Chris Jericho says AEW shouldn’t be built around him anymore

A former World Champion and a wrestling veteran, Chris Jericho has now made a bold statement about his AEW career.

A part of the promotion since its inception and the company’s first-ever World Champion, Jericho believes AEW should no longer be built around him.

Speaking on The Wrestling Classic, Jericho opened up on the importance of elevating the younger wrestlers and emphasized how that’s the natural progression of the business.

“You’re part of the foundation. You’re an MVP to the brand, but there’s an uprising of all these new stars, like Kevin Knight, the Will Ospreays, guys that are moving up to the next level,” Jericho added. “Yeah, that’s how the business works. That’s the way it should work is you build stars that can take over for the next generation.

“You know, the show doesn’t need to be built and shouldn’t be built around Chris Jericho at this point, but I think anything that I do has some merit and people enjoy watching because, you know, it’s been such a long time and, you know, we don’t know how much longer it’s going to be. So, I think people are enjoying it more this round as well,” he finished.

The 55-year-old also added that working in AEW means unique matchups and how the promotion doesn’t do repeat matches. Jericho claimed that AEW’s young roster means the possibility of having a variety of matches.

“You know, it’s fun to work with people that I’ve never worked with before. There’s a lot of great young guys on our roster. And there’s a lot of guys I could have great matches with that I’ve worked with before in AEW. We don’t do a lot of repeat matches. That’s the thing. I mean, I worked with [Will] Ospreay once. I worked with Kenny [Omega] once, maybe twice in AEW,” Jericho shared.

Jericho was once heavily rumored to join WWE earlier this year. However, he remained with AEW and now wants to put the younger talent over, without building around him.