Chris Jericho Pitched Massive Match With Seth Rollins for SummerSlam 2018

Chris Jericho went into full detail regarding his recent decision to join All Elite Wrestling on the latest episode of the Talk is Jericho podcast this week.

A good chunk of the podcast had Jericho going through his relationship with the WWE during his time spent in New Japan. As he’s previously revealed, Vince McMahon was actually supportive of Jericho’s original appearance in New Japan and his match with Kenny Omega at Wrestle Kingdom 12. And even as he continued to work with the Japanese promotion while feuding with Tetsuya Naito, he was still involved in the WWE in 2018 by appearing at the RAW 25 special and as a participant in The Greatest Royal Rumble.

Jericho defeated Naito to win the IWGP Intercontinental Championship at the Dominion event in June, and pitched a big match to McMahon shortly thereafter. According to Jericho, the plan was to have him take on Seth Rollins in a match between two Intercontinental Champions at SummerSlam.

“June, I go and win the Intercontinental Championship from Naito — had a great match with him and won the title,” Jericho said. “And about three or four weeks later, I pitched the idea to Vince, called him, ‘I’d love to do an Intercontinental Champion vs. Champion match at SummerSlam, Jericho vs. Seth Rollins.’ And Vince once again was, ‘Well I don’t know how that would work. Can we do it?’ And I was like, ‘Harold Meij, the new President of NJPW, he wants to expand and I bet we can figure it out.’ And this is something that happened all the time in the 70’s and the 80s in WWE…Never heard back. Made the call, pitched the idea, never heard back.”

That was just one of a handful of planned 2018 matches that fell through between Jericho and WWE. He was originally supposed to face Undertaker at Greatest Royal Rumble, but speculated that he was swapped out with Rusev because of his continued involvement in New Japan. McMahon also reached out to him about making another appearance in Saudi Arabia at the Crown Jewel event, but never got back to him regarding payment.

“There’s another example of Vince calling me and asking me to go to Saudi Arabia again,” Jericho said. “And I’m like, ‘Well, I’ve got a show, I might be able to make it, but I don’t know if I can make it. And him saying like, ‘Well, I really need you.’ ‘Well I have a show in Osaka, so I can technically do the show, but I would need to take a private jet to Osaka. I could do the show in, I believe it was Riyadh or whatever it was, and then fly straight to Osaka. How much am I getting paid?’ [Vince] said, ‘I’ll get back to you.’ He didn’t!”

Jericho said he was still negotiating with WWE up until days before signing with AEW, saying he was still on good terms with McMahon and the company.

“Once again, I still kinda gave WWE the benefit of, ‘Hey, listen guys, the train is leaving the station. Are we gonna work together or not?,’” Jericho said. “And to their credit, we talked, and all the way up to a few days before the rally. But there was never really an offer given. And I understand the reasons why and I’m not going to get in to those. I understand Vince’s mindset just as he understand mine, but we did leave on amicable terms.