Chris Jericho is talking about his time on the show, calling it one of the hardest things he has ever done.
Chris isn’t the only one to make such claims. The Miz, who was on Dancing with the Stars Season 30, said dancing was more challenging than professional wrestling training. Miz mentioned that there were muscles he didn’t even know he had that were sore after dance training, and that was just part of what made training so hard for the competition.
Chris appeared on the Kicking It with the Koves podcast, where he explained his position.
Chris Jericho on Dancing with the Stars troubles
Chris Jericho spoke with host Martin Kove (Karate Kid’s John Kreese) and his kids, Jesse and Rachel. Martin was on DWTS in Season 30 and did his best for a man his age, so he knows how hard it is to train and compete on the show. Chris was on the show in Season 12, and he made it further, so he put in a lot more work, although he was out before The Miz was in Season 30.
Chris, now working for AEW as one of their top stars, said he enjoyed his time on the show.
“It was hard, man. It is not easy to do,” Chris said. “And I turned it down twice. ‘Cause I was really good friends with Stacy Keibler, who was in the WWE, and she did Dancing With The Stars. And she was a huge hit.
Stacy is a former WWE manager and wrestler who is part of the company’s Hall of Fame.
He continued, “If you go back and watch, she was one of the first kind of breakout stars from Dancing With The Stars. Her legs were weapons of mass destruction – was what they called her legs. So she had a lot of influence on the show, and she kept suggesting me to the casting directors.”
Chris had started to branch out and wasn’t full-time in WWE anymore. He had his new rock band Fozzy and he was traveling with the band when he finally said yes to DWTS.
“When I finally accepted it, I remember I was on tour with Fozzy in Ireland and I was outside on the street talking about it,” Chris said. “And I was, like, ‘Listen, I’ve gotta do this. Because if I don’t, I’ll always wonder. And now I’m just a dick if I turn them down. They obviously really want me to do it, they really think that I can do it, so let me give it a try.'”
Chris Jericho on his time on Dancing with the Stars
Chris Jericho made it to Week 6 with his partner, Cheryl Burke, before he was eliminated.
“I think one of the reasons why I did fairly good — I think I lasted six weeks or seven weeks — was because dancing is choreography, which wrestling has a lot of choreography,” Chris said.
“I enjoyed it, but, man, it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done,” he continued. “Even if you put the time into it, you still might not succeed. But if you aren’t a hundred percent focused on this, you’re not gonna last. And that’s even if you have any aptitude for it, ’cause it’s very difficult. It was a lot of fun, but it was very hard though.”
Dancing with the Stars is on hiatus. The dancing reality competition series will return in late 2022 to its new home on Disney+ streaming.