WWE.com: The reaction to your anti-Internet commentary has been huge. Was it a one-time explosion on your part, or do you still believe in what you said?

Chris Jericho: Of course I believe what I said; I wouldn't have written it if I didn't believe in it. I've been a big fan of the Internet since 1997, when I first started my Web site, and basically over the last couple of years, I've seen (the Internet) really get run into the ground. It's turned into a very negative, dark place, where it used to be a positive place where you could communicate with friends and communicate with other people who enjoy the same things that you enjoy. Now it's just a very depressing, very negative place. I'm not a negative person and I don't like reading negative things.

It all started on my message board about a year and a half ago, when all these people were going on my message board and saying how much they hated me, how bad I was. I just figured, why would you go on a message board for a site promoting me and start burying me? So I shut the message board down. It was just a negative place, and that was my reaction to this too.

It's like I said -- it was a breaking point for me. I'm just sick of all the negativity. I'm a huge wrestling fan -- I always have been -- and I want to see wrestling survive and get better. So I look at the positive sides of things instead of the negative sides. If I watch a show and there's three things that suck and seven things that are great, let's talk about the seven great things instead of the three things that sucked for once, please. And if not, why do you even bother wasting your time watching it? It's like marrying a gorgeous girl, but then constantly telling her how bad she is. Why even get married in the first place?

So that's where I stood, and I haven't really been on the Internet since, except for my e-mail and going to music sites. I haven't gone to wrestling sites; I don't know what the reaction (to my commentary) has been, and I don't really care, because as for right now, I'm burned out on the Internet, and it's no fun for me to go on anymore if it's just going to be a negative place, and I have no place for that in my life. That's why I wrote it, and I stand behind it. If people like it, great, if they don't like it, great, but it doesn't matter anymore to me. All I care about is the people that are in this arena and the people that are in the back working their asses off to put on a great show every night. That's the people whose opinions I care about; not the people who sit at home and hate everything we do.

WWE.com: Let's talk about last week's episode of SmackDown! You're in your favorite arena -- Allstate Arena in Chicago -- wrestling Hollywood Hulk Hogan, and Edge comes back. It must have been a very memorable night for you.

Jericho: I was talking last week about the Allstate Arena and how I always have good shows there, and that night too was a great show. I had a great time in that match with Hogan. I hate using the term "stole the show," but we definitely had the crowd going. We tore the house down, but a lot of guys tore the house down last week. I thought last week's SmackDown! was an awesome show, with great performances from a lot of different guys, and some new guys we've never seen. Working with Hogan -- I think it's the best match we've had, and we've had quite a few. The crowd was reacting so sweet, and that moment where Edge came back was really, really cool. It goes into the list of great moments at the Allstate Arena for me. I even busted out a few things in that match that I haven't done in a while that I have to add back to my repertoire, like skinning the cat. It was fun; I love stuff like that for a heel.

WWE.com: How was the trip to Germany with your heavy metal band, Fozzy?

Jericho: It was great. We played at the "Bang Your Head Festival" on Friday night, the first night. A couple of things I didn't know -- one, that "Happenstance," our new album, came out July 1, which was Monday, and we played June 28, so it was a big promotion directly for the record. In Germany, there's not a lot of WWE TV coverage, so a lot of the people didn't know who I was or know the concept of who Fozzy was. So there were a lot of people, even people from my own record company, who thought maybe the German fans wouldn't understand this and might turn on us while we were playing, because German fans are very, very serious about heavy metal. I mean, you look in that crowd, it's like 1985 -- jean jackets and leather, long hair. There is no new metal there, there's no Korn or Limp Bizkit, it's still Iron Maiden and Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne.

We went on stage on the Friday right after a band called Gammaray, which is a very big German band. Also, we found out that Gammaray was not happy about going on before Fozzy, and deservedly so, because Gammaray are like metal legends in Germany, and they were pissed that they had to go on before us. The thing that bothered me about that was that their sound guy was also going to be our sound guy, and what they could do in a rock 'n' roll atmosphere is that their sound guy could screw up our sound and make us sound like crap. I wanted to make sure that didn't happen, so I made amends with the band and their sound guy, and everything was cool with that.

We went on after Gammaray not knowing how the crowd would react. I was a little bit nervous. What we did was use the cheap babyface reaction. When the set started, I had Arthur -- our mascot -- run on stage waving a German flag. It was kind of like the babyface cheap pop of wearing a Boston Bruins jersey here at the FleetCenter, so people cheer. We did that off the bat, and that broke the ice right away. Right from the start, the people were into it, but as the set progressed, the whole crowd got into it. There was about 20,000 or 25,000 people there, and they went bananas for it. Any time you have 20,000 people chanting "Fozzy! Fozzy!" -- you can't beat that.

The set was an hour long. We played a bunch of tracks from the new record, some tracks from the old record and a couple of songs we just do live. Like I said, the crowd was into everything. I talked about metal, I talked about the World Cup -- this is before they lost to Brazil in the finals -- and I talked about beer. We knew if we talked about metal, beer and soccer, we'd get over, and we did. I pulled the old Steve Austin trick, of toasting the crowd, and then just pouring the beer, and about 2 percent of it went in my mouth, the rest fell down my chest. It's called working the crowd -- it's just as important to do there as it is at WWE shows.

A lot of people afterwards told me that we were the most exciting band at the festival and that we stole the show. And that was what we wanted to do. I think we turned everybody's eyes to what Fozzy was, kinda silenced the critics and silenced the doubters. And we kicked some major ass. It was a lot of fun, and a major rush to play in front of that many people. I've done that before with WWE, but playing with my band, I was so proud of our band. The drummer said beforehand that this was our biggest test, and I think we passed with flying colors.

WWE.com: So what can fans expect when Fozzy's second album, "Happenstance," is released in the U.S. on July 30?

Jericho: A lot of people bought the first Fozzy record, and this one is leaps and bounds above that one. It's a great party record. If you like metal, if you like rock 'n' roll, it's a great-sounding record. It's a legitimate, serious, kick-ass band, on CD and live on stage. I was really happy with how the record came out; the production of it is great. And I think our original songs turned out pretty kick-ass too. There's a lot of great tracks on there that we wrote. There's also some cool harmonies and real live guitar solos that you don't really hear much anymore; that's what we're doing that no one else is doing right now. If you like wrestling, check it out, if you like metal, check it out, if you just like a good band, check it out, because I'm very, very proud of it and proud of my band. It's a great party record to put on, have a few beers, and just have some fun.