Now, What Happened Was …
Chris Jericho once met with TNA Wrestling about the possibility of making the jump to the promotion in the past.
On July 6, the AEW star and WWE legend appeared along with Jeff Jarrett and Karen Jarrett at a Dark Side of the Ring Season 7 Q&A in New York City to promote the premiere scheduled for July 7 at 10/9c on Vice TV with a double episode featuring parts one and two of a three-part look at the history of TNA Wrestling.
While fielding questions from those in attendance, the pro wrestling legend revealed a little-known behind-the-scenes story about the time he met with TNA Wrestling purposely to get Vince McMahon to increase his offer to him to return to WWE.
“We met at the Cheesecake Cafe in Tampa, Florida,” Jericho began when reflecting on the situation. “Sorry, Cheesecake Factory. Now let me give you a little wrestling lesson. So I was talking about going back to WWE had been off for a couple of years. I think this was like 2007, and this was at a time when Vince had the magic number of a salary.”
Jericho continued, “He had the magic number. I won’t say what that is. But it’s the highest that you could get no matter who you were. It didn’t matter. Because with Vince at the time, if you headlined, if you were a main event, you would get paid more money, etcetera, etcetera. But the base minimum was this certain number, and he wasn’t coming close to it.”
From there, he dug into the juicy part of the story, revealing that he actually set up and took part in a meeting with TNA management to try and get Vince to budge on the infamous ‘magic number.’
“I was like, well … let me see if I can arrange a meeting with Double J and have a conversation with TNA and see what happens,” Jericho continued. “Now, what happened was … so this is a real behind-the-scenes storyline thing. So my cousin was in town at the time, and I said, ‘just go sit over there and just comment on what you see,’ and here’s an email address of someone in the wrestling dirt sheet area that might be interested in Chris Jericho. So I’m not saying I wasn’t entertaining the idea, but two days later, guess who came back with the magic number?”
Following the 7/7 season seven premiere of Dark Side of the Ring, new episodes will premiere every Tuesday night at 10/9c on Vice TV.
