Chris Jericho And Kenny Omega On How They Used Social Media To Start Their Feud

The wrestling world is still buzzing about Chris Jericho and Kenny Omega's match at Wrestle Kingdom 12 earlier this month. On a recent episode of the Talk Is Jericho podcast, they discussed the buildup to their match. Jericho said he initially didn't know how to tell the WWE he would be working with another company because he didn't know if they would be open to the idea.

"I didn't even know the reaction of the WWE because I had to tell them," Jericho said. "I didn't know if they were going to tell me to go f**k myself or what I would do in that situation, but once we went to get it hammered out I had an idea in mind [of how to approach them regarding the match]."

Once he passed that hurdle, Jericho focused on how to approach the buildup to the match. Together with Don Callis, he and Omega decided to use social media to start their feud. By commenting about each other on Twitter, Jericho and Omega had fans clamoring for a match between them before they knew it was in the works.

"In New York City, you [Omega], me, and Don [Callis] came up with an idea to post a tweet first to make it organic where Jericho and Kenny are getting into this 'issue' with each other," Jericho said. "What I did was, I had my friend Jeff, who lives in Las Vegas, who is also from Winnipeg. I told him that I wanted him to send a tweet out at 12:01 in the evening about just watching a match between Okada and Kenny Omega and how Kenny Omega is the 'Best in the World.' I was like, 'Best in the World? He's not even the best in Winnipeg.' Then you responded about never meeting your heroes because they're corporate stooges, which then got it up and running."

Omega said it was the perfect way to build anticipation because of how prevalent social media is in today's society. Wrestlers are becoming more and more active on social media nowadays, so it seemed like something organic. While fans thought it was all just a pipe dream, Omega and Jericho knew they'd be excited when they realize it's real.

"This is coming up off of when Cody [Rhodes] and the Young Bucks did the fake Invasion angle, and a lot of the WWE guys were responding on Twitter using social media saying dastardly things to one another, so this was commonplace. People take to social media now and are not afraid to tag someone in a derogatory comment or not afraid to mention someone," Omega said. "I liked how it was subtle, and people were wondering if this was really a thing, we don't know, because it could be anything. I remember at one point where people were getting into fantasy booker mode so I really had to side rail this thing and pull it off the tracks, so I remember putting the tweet out where there isn't going to be a payoff so just f**k off buddy."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Talk Is Jericho with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

Source: Talk Is Jericho

Peter Bahi contributed to this article.