Chris Jericho Talks WrestleMania Match With Fandango, How Undertaker Convinced Him To Do It

AEW superstar Chris Jericho was a recent guest on Busted Open Radio where the former multi-time world champion opened up about his matchup against Fandango at WrestleMania 29 in New Jersey. Jericho admits that he initially did not want to face the salsa dancing Fandango, and recalls asking Vince McMahon if he could wrestle someone else.

Jericho vs Fandango at WrestleMania? Wasn’t the biggest fan of it. Was pretty pissed off about it to be honest with you. But when I realized this is what Vince wants me to do and there’s no way out of it, now I got to make it great. If I can do that, then even though I don’t feel great about it, at least I’ll get respect from the boss. I gave him three or four other suggestions and he said no to all of them. He was super into Fandango. And I finally said ‘There’s nothing I can do to change your mind is there?’ And Vince goes ‘Nope’. So I hung up on him.

Jericho then reveals that a phone call with the Undertaker eventually changed his mind, and he ended up having a great time working the angle.

Then I called Undertaker. I said ‘Listen what Vince wants me to do, he wants me to work with this guy who has never been on TV. Hasn’t even had a match. I got to work with Fandango at WrestleMania. What am I supposed to do?’. And Undertaker said, ‘Do it. What’s the problem? That’s who he wants you to work – work him!’ Talking about Undertaker’s 20-0 streak at the time, Undertaker said ‘How many of those matches were stinkers?’ A lot of them were stinkers. Giant Gonzales, Jimmy Snuka far past his prime, Nathan Jones. He said ‘If you go and do your best and get this match over, and get this guy over, Vince will respect you more. And even if you don’t, this is your job. If we go to a Steven Spielberg audition and the part calls for me to blow my own nuts off, fall down a flight of stairs going ‘wacka wacka wacka’ and I go ‘Hey Steve, I don’t want to do this’, Spielberg says, ‘Okay, get the hell outta here, I’ll hire the next guy’. That really was an eye opener. I had three weeks to get it over. And I remember he next night on Raw, people were chanting his name and signing along. I take a lot of credit for that.

Bret Hart said ‘Vince plays with his toys until he’s bored and then throws them in the corner’. It’s not that petty but Vince saw something in the guy and was super hot on him and that’s your start. And that guy has to take it and go with it. He did a great job with that character. I have a lot of respect for him. I didn’t want to work with him at first just because it wasn’t what I was expecting. Working with him was a lot of fun and watching him was great.

Full interview below.