ROH World Champion Chris Jericho is a heel on AEW programming these days and gets criticized a lot on social media these days.
During an interview with Chris Van Vliet, Jericho addressed the hate:
“It’s funny how I’ve become kind of public enemy number one as a heel, by the way. Isn’t that kind of the idea? Aren’t you supposed to be public enemy number one as a heel? Aren’t you supposed to not like somebody’s character when that character is a heel?
Maybe I’m actually smarter than everyone. I’m manipulating people to do what I want them to do. ‘Well, f**k off. Just retire already.’ It’s like, okay, doesn’t that make you mad? Because what I look at is the ratings, and 9 times out of 10 my segments always go up, and they are still some of the biggest ones on the show.
So that tells me that whatever it is that I’m doing is working, but I do have a target on my back for that, and that’s once again, I mean, it’s kind of the idea, you know, it’s like, I am a bad guy on the show. It’s public opinion, and it goes in cycles, you know. And when you’ve been in the business as long as I have, especially at the top level, that makes people mad, you know.
No, I don’t take (the ‘please retire’ chants) personally. No, nobody really knows me that says that stuff. And probably, if I saw them on the street, like they’d probably say hi, you know, like whenever I do, you know, a convention or something like that, like when my lines are down the street, you know. And that’s not from an egotistical standpoint, but I’ve been doing this a long time, and a lot of people have great memories from the different eras that I’ve been in.
It’s like, I’m the Rolling Stones on the Steel Wheels Tour when all the critics are saying it’s a steel wheelchair tour. Stones need to retire… this is a job where the idea is to elicit emotions, positive, negative, or anything in between. And when you sign up for it, you have to understand that people are going to respond.
Now, all of us wish that you could just walk down the street and have people throw a parade for you at all times and throw confetti and will their firstborn sons to you. It’s not that way, especially now.”
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