Chris Jericho On Why Vince McMahon Didn’t Want To Him To Change His Entrance Music In WWE, Idea Behind Using “Judas” In NJPW & AEW

In a recent interview on The Chris Van Vliet Show, Chris Jericho discussed why Vince McMahon didn’t want him to change his entrance music in WWE, the idea behind using “Judas” in NJPW and AEW, and much more. You can read her comments below.

Chris Jericho on Vince McMahon not wanting him to change his entrance music in WWE: “I dabbled with changing my music a few times, and Vince was always very against it. I even had – when I came back in 2010 maybe where it was kind of the end of the world as you know it Jericho…I wanted to use Avenged Sevenfold’s “Nightmare”, but Vince didn’t want that. Then I tried to get Zach Wylde from Black Label Society to do a version and Vince didn’t like that. He said “Your music is evergreen” and he’s right. If I’m in WWE, that’s my music. But the moment I left WWE, it’s like I don’t want to have to deal with getting the rights to “Break the Walls Down”, nor do I want to even use it.”

On wanting to change his character and using Judas for the first time in Japan: “If you look at the first time I used “Judas” in the Tokyo Dome in 2018, I wanted something different and I wanted something – we were trying to go to Japan with Fozzy. I thought if I can play fucking “Judas” in front of the Tokyo Dome in front of 50,000 people, at least they’ll start listening to this music and maybe somebody will bring us over here. When I heard that music, I was like this is perfect, it has the same kind of “Break the Walls Down”…..and it’s mine. So I thought that was a cool representation of something new – a new Jericho. Even in that first match with Kenny [Omega], there was still a scarf, light-up jacket, and tights. It didn’t feel right to me, and that’s why I continued on to work with Naito, I thought ‘I need to change this a bit.’ That’s kind of where the Painmaker idea came – what would a serial killer be if he was a wrestler? Some kind of a horror movie villain like Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers or what would that be? Somebody had sent a picture of me as The Joker, and I just liked the idea of the makeup and he was wearing a fedora type of thing, and it just morphed from that. So, all of these changes come from eternally thinking, something’s gotta be different here. I don’t know exactly what it is, but it needs to change and it needs to change right fucking now – not next week, not two weeks from now, we need to do it now.”

On crowd singing along to “Judas” in AEW: “They were kind of singing and you didn’t really notice, but it really came to fruition on the second cruise. One of the coolest things ever. Here I am on my cruise coming to the ring with the wrestler that I helped get on the map with my song that everybody is singing. That’s where it started. Unfortunately, six weeks later we had no more crowds in the arenas, so it kind of got taken away. But I tell you what, the first week we had those 500 people in Daily’s Place and they remembered and continued to sing it, it was like ‘Thank God, this is great that they remembered.’ Another thing is, they used to sing the chorus twice, now they only sing it once. So, on the taped shows, we always add the chorus – we double it to try it get people to remember you’re supposed to sing it twice……and once again, people would say as a heel, how can you allow that to happen? It’s organic. And that’s what we try so hard in wrestling is to get an organic reaction. When people were signing Judas by their own choice by no prodding from us, it was like you’ve gotta let them do it – heel, babyface, whatever it is, this goes beyond what side to he coin you’re on. It’s what everybody tries to get – an organic reaction and we got that with the Judas sing-a-long, and thankfully we have that again with crowds back in Jacksonville.”

If using any of the above quotes, please credit The Chris Van Vliet Show with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.