Chris Jericho was recently interviewed by “Inside the Ropes”. During the interview, he talked about his legendary match against HBK at Wrestlemania 19. Jericho revealed that he believes HBK to be the best wrestler of all time and mentioned that his match against him at Wrestlemania 19 almost didn’t happen. Here are the highlights:

On HBK Being The Best Ever:

[Shawn Michaels] is better than 75% of the roster…in my opinion, the best ever. It’s not [Ric] Flair, it’s not Bret [Hart], it’s Shawn Michaels for me, what I like. So even though he was coming back [at the time], he was great. And he has one match with Triple H, but this was his first WrestleMania back and it might have been the first program since the Triple H program, and it was never supposed to be.

On How The Match Against HBK Wasn’t Supposed To Happen & Who He Was Supposed To Face:

It was just a one-shot thing where I was doing a Highlight Reel and I was calling Michaels old, and that sort of thing. I was just demeaning Shawn on the Highlight Reel, he superkicked me in the face and that was supposed to be the end of it. We walked to the back and I remember Vince sitting there, smiling, and just looking at Shawn, and Shawn goes, ‘It’s money.’ And Vince goes, ‘You’re damn right it’s money!’ And that was where that whole angle started – it was supposed to me and Edge that year, originally.

On How He Views His Wrestlemania 19 Match In Hindsight:

This was the exact opposite of WrestleMania X8: it was a great story, a great buildup, it was not the main event on last but it stole the show at WrestleMania, it was a main event. And it was one of the best matches in WrestleMania history. Like I said, there’s how many WrestleManias now? 35? 34? So there’s been 35 show-stealers in WrestleMania history and our match is one of them, and I’ll take that every time.

You can listen to the interview below:

Credit: Inside the Ropes. H/T WrestlingInc.