In between his stints as a rock star and WWE superstar, Chris Jericho has quickly become a great interviewer. Jericho’s recent podcast with Dean Ambrose is no better example as he got the current star to share some candid feelings on the current WWE style.
[adinserter block=”1″]The Talk is Jericho two-part podcast with Ambrose may be Jericho’s best since he entered the venture. Jericho and Ambrose sat down for a no-holds barred discussion about Ambrose’s career and the WWE. One particular theme popped up throughout the interview and that was Ambrose’s personal taste and distaste for the current WWE product.
Now don’t misread this blog. I am not trying to start any trouble for Ambrose here. I don’t think he said anything that should land him in the proverbial dog house. I just found it refreshing to hear one of the bigger stars in the WWE come out and say what most of us have been thinking for a long time.
Ambrose was asked about his Hell in a Cell match with rival Seth Rollins. Ambrose touches on the subject here when he talks about how he and Rollins wanted to have something different than what most of us are used to seeing on WWE events.
“I wanted it to not feel like a WWE match. If you watch John [Cena] vs. Randy [Orton] on that show, it felt like a good WWE main-event. Finisher, counter, kick out, the same stuff. They’ve kind of created and popularized what the WWE main-event style is, I guess. But I wanted it to feel different, I wanted it to feel a little bit dirtier, and grungier, especially because it’s Hell in a Cell, it’s supposed to be an ugly thing. I want it to be ugly at certain points, like, a little bit uncomfortable. Like people are getting hurt right now. People aren’t smiling, or doing trademark things. Two dudes are just trying to kill each other right now, this is just a little bit uncomfortable. I just wanted to have a stripped-down feel. That was my vision for it.”
Another theme that popped up a couple of times throughout the podcast was the micromanagement of the product. In part 1, Ambrose reveals that he does not think any of his promos in the WWE have been that good. He says that he cringes sometimes when he is handed the material and wishes that he could just go out there with bullet points like he did on the indys. Ambrose expands more when he talks about the WWE “formula” with Jericho.
[adinserter block=”2″]“I don’t think you should have a formula. That’s the thing, there’s a TV formula and a WWE formula, and there’s such a formula. I think the fans get conditioned to that formula, which probably makes it harder to shock them after a while, because they get the formula. I don’t know if any of my matches are any good, but I like people to think at any time that anything might happen, whether it makes any sense or not. I like to just throw something in that doesn’t make any sense on purpose, just because nobody sees it coming.
“If you watch enough wrestling and you’re watching a match, you can kind of tell what’s going to happen next almost all the time. You know the match isn’t going to end until Kofi [Kingston] has done his hand slap gimmick, or until John [Cena] does the Five Knuckle Shuffle. But in real fights, like in boxing or UFC, anything can happen at any time, a match could just end, a dude could grab his leg and break it.”
Both parts are highly entertaining, especially one particular exchange in part one which I’ll cover in a future blog regarding the origins behind that hideous mannequin doll segment several months back on RAW. Check out both parts on Talk is Jericho.
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