Chris Jericho On Approaching Triple H Regarding Onboarding NXT On His Cruise
On the latest episode of his “Talk Is Jericho” podcast, Chris Jericho revealed that ahead of promoting his “Rock ‘N’ Wrestling Rager At Sea” events, he initially contacted Triple H with the possibility of onboarding NXT talent for the “Chris Jericho Cruise.”
Not having any kind of experience as a wrestling promoter, Jericho seeked out NXT talent to have one less thing to worry about while also providing them with unique exposure. He said,
“The first thing that I did was, my first idea was I’m gonna have NXT come aboard. Because I was like, ‘I’m not a promoter. I don’t know where to pull guys from Indies.’ If I can work with a company and then they can send whoever they want. I don’t have to worry about that part of it. They can book the matches. They can have whatever they wanna do. So I approached Hunter [Triple H] in Philadelphia. I remember I had a meeting with him about having NXT on my cruise. Now people thought I was nuts at first. They always think I’m nuts when I have these ideas like ‘How are you gonna have wrestling in the middle of the ocean?’ I’m like, ‘Well dude I just played a f*cking rock show in the middle the ocean. It’s the same thing.’ Sometimes it’s a little bit [wobbly] but most of the time it’s pretty smooth. It’s not dangerous.”
Jericho then shared how WWE rejected his pitch in “classic fashion,” because “Vince doesn’t like cruises.” He said,
“So, I talked with NXT for a while and then in classic WWF fashion, they finally called me in a group call with about seven people on it, and [took] 45 minutes to tell me that they weren’t interested. I was like you could have just said ‘Hey guys, we’re not interested. Bye.’ 45 minutes. The reason I found out was that, this is so classic, Vince [McMahon] doesn’t like cruises. Because he had just seen the news, where I guess there was a cruise where a bunch of people got food poisoning. Something happened where like whatever. It’s not gonna happen on this cruise. I guarantee that. He was convinced that every cruise, people die of food poisoning, he was like, ‘Yeah, he’s worried that there might be problems with the ship.’ I am like, ‘What? He’s scared it’s gonna hit an f*cking iceberg? We’re going to Mexico, it’s fine.’”
Jericho then shared how he contacted Cody Rhodes, who in turn connected him with Ring of Honor, before disclosing that his deal with ROH got done within minutes.
“So anyways NXT passed and as soon as that 45-minute waste of time call was done, I picked up the phone and called Cody who connected me with Hunter Delirious who connected me with Joe Koff of Ring of Honor. We had the Ring of Honor deal done in about 10 minutes. That quick.”
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