Fozzy frontman and wrestling legend Chris Jericho has spent decades in the spotlight, but even he isn’t immune to being starstruck—or terrified—by rock royalty. In a new interview with Jon Mahon of “Kerrang! Radio,” Jericho opened up about his memorable run-ins with Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, ranging from backstage comedy at the WWE to a parking lot disaster that nearly got him evicted from Ozzfest.
Jericho recalled a specific time when the Prince of Darkness guest-hosted WWE’s flagship show, “RAW.” According to Jericho, Vince McMahon often paired him with celebrity guests because he could be relied upon to save the segment.
“We did a bit backstage for the ‘RAW‘ thing where whenever we had these guest GMs — every week we’d have a guest general manager; it was like a stunt —and I would always get put in with whoever the general manager was because they knew I would make the segment good,” Jericho explained (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). “‘Cause a lot of these guys, like [American civil rights and social justice activist] Reverend Al Sharpton, sucked as an on-air guy, but put ’em with Jericho and they’ll make it good. And Vince [McMahon, then-World Wrestling Entertainment chairman and CEO] would always put me with them.”
When Ozzy arrived, Jericho was eager to work with him. The sketch involved Jericho berating the metal icon, but it hit a snag over a specific word.
“So I do this thing where I talk that Ozzy’s gone soft and I lost respect for him and all these different things. ‘And it used to be The Ultimate Sin, but now you can’t even stand up straight,’ or whatever the hell I said. And at the end, Vince wanted Ozzy to call me a w*nker. And Ozzy’s, like, ‘I can’t call him a w*nker.’ And Vince is, like, ‘Well, no one’s gonna know that.’ And he’s, like, ‘But your show airs in England and everyone knows what w*nker means there. You can’t show that in England. They’ll edit it out.’ And Vince was, like, ‘Oh, wow. You’re right.'”
Jericho laughed at the irony of the situation: “When did you ever think Ozzy would be the voice of reason on when not to swear on TV?”
Jericho also shared a “hilarious” but frightening memory involving Zakk Wylde and a furious Sharon Osbourne. The incident occurred at an Ozzfest date where Jericho and Wylde decided to play an impromptu game of baseball near the tour buses.
“Zakk and I, at one Ozzfest [Ozzy’s traveling heavy metal festival], drank a lot of beer at the time, and we decided to play baseball in the parking lot where the buses were parked. Why not, right?” Jericho said.
After Wylde mocked Jericho’s pitching arm, Jericho decided to throw some heat.
“So I throw this ball like straight down the middle. It’s like Nolan Ryan [American former professional baseball pitcher], and Zakk connects with it, and it goes all the way out into the parking lot, over the fence of where the buses were into the actual general parking lot. And as he’s running the non-existent bases, we hear this, ‘What the f**k are you doing?’ And we turn, and it’s Sharon, and she’s power walking towards us. She might have even been wearing a pants suit. That’s what I just remember. And [I was f**king] terrified.”
Sharon did not mince words.
“This is Sharon: ‘What the f**k are you doing?’ And she’s screaming at us. She’s, like, ‘If that ball hit somebody on the head, we could get sued and lose this entire festival.’ She’s, like, ‘What were you thinking, Zakk?’ And then she looks at me and goes, ‘And who the f**k are you?’ ‘I’m nobody.’ She says, ‘You’re right. You’re nobody. Get outta my face.’ So me and Zakk were almost running to the bus, his bus. And he’s trying to put the key code in so we can get on. It was like a horror movie. We finally get on the bus and we start howling.”
Years later, when the Osbournes hosted “RAW,” Jericho recounted the story to them.
“Ozzy heard that and thought that was hilarious. ‘Who the f**k are you, man? Who the f**k are you?’ Sharon pinches me on the ass on the way out. I don’t know why. And Ozzy‘s, like, ‘All right, man. See you later. Who the f**k are you?’ Just a couple of brushes with him.”
Reflecting on his fandom, Jericho noted that Fozzy ended up releasing a cover of “Crazy Train” as a tribute.
“So when Ozzy passed, [Fozzy] had done a cover of ‘Crazy Train‘, gosh, probably six years earlier, because the Judas album was gonna get re-released with some bonus tracks. It never happened, so we had this version in the can. And I said when he passed away, ‘Why don’t we release this as a single, touch it up a bit and see how it goes?’ And it ended up being a Top 10 song for us there.”
