Vince McMahon Backed Chris Jericho Facing Kenny Omega In NJPW, Except For One Section 2023
Chris Jericho of AEW has disclosed Vince McMahon’s initial reaction to his 2017 interest in facing Kenny Omega, as well as his one reservation about the match.
Jericho stated in a recent interview with “Monthly Puroresu” that McMahon supported his decision to compete in NJPW, but instructed him not to use the “Alpha vs. Omega” tagline. He stated that he was hesitant to inform McMahon of his desire to grapple in Japan.
“I was anxious because I had not performed outside of WWE for twenty years. And Vince responded, “It’s excellent, it’s wonderful. You are a WWE fan regardless. People are aware of it; have joy with it. And he was fully behind it,” Jericho stated. “The only thing he disliked was the ‘Alpha vs. Omega’ tagline, which we later discovered was because he had just founded a corporation named Alpha for his new XFL. Therefore, he said, “No, stay away from the Alpha!” Then I exclaimed, “It writes itself!”
He also said in the interview that McMahon was furious when his NJPW contract lasted longer than expected.
At Wrestle Kingdom in 2018, Jericho’s first encounter in NJPW was against Omega for the IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship. Omega retained his title. Later, Jericho fought the likes of Tetsuya Naito, EVIL, and Kazuchika Okada, and his two-decade tenure with WWE came to an end.
Later, he became one of the first champions to join the then-newly-formed AEW promotion, has been a significant contributor to AEW’s success, and was proclaimed the inaugural AEW World Champion after defeating Adam Page.
Vince McMahon supported Chris Jericho’s fight against Kenny Omega in NJPW, with one exception.
