Chris Jericho has revealed he was WWE’s back-up option if Shane McMahon had not been cleared to compete at WrestleMania.
McMahon was a doubt for his match, in which he was teaming with Daniel Bryan against Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn, due to diverticulitis and several other problems stemming from that condition.
Speaking during an interview with Bryan for his Talk Is Jericho podcast, Jericho revealed he had been contacted by Vince McMahon with the idea of being a potential late substitute for his son.
“A few weeks before WrestleMania, maybe three or four weeks, I get a call from Vince and he’s talking about Shane and his diverticulitis,and he had an infection in his hand and he had a staph infection toom,” he said.
“Something else had also gone wrong – he had a hernia. And he goes, ‘Listen, we don’t know if he can do ‘Mania.
“And he had somehow looked, or got someone to look at my schedule, and we had a Fozzy show that day. I didn’t know why we were competing with WrestleMania so we planned to do an earlier show so I could watch the event with the fans.
“So he was like ‘I know you’re doing a Fozzy show, and you’re going to watch it with your fans,’ he goes, ‘what would you think about coming to New Orleans if Shane can’t do it?'”
Bryan had heard rumours that there could be a change made to the match, and while he was not 100 per cent sure, he had a feeling Jericho might be the mystery replacement.
“We’re in this stage now where they don’t tell the boys anything,” he said. “So they keep all the secrets from the boys because they’re afraid all the boys are talking to journalists.
“And so I asked, cause when Shane called me and told me, he said ‘I’m in the hospital right now. I got diverticulitis while I was in Antigua, and then when they were giving me IVs I got a staph infection from the IVs, and then I have this hernia that’s coming out of my stomach – but don’t worry I’ll be ready for ‘Mania.
“When we got to TV the next day I thought he certainly wouldn’t be wrestling and they told me they have a back-up but they couldn’t tell me who it was, even though I was in the match.
“I had kind of assumed that you [Jericho] would be in because you have the most history with Kevin (Owens).”
