Chris Jericho explains Vince McMahon’s vision for his match with CM Punk.
WrestleMania 28 took place in Miami Gardens, Florida ten years ago. The card featured The Rock versus John Cena, The Undertaker versus Triple H in a Hell in a Cell and the second-to-last match on the card was CM Punk defending the WWE Championship against Chris Jericho.
On the latest episode of Talk Is Jericho, the match between Jericho and Punk was brought up and Jericho shared that initially, Vince McMahon wanted their match to be two minutes and result in a disqualification.
McMahon was of the mindset that because of the intensity of Punk and Jericho’s build-up, Punk should be enraged and with hindsight, Jericho thinks McMahon made a fair point. McMahon would later came up with the stipulation that if Punk got disqualified, he would lose the WWE Title.
I think that match [CM Punk vs. Jericho at WrestleMania 28] is a little underrated because of that [Rock vs. Cena along with Undertaker vs. Triple H being on the show] and I’ll also tell you one last little thing about it is Vince [McMahon] wanted that match to be two minutes long. Punk and I had visions of being Savage/Steamboat for the modern age. Vince did have a point looking back in retrospect because if you remember, I was calling his father a drunk, I poured alcohol down his mouth, I hit him with bottles, I did a lot of really sh*tty things and he wanted Punk to just get me in the ring and just go nuts and he wanted to do the terrible, kick the guy in the corner, ref counts to five, DQ. I said, ‘Vince, we can’t do that at WrestleMania.’ He goes, ‘What is he supposed to do? You insulted his family, you insulted his sister, you poured alcohol down his throat. What are you supposed to do? Tackle, drop down, leapfrog?’ And I was like, he has a point. He has a point. So, we decided that — Vince came up with the idea, if CM Punk gets disqualified, I win the title so he couldn’t go completely crazy and there was some semblance of rules that had to be followed so we could at least still have a match and there’s a reason why Punk just didn’t take a chair and take my head off so, I don’t know if I’ve ever told that story. A little scoop for you guys.
POST Wrestling’s John Pollock and Wai Ting recapped WrestleMania 28 for a 2021 episode of REWIND-A-WAI which can be heard at this link. Both Punk and Jericho are a part of All Elite Wrestling and were featured on the 5/11 episode of Dynamite.
If the quote in this article is used, please credit Talk Is Jericho with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.
