Chris Jericho vs. Mickey Rourke at Wrestlemania 25

[Deleted]

Coming off the buzz of The Wrestler, I thought McMahon had this in the bag. The question is, did you personally want to see this?

Or were you happy enough with plan b of Piper/Snuka/Steamboat?

I think this match would been big if it had happened and it's a shame it didn't.

[Deleted]

Not at all. Steamboat's effort alone made that match feel memorable and special. I don't see Jericho walking a near 60 year old Rourke through basic steps being any better than what we got.

[Deleted]

I really wanted the Rourke match. Wanted to see if Jericho could carry him to a good match, and to see just how much training Rourke did for The Wrestler. I also thought it would've been a HUGE business move for WWE, though I was probably mistaken.

[Crusty Ruffles]

At the time, yeah, I did. It would've been a sight to see and I think Jericho would've been the person to carry him to a good match.

In hindsight, I'm glad it didn't. Seeing Steamboat in that match, and his little mini run after that, was far more memorable.

[hughmorris]

At the time i wanted to see the match. I know the wrestler was just a movie but Mickey looked like he was in great shape and Jericho could have easily made him look like a million bucks. However, seeing Ricky in the ring again just proves that every great superstar has a few great matches still left in them.

[Deleted]

If that happened, we probably wouldn't have had Jericho/Steamboat at Backlash, right? Anyway, at the time I didn't care either way about Rourke being there.

[Deleted]

No. Didn't want it than nor now in Hindsight. We got a great Wrestlemania moment of Steamboat who got a better wrestling farewell than he did before. Plus Rourke knocked him out after the match, everyone looked great.

[Aaron E. Dangerously]

I would have liked to see this, but without Rourke we got an AWESOME few matches from Steamboat, when we were all like "oh shit, is he competing for the IC title again?"

I marked. Marked so hard.

[Slanted and Enchanted]

If Mickey won the Oscar then yes a match between him and Jericho would have been a huge deal and great for publicity. I felt that the Oscar snub derailed the angle big time. The entire storyline was riding on the publicity of 'The Wrestler' and the anticipated success of an Oscar win. You could even tell that Jericho was at a painful loss for material when he cut his promo the night after the Academy awards.

So I think Plan B worked out best. Steamboat salvaged the whole thing.

[CM Parish]

So why didn't they wrestle?

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

I really wanted it at the time, but the match we got was beautiful and Steamboat alone was worth it.