Jericho talks PG WWE and CM Punk vs. Nash

[PHX]

Former WWE Champion Chris Jericho spoke with Betweentheropes.com this week and here are the highlights...

On whether or not if feels like 12 years since he made his WWE debut on Raw:

"It doesn't really seem like it was 12 years unless I think really hard about all the stuff that's taken place since then. But I can remember writing that promo that I did like it was yesterday in the apartment I was in on the floor, just kind of writing down ideas and writing out the whole promo because back in that time there was no writers or creative as they call it. It was basically you were just on your own. You might have a couple of ideas to throw around but most of it was just coming from your own brain and just saying it the way you wanted to say it. There was no rehearsals or anything like that. You would just go out there and do it. So that's the biggest change between the WWE in 2011 and the WWE of 1999."

On the current PG-13 programming in WWE:

"I don't care about PG-13 or Attitude Era. If you're a great performer, you can make it work no matter what it is. And I never really cared because I might have gone 5% into the Attitude Era or 5% into the overly PG era but I pretty much just did my thing and made it work with whatever was given to me by the boss of the company. That's a copout if people say 'well, I don't like it because it's PG-13 or I can't work within the PG-13 system'. That's BS. It doesn't matter. If you're a good guitar player, you can play Van Halen or Georg Jensen jazz. It's just an excuse."

On simplistic storylines and playing into the current one with CM Punk:

"That's what it's always been about man. It's always been about that and the best guys can do that no matter what rules or guidelines are given to them. That's why the Punk thing worked so good because it was something different. It was Punk vs. the status quo of the WWE. It wasn't so much the insider topics. I'm sure guys like you and me thought that was funny but your average person doesn't have a clue about stuff like that. They just know that Punk is doing something he's not supposed to be doing and saying something he's never said before. That's also why I don't think the thing (Kevin) Nash worked out so well this week because they went too inside."

Pretty much agree on his view on the whole PG/PG13 thing. If you're that good you can make anything work no matter what the rating is. Idk what he means by too inside as far as the stuff with Nash goes I just think he got put in spot where he was doing a promo against a guy who pretty much has a response for anything you have to say and will fire something back at you twice as strong.

 

[SAL]

It probably was a little too inside. I've watched it back 3 times because it was so entertaining, but I can't imagine those ever-elusive "casuals" would get a lot out of what they said. Nash talking about guaranteed money? That's not what the nWo was about for the average fan. Punk dropping a vague reference to Nash's past gimmicks? Listen to the crowd, nobody got it. They didn't even understand the "vanilla midget" thing about Eddie Guerrero. Jericho's making some good points here. They could have broadened the promo (which I read was very off-the-cuff and improv'd) by talking about things people better understood. Like if Nash said "I changed the business in WCW and won the ratings war..." I think people would've gotten that better. If Punk kept his criticism to Nash's age and the fact he can't go, that would've gone better too.