On December 14, Chris Jericho made a surprise appearance at GCW Highest In The Room 3, where he attacked Matt Cardona, aiding Effy in securing the win. Jericho then turned his attention to Effy with another assault.

This surprise appearance was planned to hype Jericho’s ROH World Title defense against Cardona at Final Battle 2024.

During a recent appearance on the “Z100” podcast, Jericho revealed how his cameo was planned.

“We were looking at Matt’s dates because I really wanted to do something on an independent show because he’s the King of the Indies and you want to create buzz for this. I wanted to do something that gets extra focus on it. I was looking at his independent dates and he was in Los Angeles at GCW and I just happened to have a gig at the Whiskey with KUARANTINE [Jericho’s KISS cover band]. serendipity, it’s fate. We have to do this. That’s the basic reason. Everyone thinks, ‘Is this an olive brand with GCW?’ No. I just happened to be literally in the same city on the same date with this idea of ​​wanting to attack him. We worked it out later, Matt went on earlier, and we put this together.”

Cardona was originally set to compete against Ricky Starks, but AEW pulled Starks from the event, reportedly due to comments made by Effy about AEW President Tony Khan and Shahid Khan.

Jericho triumphed over Cardona at Final Battle 2024, successfully defending his ROH World Title.