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What’s the story?
During an interview with Inside The Ropes, Chris Jericho revealed that he was originally scheduled to face Shinsuke Nakamura at WrestleMania 33 back in April.
In case you didn’t know
Y2J, who recently faced off against Kenny Omega at Wrestle Kingdom 12, competed against former best friend Kevin Owens in Orlando in a United States Championship match. However, according to the man himself, those weren’t the original plans.
Heart of the matter
The following is a quote from Jericho, as taken from the below clip where he speaks with Kenny McIntosh from ITR.
“After we went to Japan in June or July I remember coming back and talking to Vince, and I said you’ve got to bring this Nakamura guy up to the main roster. I wanna work with him. Let’s debut him at WrestleMania. I said I’ll stay until WrestleMania if I can work with Nakamura. Vince said okay. Then about a month later, I said that I actually think me and Kevin Owens could work at WrestleMania.”
Nakamura wound up having to wait until the SmackDown Live after Mania in order to make his long-awaited debut in the big time.
What’s next?
Jericho appears to be happy with where he is for the time being, and a return to WWE in time for New Orleans seems unlikely. In fact, given his upcoming feud with Naito, Y2J may wind up spending the rest of his days over in Japan.
Author’s take
It’s fascinating to look back on what could’ve been, and while Jericho vs Nakamura would’ve been one hell of a match, we’re glad that Y2J and Owens were given the chance to blow off their fantastic feud on the grandest stage of them all.
