Chris Jericho Speaks Out Over WWE SummerSlam 2016 Altercation With Brock Lesnar

SummerSlam 2016 made news for quite a few reasons: AJ Styles and John Cena tearing the house down, Finn Balor winning the newly-created Universal Championship after suffering an injury that put him on the shelf for the remainder of the year and Brock Lesnar violently opening the skull of Randy Orton with a brutal elbow. But perhaps the most newsworthy event of the show took place backstage when Lesnar nearly came to blows with Chris Jericho.

Up until now neither man involved had spoken out about the incident, but Jericho - a guest on Chael Sonnen's podcast, You're Welcome, was asked about it by the MMA fighter and newest member of Bellator's roster:

Any time something like that happens there’s always a lot of rumors and a lot of stories being told and that sort of thing but, I mean, not to get into specifics cause it’s basically between me and Brock, but, you know, we did have a little bit of a brouhaha, shall we say. I think that happens when you get guys that are in a sport such as ours, half-entertainment, half-real, half-not and you know I think you get... he had just come out of the ring, I had just come out of the ring an hour before or so, whatever, and I just thought the finish of that match was very brutal and very violent and I just didn’t know if Randy was okay, and I was checking on Randy, my friend - we’ve always been pretty close.

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And I said something and he said something, next thing you know we’re nose-to-nose kind of yelling at each other and it defused fairly quickly. But I mean, listen, let’s make no bones about this - Brock is a trained fighter, and he’s a beast - but, you know, I’m not the type of person to back down from anybody... to my detriment or harmful to my existence even. But hotheads fire off and we’re in each other’s face and that happens sometimes. I guess I kind of have a reputation for it, too. I’ve never backed down and I think sometimes in the case of guys his size, they think most people are just gonna wilt and most people do but that’s not me, that’s not my background, that’s not what I came up from growing up where I grew up in Winnipeg and my dad’s lineage of being in the NHL... it’s just not what I do, so, like I said. I’m glad he didn’t eat me, but basically there was a face-to-face confrontation, and I’ll leave the rest between the two of us.

Chael didn't attempt to draw any further details out of Y2J regarding the confrontation, saying that he loves the secrecy and speculation and hopes it goes on forever. Sonnen then follows up by questioning if Jericho himself got worked and reacted like a "mark". The pro wrestler didn't take all that kindly to an outsider labeling him as such and his frustration was reflected in the tone of his answer:

NO. It doesn’t make me a mark to go check on my friend. I wasn’t saying “what the hell’s going on with this finish?!” I was just saying “is Randy okay?”

First of all, 26 years of being in the business, I can do whatever the f*** I want. I’m not a mark.

Listen, whatever the finish is is none of my business. Whatever they’re doing or whatever happens...listen, man, that’s the way it is. It’s not my business, it’s not my responsibility or my call. But, when I see a friend of mine lying in a pool of his own blood, whether it’s a work or not, that’s real blood, you know? That’s a real concussion that he suffered. So I want to go check and see if he’s okay because we’ve had a 15 year history and we’ve gotten into fights ourselves! That’s one of the guys I’ve been in the trenches with and will continue to be in the trenches with until the day one of us stops doing this. But I don’t think there’s ever anything wrong with checking on your friend, whether it’s a work or not.

If that makes me a mark, well then I guess I’m a mark for making sure that my friends are okay.

The remainder of the interview was friendly as the two discussed everything from working face vs. heel, training in the Hart dungeon and CM Punk's foray into MMA. Hopefully we'll get all the juicy details from Chris, who's never had a problem sharing stories that don't paint him in the best light when we get a chance to drink in the gift of Jericho upon the release his next book.