Fresh off disbanding The Inner Circle, Chris Jericho has spoken on the potential of him retiring his iconic Judas entrance theme in AEW.
Chris Jericho is one of the names synonymous with All Elite Wrestling, acting as the promotion’s first big coup when he was unveiled at the company’s media rally in early January 2019. He has since gone on to become one of their biggest stars, being the inaugural World Champion and forging the Inner Circle group on their debut Dynamite episode that October.
Now serving as the leader of The Jericho Appreciation Society following his turn on Ortiz and Santana, Jericho has revealed there’s been more than one occasion where he’s legitimately considered ditching Judas, performed by his band Fozzy that served as both his and The Inner Circle’s soundtrack, in favour of something more in line with his new persona.
The wrestling legend noted as such on Busted Open Radio, discussing the heat he may receive if he were to rob the AEW audience of one of its most beloved treasures (h/t Fightful):
“Well I mean, it’s something that I always think about. But it’s also something that, are you cutting off your nose to spite your face? We have something very special in AEW that happened very organically and I think it kind of transcends heel or babyface. I think it’s one of the very special moments that’s synonymous with AEW that nobody else has in any wrestling company. Nowhere has a song that everybody sings the moment that we come out, I come out.
The difference is, even if they did sing other people’s songs, this is my song. It’s my song. So I have thought about retiring it a few times. I might retire it. I might retire it tonight. But I also think that the show business aspect of it and the spectacle of it far outweighs whether I’m a heel or a babyface because the point of pro wrestling is to get people involved and to have them hooked and get them into the show.
This is a great example of that, that we didn’t have to shove down anybody’s throat, it just happened. I think that’s something special. To take that away just because I’m a bad guy might get some heat for a week or two, but I think keeping it on and maybe spinning it a little bit differently, I’ll figure that out, I always do, I think it’s more important to have that. Like I said, the spectacle of it, I think, is something that’s just very, very special that you can’t see anywhere else.”
As well as being a former AEW World Champion, Chris Jericho has also won two 2021 Dynamite Awards for the Biggest Beatdown when he and The Inner Circle ambushed Orange Cassidy, and the Bleacher Report PPV Moment of the Year for the inaugural Stadium Stampede match. ‘The Demo God’ has also won a number of awards from media outlets for his contributions towards All Elite Wrestling.
On the latest AEW Dynamite, Chris Jericho held a Jericho Appreciation Society Commencement, where he renamed 2point0’s Matt Lee and Jeff Parker to ‘Daddy Magic’ Matt Minard and ‘Cool Hand Ang’ Angelo Parker.