Chris Jericho has given an exclusive insight into how AEW booking differs from WWE.
Having wrestled for every major promotion in the past 30 years, Jericho has seen and been a part of a collection of creative methods.
Chris Jericho Does Not Like Writers In Wrestling
During a live show with Inside The Ropes in 2022, the inaugural AEW World Champion peeled back the curtain on how storylines are put together for Dynamite and Rampage. Beginning the story, Jericho admitted that if AEW was never created, he may have given up wrestling altogether:
Absolutely. And once again, I don’t think I would be wrestling full time if there was no AEW. Because WWE, like I told you earlier, I was just over it. I would have probably stayed in New Japan, but then the lockdown came. I wasn’t going to sit in a hotel room for 14 f*cking days to have a match with nobody. So, who knows what might have happened if there was no AEW? It didn’t matter what might have happened, what did happen was that AEW was created, it became a success, and I was so falling back in love with wrestling again.
Jericho continues, confirming that All Elite Wrestling does not have writers, and revealed how he collaborates with Tony Khan to develop ideas:
But also too, with great power comes great responsibility, is that the SpiderMan line? So I had a lot to do, because we don’t have writers. That is not a gimmick, we don’t have writers. Tony books the show for everybody, except for the pens that give ideas. So from day 1, I write 3 months and 4 months of programmes out, and like I said earlier, let the story lead me. If someone gets injured or something happens, let’s go over here for a while, but I am creating and writing.
So every 2 months, I get Tony on the phone and I go over my 8 to 10 to 12 weeks of what I have. So there are signposts, like connect the dots. We know we have this, we know we have this, we know we have this, we got 3 weeks to fill in here, 3 weeks to fill in there, that will come, but here’s what we are going to get to.
The lack of writers in AEW was a relief to the leader of the Jericho Appreciation Society, who described his frustrations when working with WWE writers and the ever changing mind of Vince McMahon:
So that’s what makes it great, because in WWE a lot of times it would be like draw me a picture. What would you like a picture of Vince? A cow. Ok. [Vince] Oh, make it a horse. Ok? Make it a dragon. Oh, Ok? But with Tony it is like we need a dragon, it might be a green dragon, it might be a red dragon, it might be a fire dragon, but at least we know where we are going with it. So, I loved working with Vince, but it’s the writers.
Every Sunday the writer would call you and say, Here’s what you are doing this week. And that to me is just, I don’t f*cking like that man. I don’t want to be told what I am doing, because I know now that I can write a storyline better than anybody, because I know wrestling. 32 years in the business, I know what to do.
Following on from how AEW creative works, Jericho then referenced those who have been critical of various rivalries in AEW, using his own feud with Eddie Kingston as an example:
I know people’s characters and what you like to see, or what you don’t like to see. So it makes it so much more alive to write these stories. And once again, I don’t take a lot of, you know, stock into it, but people are like it’s too long, it’s too short, it’s too fat, it’s too skinny, it’s too black it’s too white, whatever.
It’s like the Eddie Kingston thing, people are like Eddie should have gotten the pin, it was the blow-off to the Jericho feud at Blood & Guts. How do you know it’s the blow-off to the Jericho feud? Well how can you top Blood & Guts? Well, how can you? I know how, and you’ll find out about it in the next few weeks.
So there’s always a place to go with it, and there’s always the culmination of a story leading into the next one. I’ve got a lot of ideas, some of them are marred by people getting injured, that’s part of the business too. You just go with the flow, you can’t help it when guys get injured, it sucks.
We couldn’t help it when you’d show up for TV [and were told] he’s not here, he’s got COVID. F*ck! Really? Of all the weeks to have COVID, this is the week? I was testing every week in fear, being like please don’t be positive, not this week, please! Blood & Guts, imagine if someone had tested positive?
Le Champion then concluded the story by asking fans to reserve their opinions until the storyline has played out completely and to just enjoy the ride:
So anyway, you always have to just go with it, but you always know it’s going to be good if you rely on your storytelling instincts, and that’s what I say to everyone that watches the show. When I watch a movie, I watch from beginning to end, and then I make my opinion. I watch Titanic and it starts here and it ends here and it’s long. But when it’s over I am like it was a good story, I enjoyed every minute.
So if you don’t like something that I am doing in the middle of it, just shut up and watch. There’s a beginning, a middle and an end. Don’t ask what the end is in the middle of it, because I’m not going to tell you. But also don’t go that sucks! It’s not over yet you idiot, just watch the show! Shut up!
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