Chris Jericho On Deathmatch With Nick Gage: It Wasn’t Supposed To Be A Bloodbath, But It Turned Into One
Credit: All Elite Wrestling
If you listen to AEW star Chris Jericho, not every deathmatch has to have gallons of blood lost.
Chris Jericho was engaged in a feud with MJF, who put Jericho through five ‘labors’ in order to get a match with him, and one of those labours saw Jericho face GCW legend Nick Gage in deathmatch on the July 28 edition of AEW Dynamite. Jericho recently spoke with Stephanie Chase and discussed the planning process of the match with Gage, noting that he originally plan for a ton of blood, but the match ended with Jericho pretty badly busted open.
“I don’t think we expected the amount of blood that we had, sometimes that just happens. I didn’t go in there with the idea — if you notice, Nick Gage never had any blood. It wasn’t a double blood situation, I had blood, he did not. He may have had some cuts from the glass and stuff, but as far as actually bleeding, Nick did not. I didn’t want it to be this bloodbath. It turned into one, because of the glass and all that stuff,” Jericho noted, “but there really wasn’t a lot.
“I talked to him about the mist, when I blew the mist in Gage’s face, we discussed that. But other than that, we had an idea to use some light tubes and we actually adjusted the light tubes so there was no fluorescent powder, that dangerous fluorescent powder in there. That was not in there, just so you guys know. So, we kind of lessened the blow for a few of those things but when you’re taking bumps into glass, there’s no way to really make that more safe, you either do it or you don’t. It was something we’ve never seen on Dynamite before and we’ll probably never see it again. But in my opinion, it was a classic deathmatch, a classic match of that style,” Jericho proclaimed, “and [it was] a very, very, very big success as far as the number that we did, the reaction that we got, as far as the story that we told with the ‘Five Labours Of Jericho’ and that specific chapter.”
Referencing his book and the ratings he gives his own matches, Chris Jericho was asked how he’d rate the match with Gage. Jericho said he’d give it a 5-star rating, noting that it was as good as it gets and he’s proud of the story they told.