Taz welcomes Mike Johnson from PWInsider to the show to start this special 3-hour, 500th episode of The Taz Show.

Johnson informs that Luke Harper was sent home from WWE’s overseas tour on Friday, and WWE reshuffled the weekend shows in order to account for Harper’s absence. Taz says he hopes that everything is okay with Harper physically and with his family back home and Johnson agrees, saying that Harper is the most underrated performer on the roster.

Taz asks Johnson about the news that John Cena is being sued by Ford Motor Company. Johnson informs that those rumours are true and apparently the lawsuit originates from the fact that Cena had a lease of a new Ford sports car which he wasn’t allowed to sell in the first two years. Cena did not oblige by his contract and sold the car quickly, reportedly to pay off some bills.

Taz says this is very strange, and it’s rather shocking to think that someone like Cena is having financial difficulty. He admits that the more money you make, the more you spend.

Johnson informs that Anthem is giving all their current Superstars legal ownership of their characters/gimmicks. This has led to WWE and Matt Hardy bringing the ‘Broken’ gimmick to WWE where it will be slightly altered and referred to as ‘Woken’. Taz thinks this is going to be awesome, and he just hopes that WWE goes full throttle with the gimmick.

Taz welcomes Jim Ross to the show.

Taz jokes about his inability to sell his opponents offence during his in-ring career. He says he tried very hard to sell for his opponents but he was just terrible at it. He recalls Joey Styles approaching him at one point when he was working as a babyface, saying that he couldn’t get sympathy for him from an announcing perspective because his selling was so bad.

Ross informs that his book, Slobberknocker: My Life in Wrestling, is now in it’s 4th printing and he’s very proud of the success it has had thus far. He almost didn’t finish writing it after his wife died but he remembered his Father telling him at a young age that quitting is the easiest thing in the world to do, so he finished it and he’s glad he did.

Ross mentions that he’s working a busy schedule as of late, with dates booked for NJPW, WWE, as well as his own one-man shows. In 2018 he will be doing a string of two-man shows with jerry ‘The King’ Lawler, which he’s really looking forward to. He says that he likes being out of the house and working, and Taz credits his constant work ethic which was really respected by the boys in WWE’s locker room back in the day.

Ross mentions that he thinks the boys approved of him as a Talent Relations Manager back in the day because he treated them like men, and not just like employees that he could boss around.

Taz welcomes John Morrison to the show.

Morrison informs that he’s currently under contract to both Lucha Underground and Impact Wrestling. He thinks there are a couple of other wrestlers who are going to be working under the same conditions next year. Taz says that Morrison can help any roster he joins because he’s a professional talent who doesn’t give promotions anything to worry about from a professionalism standpoint.

Morrison is currently pursuing an acting career and mentions that it can be quite difficult getting cast in films. He is quite confident in his appearance and his physical abilities, but it can be humbling to show up at a casting call where there are 50 other men who looks exactly like him.

Taz welcomes Chris Jericho to the show.

Taz asks Jericho why he blocked him on Twitter a couple of years ago. Jericho says that Taz had said a few negative things about him on his show, and there was one thing that Taz tweeted in 2015 that really bothered him. Jericho was a part of WWE’s live event that aired live from MSG in 2015, and this show marked his 25th anniversary in the business.

He cut an emotional promo that night that went a little long and Taz tweeted something out while watching it live, suggesting that Jericho wrap it up and get the match going. This tweet bothered Jericho because that promo was very emotional for him. Both men share a laugh over this and Taz apologizes for tweeting that out.

Jericho accepts the apology and says that much like Vince McMahon, Taz is an emotional guy at heart. Taz and Jericho talk about how McMahon would always hide any illness throughout the years because he hates showing weakness. Jericho actually took a picture of McMahon sleeping on the floor during one of WWE’s overseas tours years ago, and when McMahon saw it he made Jericho delete it immediately.

Taz praises Jericho for his longevity in the business, and Jericho says he found out a long time ago that it’s better for him to work as a part-time talent so he can come and go feely. This keeps his character fresh and he learned that from Hulk Hogan’s similar schedule in the 90s. His most recent WWE run was a lot of fun but after culminating the Jericho/Owens storyline at WrestleMania, he knew there wasn’t much left for him to do.

He knows that as a babyface in WWE you either win the WWE Title, or you move backwards down the card so once he knew he wasn’t going to win the Title, he thought it was a great time to leave again for a while. He informs that the Owens/Jericho storyline was initially supposed to culminate at WrestleMania for the WWE Title, where Jericho would win and then drop the Title to Brock Lesnar at the next PPV.

Jericho mentions that telling a story is much more important to him at this point than individual match quality. He’s more concerned with selling out stadiums than he is delivering a 6-star match, but he thinks that all of his matches are good anyways because he understands how to tell a story in the ring.

McMahon was fine with the news that Jericho was going to challenge Kenny Omega at WrestleKingdom, knowing that Jericho’s a WWE guy who’s now going to be waving the WWE flag in Japan. In addition, after working an event this big, when Jericho returns to WWE his return will mean so much more.

Jericho informs that it was actually him who demanded that McMahon hire doctors for the backstage area, after he was forced to sit in an Emergency room for several hours after a WWE show to get stitches. He was one of WWE’s top guys at that time and pointed out to McMahon that a Billion dollar company like WWE should have their own doctors backstage and McMahon agreed.

That sums up the special 500th episode of The Taz Show. You can listen to the show yourself anytime here, and I’ll catch ya tomorrow for another recap!