we want to put the actual apparatus that you’re going to fall onto. And I’ll expose it. It was a black gym mat that was about six foot high that was at the bottom, then there was a bunch of cardboard boxes. Empty cardboard boxes. That’s what professional stuntmen fall on.”

On the criticism of him falling onto a crash pad for AEW Blood and Guts: “I don’t give a shit if it was a crash pad. It’s one of those things where doing that, I mean, are we qualified to be stuntmen? I never went to stuntman school but just 30 years of being in the business and you just go for it. You just absolutely put your caution to the wind and go for it, and it felt great. Obviously, it hurts. You’re paying the price, but I could move my arms and legs, and I wasn’t dead or knocked out….I watched it back. I thought it looked amazing, and the thing that was really scary is that if you watch it back, I barely missed hitting my head on the lights at the back of the stage. I went so far back that I almost overshot everything. So once again, everybody in the business knows how dangerous this can be, how terrifying it is and just the margin for error is so slim. There are some hardcore wrestling fans that were bagging on it. That’s fine. I mean, you have the right to bag on it and out of the 1.3 million people that watched it, if 3,000 people didn’t like it, that’s a very small percentage. Most people just thought it was crazy, as did I.”

If using any of the above quotes, please credit Talk Is Jericho with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.