Chris Jericho On How Chris Benoit Affected His Career

Season two of Vice’s Dark Side of the Ring recently premiered with an episode focused on the Chris Benoit tragedy, and Chris Jericho appears in the episode both as the narrator and in interviews.

Jericho and Benoit put on some very memorable matches, but unfortunately for Jericho he wasn’t able to acknowledge those matches while putting together DVDs during his time with WWE.

The first ever AEW World Champion recently spoke to the 411 Wrestling Interview Podcast, and he talked a little bit about how the Benoit tragedy affected his career.

“Exactly, and that’s kind of what I said in the documentary when I said — when you talk about Chris and his career, how great he was in the ring, it’s not glorifying a murderer talking about that because there has to be a point where you can separate the two and never forget what he did or understand it or not be completely serious about it, but there is also is a whole side of him in the ring which was pure genius.

And it’s something that when I was working in WWE, and they would do — I think we did three of them, kind of the Jericho retrospectives on DVD, you can’t include those Benoit matches, and they were very important. They were very much an integral part of my career in the WWE, and those matches will never really be seen again. And it’s hard to watch even if they were. There’s a huge chunk of my career that was affected by that, not just from a friendship level, but from a professional level as well.”

What’s your favorite Chris Benoit vs. Chris Jericho match? Sound off in the comments below.