NJPW Has Been On Chris Jericho’s List For A While

According to new report, WWE Superstar Chris Jericho has been eying up an appearance for NJPW for quite some time.

In case you’ve been living under a rock and didn’t get the memo, Chris Jericho will be facing Kenny Omega at NJPW’s Wrestle Kingdom 12. The news was shocking, since it is a WWE Superstar (or assumed Superstar) working a date in Japan for one of WWE’s competitors.

At this point, the jury is still out on whether Jericho gave Vince McMahon the heads-up to work in Japan, if Jericho’s just doing this to promote his wrestling cruise, or if Jericho wanted to work with WWE to promote his cruise and they refused. Basically, there are a lot of questions. And most probably, all will be revealed when Y2J does a podcast on the matter.

For now, though, let’s focus on what we do know. Several weeks ago ProWrestling.com’s Mike Killam (H/T: ProWrestlingSheet) released a report stating that NJPW were in talks with Jericho for “quite some time” about a potential match at Wrestle Kingdom. More recently, Nick Paglino, who previously worked for WrestleZone, noted that the idea to have Lionheart face Omega specifically “has been in place since at least August, if not sooner”.

I previously touched on the Canadian’s cruise, which some of you may not be familiar with. Basically, the former United States Champion has put together a cruise, wonderfully titled ‘Chris Jericho’s Rock ‘N’ Wrestling Rager at Sea‘, with live performances and special guests on-board.

And there are a ton of selling points. Firstly, the cruise will be hosted by Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler – I mean, if that’s not comedy gold, I don’t know what is. Secondly, there’ll be on-board wrestling from the likes of the Young Bucks and Marty Scurll, who are at the pinnacle of their popularity. Finally, mixed in for good measure is a festival – including three Fozzy shows, three Talk Is Jericho podcasts, and a Ring Of Honor tournament.

If you’re a wrestling fan and don’t appreciate how awesome that sounds, are you really a wrestling fan?

One of the main topics of conversation stemming from the cruise is WWE’s involvement, or more specifically, WWE’s lack of involvement. You’d have thought that if one of your top stars ever was hosting a cruise, you’d want to get involved and promote the service. But apparently not.

And the news of Jericho facing Omega just makes it even more puzzling. The lifelong WWE Superstar has a lot of loyalty to McMahon himself, and the idea of Jericho wrestling for another promotion is very intriguing. Conversely, it makes me wonder two things; did he tell McMahon, and/or did he ask for WWE’s input?

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If the latter is correct, you’d have to assume that WWE weren’t interested in promoting it, so Jericho then decided to go to NJPW to help promote the cruise. Either way, it’s a fun yet mysterious situation to see develop. I guess we’ll find out the full explanation on Jericho’s pod when he reveals all, whenever that may be.