Vince McMahon Supported Chris Jericho Fighting Kenny Omega In NJPW, Except For One Part

Vince McMahon Supported Chris Jericho Fighting Kenny Omega In NJPW, Except For One Part

AEW star Chris Jericho has revealed Vince McMahon's initial reaction when he told him about his interest in facing Kenny Omega back in 2017, and McMahon's one reservation about the match.

In a recent interview with "Monthly Puroresu," Jericho said McMahon fully backed his decision to wrestle in NJPW but told him to not use the "Alpha vs. Omega" tagline. He said that he was nervous about telling McMahon that he wanted to wrestle in Japan.

"I was nervous because I hadn't worked anywhere other than WWE for 20 years. And Vince said, 'It's fine, it's great. You're a WWE guy anyways. People know it, have fun with it.' And he was all behind it," said Jericho. "The only thing he didn't like was the 'Alpha vs. Omega' tagline, which we later found out is because he just formed a company called Alpha for his new XFL. So he was like, 'No, stay away from the Alpha!' And I was like, 'Alpha and Omega, it writes itself!'

He also stated in the interview that McMahon later became unhappy with him when his association with NJPW extended for longer than WWE and McMahon had expected.

Jericho's first match in NJPW was against Omega for the IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship at Wrestle Kingdom in 2018, where the latter retained his title. Jericho later wrestled the likes of Tetsuya Naito, EVIL, and Kazuchika Okada, while his two-decade-long run with WWE also came to an end. 

He later became one of the first stars to join the then newly-formed AEW promotion and is an important part of AEW's success so far, and was even crowned the inaugural AEW World Champion when he defeated Adam Page for the title.