Chris Jericho Wanted NJPW Matches With Minoru Suzuki, Kota Ibushi, Will Ospreay Before COVID

It's been a minute and a half since fans have seen Chris Jericho in New Japan Pro-Wrestling, after he was a fixture there towards the tail end of the 2010s. Beginning with his famous match with Kenny Omega at Wrestle Kingdom 12, Jericho went on to have feuds with Tetsuya Naito, Kazuchika Okada, and Hiroshi Tanahashi between 2018 and 2020. He hasn't been seen in NJPW since Wrestle Kingdom 14, where he faced Tanahashi one-on-one.

According to Jericho though, the Tanahashi match wasn't supposed to be the end of him in New Japan. In an interview with Monthly Puroresu, Jericho outlined some of what he had planned with the promotion, before real-life circumstances nixed them.

"I had ideas like 'Well I want Minoru Suzuki, I want to do something with Will Ospreay. I want to do something with Kota Ibushi,'" Jericho said. "But if you remember January 4th, 2020 was Jericho vs Tanahashi, what happened two months later? A f***in' pandemic."

As such, Jericho feels that his momentum from that initial New Japan run was halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, making a return to the promotion these days difficult. While he acknowledged that he could still return to New Japan for big matches, and that he was willing to do so, Jericho is also mindful that he would have to recalibrate and start over with his character.

"It's a different thing now," Jericho said. "It's not the same as it was when it was like, because then AEW just started and now you know, once again I could still go back tomorrow and have some of these matches. But it's a different vibe now than it was when it was kind of this independent Jericho."