Chris Jericho was recently interviewed by Canoe.ca’s SLAM! Wrestling about next week’s SmackDown 10-year anniversary special.

Jericho thinks back to 1999, before the first episode of SmackDown aired, when he was in still WCW.  After WCW launched its second weekly primetime television show (Thunder) and it failed miserably, he had his doubts whether WWE could pull off a second show.

“We had Nitro and then they added Thunder to the schedule, which was kind of a bad decision at the time,” he recalled. “Because they really didn’t have the brain trust behind it to make it work and Thunder became kind of a red-headed stepchild. I used to watch it just for the pure bad comedy of it, how bad it was. So when I heard about Smackdown, I thought it was interesting, but obviously the WWE is a lot different from the WCW and how the hierarchy is.”

He continued, “I didn’t know it if it would be a little bit too much. You never know if it’s going to be too much TV. And here we are 10 years later, and it’s just become a common thing, the fact that we have the two major shows being on every week. I guess in hindsight there was enough room and there was enough fan base to have two separate shows. Because when Smackdown first came out, it wasn’t a separate brand, it was just you’d go do Raw and Smackdown, similar to what I do right now. It was just another way to get some exposure, and get your storylines out. “I guess in retrospect, it turned out to be a pretty successful thing.”

Jericho also made some interesting comments about WWE’s brand split and how it may have been a better idea in theory than it has turned out to be.

“I think it was a better idea then than it is now. There was a lot more talent when they did the brand extension,” he said. “You could actually split the rosters in two; create some competition for ourselves, especially after WCW went under. Sometimes I wonder if we should still do that with talent roster the way that it is with a lot of younger guys. It’s a good idea to give them a chance to shine, but for me the way right now, especially working Raw and Smackdown, it shows that some guys should do both shows because we need the diversity on both. But still, week in and week out, they still make it entertaining, build up a lot of Smackdown and they do it more on Raw as well, there’s room for everyone on the show, some just have to kind of grab the brass ring and run with it. I’m happy to be on both shows, I like contributing to both.”

To read the entire interview, including Jericho’s thoughts on teaming with the Big Show and WWE needing to cultivate young talent, visit Slam.Canoe.ca.

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