Chris Jericho says WWE tried to change everything about The Festival of Friendship. The segment was a hit with the fans and set up his Wrestlemania path.
Back in 2016, the WWE had reintroduced SmackDown as a second brand to the WWE Universe. The Blue brand was hitting it out of the park week after week while RAW was mauled by critics and fans. The saving grace on the Red Brand was the friendship between Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens.
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The journey from the beginning of their friendship to the very end had the audience eating from their palms. Their friendship was the most entertaning segment on RAW week after week and their eventual breakup was a masterpiece that broke a few hearts.
Ask the fans and they would want to change nothing about it. However, it seems that the WWE was unsure about the segment. They wanted to change it even though they agreed with and gave their approval months in advance. In the end, Jericho managed to convince them to trust his vision.
Chris Jericho says WWE tried to change everything about The Festival of Friendship
While speaking with Digital Spy, the first ever AEW Champion opened up about WWE’s attemp to change plans on the night of the show. He said:
“The Festival of Friendship, something that I had planned out and basically pitched and got approved months earlier, the night of the show they wanted to change everything. That was one of the times when I was like, ‘Absolutely not, we built to this, this is what’s going to work. You have to trust my vision at some point after being here for almost 20 years. You have to let the professionals be professionals.'”
Jericho added that the thing he loved about AEW was them allowing their talent to have creative freedom.
“That’s one thing I love about AEW, we do exactly that.”
Following Owens’ attack on Jericho, the then United States Champion cost his former best friend his Universal Championship against Goldberg. The two went on to face each other at Wrestlemania for the United States title with Owens prevailing at the show of shows.
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