Chris Jericho On If He Would Have Done Steve Austin Interview Without Talking AEW

AEW star Chris Jericho made a ton of waves when he appeared on Steve Austin's Broken Skull Sessions podcast on Peacock following WrestleMania 37 this past Sunday. In an interview with Busted Open Radio, Jericho gave more details behind the appearance the reactions to it.

"Nobody really knew what to expect," Jericho said. "It did come completely out of left field. The opening line of the show, if you've seen it, I said 'I can't believe there's not snipers on the roof to take me out. I can't believe I'm the show!' But yeah; what a kind of monumental, groundbreaking moment that was for sure."

"I wouldn't have done the show if it wasn't to talk about my whole career, including AEW. There'd be no benefits for me to do the show just to go on and talk about old things I had done in WWE. And Steve wouldn't have had me on either.

"So we were both very adamant that if we're going to do this, let's do it right. And that's one of the things that I really enjoyed where people were so surprised. You have to know how I do things at this point in time. And I wouldn't do anything that wasn't exactly the way I wanted it, and it turned out just perfectly.

While Jericho and Austin were both cognizant of Vince's potential reaction, neither was concerned about anything getting cut.

"We both kind of were very adamant of how we wanted the show to be done. But if a certain 73 year old wakes up one days and goes 'what?! I never said that!', the whole thing could be changed, wiped off the face of the earth or whatever. But I also think there was a lot of trust, both from Vince and Tony Khan, towards both Steve and myself, knowing we wouldn't go that way. There was no reason to talk about things that were going to bury either side. It was a very positive interview as you guys saw.

"So there was a lot of trust afforded to us. And I think the moment Vince said 'do it', he knew what we'd be talking about. And Tony even said it to me. He trusted Steve and I to kind of take care of both parties and we did that. If it was anyone else I don't know if we'd be afforded the same trust. But I had Steve's word and he had my word that we were going to do our best to have a great show. And there was no reason to kind of tear anybody down or talk any bad things. I think that's one of the reasons why it pretty much aired exactly as we spoke.

"The thing was over two hours long. I don't think there was really much that was edited out; a couple of lines here and there. But probably only ten minutes of the two hours plus we talked about was edited out. And that was mostly for time purposes."

Jericho also said he'd be willing to do another round of Broken Skulls Sessions. The reason, Jericho explained, is because there's still so much to cover in his career.

"I realized I could do a part two of this easy," Jericho said. "Cause even though we spoke about so much and covered so much, it's only the tip of the iceberg.

"There's a lot of chemistry and comradery there. Steve and I are great friends, you could see that. Steve is a very good interviewer and I think I have a lot of fun stories to tell. And I was really happy with thirty years of stuff encapsulated in two years. But we did discuss everything, for as much as you can discuss in this two hour timeframe."

Jericho also briefly touched upon how no one within WWE was aware of the podcast.

"Basically nobody knew. We were laughing the other day about how Triple H found out about this on a conference call for NXT, which I'm sure he loved. That's kind of how close to the vest it was."

One of the unique things about the podcast was Jericho and Austin discussing AEW first, as opposed to starting at the beginning of Jericho's career. Asked whether this was by design, Jericho revealed it was.

"It was," Jericho said. "Once again we weren't worried about edits. I'm gonna say that Steve and I had final cut. You know how it works there; only one guy has final cut. But to Vince's credit he was completely hands off, as far as I know.

"It was both Steve and I's idea to start with AEW because there was so much questions of 'will they talk about it?' We just said 'let's just get to it right away.' And everybody will be really hooked. They'll be like 'holy smokes, they're really talking about AEW. And not just in passing!'

"I think there's probably a total of fifteen to eighteen minutes of AEW talk in there. So we thought if we attack it right away and go back to it at the end, people will be really be paying attention. Because the question will be answered right out of the gate, which I think will blow people's minds, hook them and get them involved right away."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Busted Open Radio and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription