Chris Jericho Weighs In On Jimmy Jacobs' Firing; Praises The Writer For Coming Up With The List Gimmick
WWE recently fired writer/producer and former ROH talent Jimmy Jacobs for taking a picture with "invading" members of The Bullet Club, and now his friend Chris Jericho has weighed in on what went down...
Last week, we reported that WWE backstage producer and former Ring of Honor tag-team champion Jimmy Jacobs had parted ways with the company over a selfie he took with The Bullet Club during their recent parking lot "invasion."
At the time, WWE (ie, Vince) was criticised for being so petty about the situation, but one man who sees where they're coming from is former WWE champion and Jacobs. pal, Chris Jericho.
During an interview with Metal Injection, Y2J praised Jimmy for his talent, while also explaining why he feels his friend should have known better:
"Jimmy’s good, and if I was there I would’ve tried to help him out, but it’s not the smartest of moves. If I work at McDonalds and post a picture of me hanging out with guys from Wendy’s and hashtag ‘Wendy’s is great,’ McDonalds might not be too happy about it … “I think Jimmy’s a smart guy and maybe wouldn’t surprise me if he knew something was going to happen. Maybe he was getting sick of it, I don’t know. I just know as soon as I saw that picture, I was just like ‘ooof,’ with the hashtag ‘#BCInvasion,’ you can’t do that man. I mean, you can’t. Was it a fireable offense? Well, it’s not my decision; obviously Vince thought it was, which tells me there was probably some other stuff going on and that was the final straw."
Jericho also touched on the fact that Jacobs actually came up with the idea of The List, and says he frequently sought him out for his promo expertise:
“And I will say this, last year, 2016, Jimmy Jacobs was my co-writer on all of it. All of it! And the weeks he wasn’t there I was like ‘Ah f—, I don’t like this, I want Jimmy.’ So he’s very talented, and he really got me. I worked with him a few times and I went to [head writer] Dave Kapoor, I want Scoville, which is his real name, Chris Scoville, on every Jericho promo. No one else. Because that’s how much I trusted his talent, his instincts.”
What happened is a shame and will probably wind up hurting the company if and when Jimmy begins working for another promotion, but as Jericho alludes to, there may have been more going on behind-the-scenes than we realise.