AEW stars heading to independent wrestling shows is nothing new, but for this big name it was undoubtedly a big surprise.
Prior to walking out a PWG Battle of Los Angeles, Chris Jericho hadn’t appeared on an independent wrestling event since wrestling with Ohio Valley Wrestling in summer 2003. Even this match comes with the caveat that Jericho was a WWE contracted performer at the time and OVW was a main developmental territory. Before that, aside from three memorial shows, including one for Brian Pillman in 1998, Jericho hadn’t wrestled for a true independent since 1996.
AEW Stars Invade PWG
Jericho’s match was set up following an angle involving Daniel Garcia. The star had been due to team with Jonathan Gresham and Kevin Blackwood to take on Shun Skywalker, Evil Uno and Michael Oku. However, Garcia said that he only teamed with sports entertainers which brought the entire Jericho Appreciation Society to the ring. This set up a 10-man tag team match between Jericho, Garcia, Sammy Guevara, Matt Menard, and Angelo Parker against Gresham, Blackwood, Evil Uno, SB Kento, and Oku. Anna Jay, Tay Melo, Jake Hager and his hat were also at ringside.
Jericho scored the win for his team after hitting Blackwood with the Judas Effect.
In his live notes from the event, Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter described the match as “super entertaining,” adding that it was treated like a major match.
“Super entertaining. They treated this like a major match, all action. They all did the slow motion spot for minutes until Jericho started chopping Oku hard. Jericho and Oku were the highlight, but Jericho gave Blackwood a lot of near falls on him before the bay shot by Garcia set up the Judas Effect.
Jericho called it modern ECW.
Fans wanted Daddy Magic talk.
Fans threw money.”
Chris Jericho was in action on the most recent episode of AEW Dynamite where his losing streak continued, this time at the hands of Ricky Starks.