Chris Jericho defended the ROH World Championship against Matt Cardona at ROH Final Battle, and he recently recalled how Cardona was chosen as his opponent. Jericho spoke with Z100 New York before the show about the match and you can see a couple of highlights below, per Wrestling Inc:
On how they picked Cardona as his opponent: “Well, once again, kind of a little bit out of my wheelhouse but Tony Khan, when we started talking about Final Battle and what to do, being the Ring of Honor World Champion, we’re kind of throwing around some names of guys that I could work with and he mentioned Matt Cardona. I thought that’s a great call because nobody would really expect that, and I think Tony really liked the vibe of what we did the last time I was the Ring of Honor Champion which is the ‘The Ocho,’ where I just wrestled a bunch of different guys, you know, and there was guys from different companies and guys that came in from Japan and that sort of thing.”
On Cardona being a good choice considering the location of the show: “Also the fact we’re were going to be based in New York City for, you know, three shows, the better part of a week, came up with the ‘King of New York’ idea, and then I thought, well maybe I just challenge someone from New York. No one would expect Matt Cardona.”