Chris Jericho reveals why he chose AEW over WWE | Exclusive
Chris Jericho says the deciding factor in his decision to remain with AEW was that he has “skin in the game” in the promotion.
Jericho was a guest on Wrestling Observer Radio with Dave Meltzer and Garrett Gonzales on Friday. During the discussion, Meltzer asked Jericho about the main factors that led to his decision to stay with AEW.
Jericho responded:
“When it was time to kind of start thinking about coming back, obviously you weigh your options. And there is a lot of factors, but the bottom line is this, and this was the one that really clinched it for me, was I’ve got skin in the game in AEW.”
“I helped start AEW, and in a lot of ways, if there was no Chris Jericho, there might not have been an AEW. And there certainly wasn’t one before me. There was a WWE before Chris Jericho. There was a New Japan before. There was a CMLL before. And there’ll be an AEW after I leave, obviously.”
“And I can’t wait to see how much bigger the company gets over the next 10 years, etc. But when it came down to it, it was like, I like working for Tony. We had to work some things out, which we did. It wasn’t hard to do.”
Chris Jericho reveals who in AEW he still hopes to work with
Jericho also mentioned several wrestlers in AEW that he would still like to work with.
Earlier in the interview, Jericho revealed that he pitched the idea of wrestling Kevin Knight on Wednesday’s episode of Dynamite from Las Vegas. Jericho later named Ricochet, Jack Perry, Mark Davis, Kyle Fletcher, The Rascalz, and others as people he could potentially work with, either wrestling against or teaming with.
Jericho said:
“Kevin Knight, I would love to do more with him. I’d love to be a tag team with Ricochet. I’d love to be a tag team with Ciampa. I mean, I could do something with Jack Perry. I could work with Mark Davis. I could work with Kyle Fletcher. I could work with The Rascalz. The Rascalz could be like my minions.”
Jericho also said he would like to have matches with Hechicero and Andrade.
Jericho’s full interview on Wrestling Observer Radio is available here for subscribers.
Ian Carey
Ian Carey is the Managing Editor at F4WOnline and a writer based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. His work has appeared in award-winning publications including NOW Magazine and The Huffington Post. He joined the F4WOnline team in 2019 and was named Managing Editor in the summer of 2026. Born in Calgary, Alberta, Ian has covered professional wrestling for more than 15 years.
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