The match had to be reshuffled on the fly.
The group known as The Jericho Appreciation Society consists of Chris Jericho, Daniel Garcia, Tay Melo, Anna Jay, Sammy Guevara, Jake Hager, ‘Daddy Magic’ Matt Menard and ‘Cool Hand’ Angelo Parker.
In 2022, the group competed in an Anarchy in the Arena match in addition to competing in Blood & Guts. In the Blood & Guts match, there was a knee injury that Santana suffered, who was on the opposite team.
Menard and Parker guest appeared on episode #58 of the Swerve City Podcast and recounted how the match needed to be reshuffled on the fly due to Santana’s injury. Menard tore his labrum and rotator cuff in the same match but felt he could not leave because they were already one man short. Parker said the match is a blur to him.
Menard: The thing about that match (Blood & Guts), how many guys? Four, five, six guys so it was six on six. Two minute intervals or whatever but what people don’t realize is — what people forget about that match is Santana blows out his knee in the middle of that match so we just — yeah, yeah (it was early in the match). The first third of the match. We just lose a guy who’s intricate to the entire thing, so everything had to get reshuffled live on television.
Parker: When you’re spread out.
Menard: He’s in the match for 30 seconds and I got dumped on my head, tore my rotator cuff and my labrum. I don’t know how much I can do or how much I cannot do and he just got taken out so I’m like, I gotta stay in. I can’t leave, I’m not leaving, you know what I mean? And Bryce (Remsburg) is checking on me and he’s like, ‘Can you go? What do I do?’ And I go, ‘I’m staying.’ At the end, I have a torn shoulder. I still gotta climb to the top of the cage. With blood coming down and thumbtacks in my boots.
Parker: And you’re dealing with the chaos of TV timing, all this kind of stuff and it’s just like, it’s weird because I remember it but I don’t remember it in a weird way because it was so chaos. You knew where you (needed) to be but then, like you’re saying, Santana’s out. How do we fix this? Okay, we know what’s next but okay, someone’s shuffled in? Okay, cool. Good for now. We’re good for now.
Last month at PWG’s Battle of Los Angeles event, Jericho Appreciation Society appeared and competed in a tag match. Menard credited Jericho for being open to everyone’s ideas.
Menard: When we did the PWG (Battle of Los Angeles show) a couple of weeks ago, he (Chris Jericho) was so open to everybody’s ideas and wanting to work with the PWG guys. It’s incredible.
On this week’s AEW Dynamite, Ricky Starks will have to get through the entire J.A.S. in order to face Chris Jericho.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit the Swerve City Podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
