Former AEW world champ Chris Jericho on longevity: ‘A bad neck surgery changes everything’

I’m still hoping to get an interview lined up with former AEW and WWE world champ Chris Jericho, who will be in Waynesboro on May 9 for a concert with his band, Fozzy, at The Foundry.

Among the things I want to ask Jericho about, obviously: his wrestling career.

The 35-year ring veteran addressed his thinking on wrestling in a recent interview with GamesHub, and it sounds like, despite being out of the ring for nearly a year now, he still thinks of himself as an active wrestler.

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ICYMI

• Fozzy, fronted by wrestling star Chris Jericho, performing at The Foundry on May 9
• Chris Jericho may not be WWE-bound, as we had previously thought

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“What worries me about the guys working today is here I am at 55, 35 years in, with still some career left to go. I don’t know if it’s a year, two years, four years, I’m not sure. But I don’t know how many of the guys working now will have the option to go 35 years. Hopefully all of them. But you can already see what serious injuries do — a bad neck surgery changes everything,” Jericho said.

He’s bringing up a topic that I hear retired manager, commentator, booker and trainer Jim Cornette address often on his popular wrestling podcasts – about how the style in vogue with the current top-card and mid-card wrestlers exposes them to devastating injuries, given the limits of the human body.

I’m not even going to try to list the number of top wrestlers on the sidelines because of injuries from dives through and over the ropes, bumps to the neck and spine on the floor, on ladders and on tables, just the cumulative effect of all of the above.

“The longevity may be harder to sustain when there’s so much emphasis on the physical at the expense of charisma and character,” said Jericho, who laid out how he got scared straight into focusing more on the charisma and character side of his presentation.

“I was in León, Mexico, did a dive over the top rope, and the guy who was supposed to catch me, a guy called Masaka, he just stepped aside,” Jericho recalled. “I landed on old-school bolted-down arena chairs. I messed up my arm, and I thought, oh, I could actually get hurt doing this. And if a guy doesn’t want to catch you, that’s even worse.

“After that I started getting smart about which moves were worth the risk. The guys who figure that out early are the ones who get the longevity,” Jericho said.