There's a long, storied history of backstage 'fights' in WWE. Some true, some ridiculously false.
The idea of anyone wanting to get into it with Brock Lesnar voluntarily seems absolutely mental to anyone with half a brain, but that's exactly what Chris Jericho did at SummerSlam in 2016.
Brock Lesnar is a monster of a man whose 6ft 3in, 275lb-frame would frighten anyone, much less someone like Jericho, whose 200lbs pales into significance against his rival's brute force.
Lesnar also won the NCAA Division 1 title for wrestling in college and was the UFC heavyweight champion of the world. He is not just built for show.
What was the 'fight' over? What really happened?
Believe it or not, the fight was over Randy Orton.
To give you the proper context to the story, you need to go back to 2001 when Orton and Lesnar were training in OVW in one of the most stacked, talented classes in the history of the business where names like John Cena, Batista and Shelton Benjamin graduated around the same time.
They came up together in the WWE system, but from very different routes. Lesnar was a freak of nature, a once in a lifetime athlete WWE was tasked with moulding into a star.
Orton was a third-generation wrestler - only the second one ever after The Rock - and had every natural-given talent one could ask for from ability to his look.
While the pair bonded in those early days, they never worked together during Lesnar's initial run in WWE between 2002 and 2004. After he returned in 2012, it seemed like a matter of time before they locked horns, but fans were still forced to wait four more years.
At SummerSlam, after both men amassed Hall of Fame worthy careers and then some, they finally met in the ring for the first time.
While Orton was one of the last stars who could believably put on something great with Lesnar, the Beast Incarnate was booked to pretty much maul through him.
Although the match went 11 minutes at 45 seconds, Orton didn't get too much in the way of offence and the match would actually end via technical knockout after Lesnar opened up Orton and knocked him out.
That's not a regular occurrence in WWE. By this point, blood was also extremely rare, so the combination of the two left many confused as to what was going on, but it made for a brutal, dramatic finale to the pay-per-view.
Backstage, Chris Jericho was going crazy at what he was seeing. According to journalist Dave Meltzer, the grappling legend got angrier when longtime WWE producer Michael Hayes wasn't giving him answers when asking if what had happened was supposed to.
In the gorilla position, Jericho wanted to check on Orton who had legitimately suffered a concussion after Lesnar opened him up the hard way. In wrestling, that means he made him bleed without the aid of a razor blade - it was a bad gash.
Ryan Satin of Pro Wrestling Sheet then reports Lesnar, unhappy that Jericho was freely calling the finish “bull****” to anyone who would listen in gorilla, loudly told Jericho this was none of his business.
That incensed Jericho and only spurned him on to ask more questions, resulting in Lesnar shoving him.
Not to back down, Jericho rushed in and tried getting face-to-face with The Beast. Not an overly advisable move in anyone's playbook.
The report then says Lesnar kissed him on the forehead and said, “kiss me back, p***y.”
Jericho didn’t back down, though and was ready to fight.
What caused everyone to get involved and break it up was when Lesnar responded, with his arms behind his back, saying “hit me or kiss me, bitch."
At that point, Meltzer says Vince McMahon and Triple H got in the middle of it and ushered Brock away. Satin says McMahon admonished Jericho for not being more professional, considering his tenure and position as a locker room leader.
Jericho responded by saying Lesnar was the unprofessional one for shooting on a co-worker, which caused McMahon to state: "It’s a work! What’s wrong with you?!”
When Randy Orton was asked about the incident while doing an interview for his TV role in Shooter, the Apex Predator said the only thing Jericho was guilty of was looking out for him.
“Basically, what happened is Jericho saw what was going on in the ring and wanted answers as to whether my best interests were in mind as far as my health and safety,” explained Orton. “I had my family there, sitting front row, and Chris knew that, as well. He was just coming up to check on his boy, that’s what it boiled down to, and I think that’s awesome.
“You hear all these things about how they were going to fight, but I don’t think Jericho wanted to fight Brock, I’m just going to throw that out there,” said Orton. “I think he was coming up to just make sure everything was cool. It’s unfortunate that in that small space, with the dozen bodies in there, somehow that leaked and everybody knew about it. That’s very unfortunate. It was blown way out of proportion, and Jericho just wanted to check on one of his fellow boys in the locker room.
“I have a lot of respect for Brock. I was down in OVW with him, and I was there a few months before he came. We all knew he was coming, but when he came, he was humble and a fun guy to be around. He’s still the same way. He’s been through a lot, and he’s really became a name in this business and in MMA.”
The fact that McMahon green-lit such a brutal finish at all, let alone in this day and age, is quite staggering on many levels. It seems that was the fact that Jericho struggled with too.
Speaking on his podcast, Jericho explained what happened short of the finer details.
"Well, you know, anytime something like that happens there’s always a lot of rumours and a lot of stories being told. Not to get into specifics… it was basically between me and Brock, but we did have a little bit of a brouhaha, shall we say.
"I think that happens when you get guys that are in a sport such as ours – half-entertainment, half-real, half-not…. I just thought the finish of that match was very brutal and very violent, and I just didn’t know if Randy was OK. I was checking on Randy, my friend. We’ve always been pretty close.
"I said something and he said something and next thing you know we’re nose to nose kind of yelling at each other. And [it] diffused fairly quickly.
"Listen, let’s make no bones about this, Brock is a trained fighter, and he’s a beast. I’m not the type of person to back down from anybody – to my detriment. Hot head fire off and we were in each other’s face and that happens sometimes. I guess I kind of have a reputation for it too, I never back down. In the case of guys his size, they think people are just going to wilt, and most people do. I’m glad he didn’t eat me.
"Basically, there was a face-to-face confrontation and I’ll leave the rest between the two of us."
In a radio interview a year later, Jericho admitted he was contemplating evening the playing field by biting Lesnar's nose off if things got really serious. No, really!
"I remember I was face-to-face with him and I just remember looking at him [and thinking], ‘He’s got the biggest, ugliest nose’. Like this f*cking giant nose, and I’m like, if he does anything, I’m just gonna bite his nose off." Jericho said. "He’s gonna kill me either way, so he’s gonna kill me with no nose. I don’t care.”
This was a mammoth story the day after SummerSlam in 2016, but ultimately it seems Jericho jumped the gun and there was a lot of confusion about the situation, much of which probably could have been sorted out had Michael Hayes just told him it was a work in the first place.
Either way, Lesnar was prepared to fight and that is a scary place to be. Credit to Jericho for not backing down and living to tell the tale.
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