Chris Jericho has discussed why he doesn’t feel like he needs a corporate job title to help Tony Khan steer the ship of AEW.
AEW has been besieged by backstage drama and chaos since things came to a head following the All Out pay-per-view in Chicago. CM Punk lambasted several AEW stars including The Young Bucks and Adam Page at the post-show media scrum which led to a physical fight when The Bucks confronted him in his locker room.
Everybody involved in the fight and those involved in trying to break it up has been suspended by the company while an investigation takes place with allegations of punches and chairs being thrown as well as Kenny Omega seemingly being bitten by Punk’s friend and AEW producer Ace Steel.
Following that bedlam, a pre-show meeting was held before Dynamite in Buffalo with Chris Jericho, Jon Moxley, and Bryan Danielson all attempting to calm the waters. Jericho has been praised in recent weeks for stepping up in a locker room leader role as well as his “calm demeanour” at the All Out media scrum where he was the one who told Tony Khan in a private comment that things had gone south backstage.
Speaking to Inside The Ropes’ Alex McCarthy for talkWRESTLING Chris Jericho was asked about his role in helping Tony Khan and explained why he didn’t need a corporate job title to make a difference to AEW:
“I don’t need a job title to help the company. I mean, I do it every day, whenever I show up to TV, it’s a constant, you know, constant working from two o’clock until the show is over if I’m wrestling or not. And that’s the way it should be. I mean, there’s not a lot of guys that have been doing this as long as I have in our locker room. There’s Sting and there’s Dustin Rhodes and there’s me. I’m one of the original AEW guys who was probably very integral in getting the company off the ground in a lot of ways.”
“So I don’t have a problem with giving advice and helping people, it’s what I’m there for, it’s part of my job. I don’t need, like I said, it doesn’t have to be written on a business card. Or, you know, director of EDP or whatever the f*ck it is, who cares? I’m Chris Jericho, that trumps all of that.”
Chris Jericho then discussed the importance of building new stars and used his Jericho Appreciation Society star and new ROH Pure Champion Daniel Garcia as the perfect example of that:
“So that’s part of like I said, it’s part of what I do. And it’s been my mission since day one was always to build stars because it’s the crux of what makes a company grow. And I think we’ve done such a great job of that in the last three years. And like you mentioned, no one knew Daniel Garcia was six months ago, now he’s one of the hottest guys on our show, and that’s what we do.”
“And we continue to do that on a weekly basis. And not everybody is on TV every week. But everybody’s there to continue to build and grow. And I think you see that with the amount of names that we’ve built and are continuing to build and there’s so many more that are just bubbling under the surface that when they get the chance they’re going to shoot up as well.”
To see the full interview and more chats with wrestling’s top stars, check out the Inside The Ropes YouTube channel!
If you use any quotes from this article please credit Inside The Ropes and h/t with a link back to this article.