The Stadium Stampede battle between The Elite and The Inner Circle wound up being the undisputed highlight of AEW’s Double or Nothing pay-per-view on Saturday, and arguably the greatest cinematic match to date in the wrestling industry. Small bites of information about the match from the Jacksonville Jaguars’ TIAA Bank Field have slowly started to make thier way online, and on Tuesday “Le Champion” Chris Jericho sat down with ComicBook to break down the finer points of the match. Jericho said the filming took nearly 12 hours to complete, and compared it to filming a movie.
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“We came up with the concept of that match because of the pandemic, not in spite of it,” Jericho said. “You know, we’re working with what we have. Let’s try and get out of this same arena with no people like you said, or minimal. And let’s go into this giant football stadium that we have access to and see what we can create. And you know, we filmed it overnight, took about 12 hours to film, and spent the next morning basically editing it all together. But when it was done, it was one of the best things I’ve ever been involved with in 30 years. It was a combination of everything that I love about wrestling, and I think it will far and beyond be remembered as the highlight of the COVID era of wrestling. And a highlight of anything in wrestling. One of the greatest spectacles in wresting history I think.”
Jericho also revealed that while his challenge flag spot wasn’t his idea (it was Tony Khan’s), he came up with the idea to have Hangman Page drive over him with a field striper
“The challenge flag was Tony Khan’s idea. And I don’t know a lot about football so I had to actually Google it. I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about,” Jericho said. “But everyone put in their ideas. That was the real brilliance of it. You had this magical night with 10 very creative people with the same mindset of what wrestling in 2020 is. Which is a combination of all styles of wrestling. And everyone was coming up with ideas for themselves and coming up for ideas for each other. And that’s the true magic of wrestling. Being as creative as you can with thinking of the other guy in mind. Like the spraying the line paint on me, that was my idea for Hangman, you know, you’ve gotta walk down with this lawnmower thing and it sprays the lines on the field, but I was the field. So I mean stuff like that, do you think I wanted to have him you spray paint onto my face?
“But the best part was I came back to the hotel at 6 in the morning. I got a football uniform with a big white line down my face,” he added. “And down all the way to my crotch. I got a dented up baseball bat. My hair’s crazy, my eyes are red. And I walked right into a gaggle of pilots and stewardesses getting ready to go to the airport and I just walked by. I was like ‘It’s been a rough night, guys.’”
This week’s AEW Dynamite will feature Jericho and the rest of The Inner Circle hosting a pep rally to bounce back from losing Saturday night’s match
