Chris Jericho has opened up on Vince McMahon’s shock retirement, believing it will be “best for him” amidst the allegations against him.
‘The Demo God’ last worked for WWE in 2018, entering as the final entrant in the Greatest Royal Rumble match, but that hasn’t stopped him from discussing the ongoing Vince McMahon scandal.
Speaking with Cinema Blend, Chris Jericho, who found mass success in WWE as a multi-time World Champion and record nine-time Intercontinental Champion, stated that he always enjoyed working alongside Vince:
“The thing is, for me, I haven’t worked in the WWE since 2017. And I did work there almost 20 years. I always loved working with Vince. Learned a lot from him. And, you know, he had a great run. And then stepping back is, you know, probably for the best for him, even from a physical standpoint, because he runs himself so ragged from the workload that he has.”
Chris Jericho debuted for the then-WWF in August 1999, having what has been heralded as one of the greatest debuts in company history. Although he’d scaled back the amount of dates he was working towards the end of his run, including multi-year absences in some places while he toured with Fozzy, Jericho remained one of the faces of the company.
He joined All Elite Wrestling in 2019, becoming their inaugural World Champion that August and has remained one of the company’s biggest draws since. When asked if the ongoing drama in WWE would affect AEW, ‘Le Champion’ reaffirmed that AEW worries about its own product:
“I think one of the best things that we’ve done as a company with AEW is obviously we know WWE exists, and obviously we know that they’re out there and they see us as 1,000% competition. But we don’t really worry about what’s going on in their world. We’re much more concerned with our own shows, sharing the best shows we can, and improving everything we can, telling the best stories we can.
So to me, they’re kind of a ship on their own, and we are much more diligent about AEW generally. I mean, like I said, I care, but not really worry. So is it going to affect us anyway? We’ll see… I don’t know if there will ever be, you know, a WWE vs AEW crossover pay-per-view. But stranger things have happened. So, we’ll see.”
Chris Jericho last wrestled on week two of AEW’s Fyter Fest special, defeating rival Eddie Kingston in a Barbed Wire Deathmatch. This followed an equally-as-barbaric encounter when he led The Jericho Appreciation Society into battle for the second Blood and Guts match.