IWGP Intercontinental Champion was a guest on Larry King Now last year to promote his book “No Is A Four-Letter Word.” The full interview has just been released and in it, Jericho reveals who mentored him as a pro-wrestler.
“Not necessarily one mentor,” said Jericho. “There’s been a bunch of them. Vince [McMahon] has been a pretty big mentor of mine. I’ve been working for him for 17 years. He’s a very unique character.”
“I love writing about Vince because a very unique, wacky, motivated, amazing character and he’ll never write about himself because he’s too humble, he doesn’t like talking about himself. So I’ll write about him in my book. That’s the way I like to do it.”
Jericho also credits McMahon for helping him learn how to be a great wrestler, but McMahon is not the only one. Jericho also credits Pat Patterson for helping him learn the psychology of wrestling.
“From a learning standpoint, Vince McMahon and his right-hand man, a guy called Pat Patterson,” Jericho said. “He’s in his 70’s now, but I’ve learned more from Pat on how to structure a match, about the psychology of wrestling. Wrestling is all psychology. It really is. It’s not the moves, it’s where you do things, how you do things, where you put them and selling the story of the match. I learned almost all I know from Pat Patterson.”
Over his storied career, Jericho has had many memorable match ups with a variety of different opponents. He lists a couple of WWE legends that were his favorite to work with, of which he includes a reminder of how good a particular WWE legend is. Also, Jericho reveals his favorite match of his career.
“I had some great ones. I loved working with Shawn Michaels, like I said. The Rock was always great. The Rock, actually, because he is so popular now in Hollywood, people forget how good of a wrestler he was. He was a great wrestler inside the ring. Always fun to work with him.
“I had a ladder match with Shawn Michaels in 2008 that was a culmination of this amazing eight-month long story. That’s probably my favorite match for all of those reasons.”
Watch the full interview below:
