Jericho was the backup plan for Shane McMahon at WrestleMania

With him facing Kenny Omega at the Tokyo Dome, participating in WWE’s Greatest Royal Rumble, and returning to New Japan Pro Wrestling to continue his feud with Tetsuya Naito, Chris Jericho has had an eventful 2018.

And on today’s episode of Talk is Jericho with Daniel Bryan, Jericho revealed that he was also the backup plan to team with Bryan against Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn if Shane McMahon wasn’t cleared in time for WrestleMania 34.

“A few weeks before WrestleMania, maybe three or four weeks, I get a call from Vince,” Jericho said. “And he’s talking about Shane and his appendix, not his appendix, his diverticulitis, and he had an infection in his hand and he had, there was one other thing as well…staph infection…hernia, that was it. And he goes, ‘Listen, we don’t know if he can do ‘Mania.'”

Jericho said Vince asked him what he thought about coming to New Orleans and filling in for Shane if he couldn’t wrestle. There was the problem of Jericho having a Fozzy concert in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire on the day of the show and a WrestleMania watch party event scheduled, but Jericho said they looked at their options and he would have been able to get to the Superdome in just enough time with the help of a police escort.

While he was ultimately able to make the show, Shane’s status for WrestleMania was put into doubt when he was hospitalized with acute diverticulitis and an umbilical hernia. WWE.com posted the news less than two weeks before WrestleMania, but Bryan & Shane vs. Owens & Zayn was announced as planned the next day.

Bryan said WWE is in a stage where they don’t tell the wrestlers anything because the company is afraid they’ll reveal information to the “dirt sheets,” but he was told they had a good backup plan that he assumed was Jericho because of Jericho’s history with Owens.

The tag match was Bryan’s return to the ring after being cleared to compete by WWE. Prior to the Greatest Royal Rumble, Jericho’s most recent match for the company was against Owens and AJ Styles last July.