Chris Jericho Pushes for Recently Released WWE Star to Join AEW

Of all the wrestlers WWE released last month, Samoa Joe stood out as one of the biggest names that another promotion might want to sign to a new contract. "The Samoan Submission Machine" held world championships in both Ring of Honor and Impact Wrestling before signing with WWE, and while he never reached the heights in the company fans were hoping for he did prove to be a force in the ring, on the microphone and even as a color commentator. Joe had been relegated to the Raw commentary team for nearly a full year prior his release due to an injury, and will now have to wait until mid-July before he can wrestle for another televised promotion.

AEW's Chris Jericho was asked if the company had interest in any of the recently-released stars and quickly brought up all of the potential big matchups Joe could have.

"You look at a guy like Tucker for example, I don't know if we would take him tomorrow, we might, but it seems to me if he goes and proves what he can do and what he's capable of, well then absolutely," Jericho told the New York Post. "Obviously, the one name that stands out as an established main-event heavyweight champion guy is Samoa Joe. Those guys have three months before they can go anywhere. But I'd love to see Joe in an AEW ring at some point. That's another dream match if you want to go there. I've never. I think we had one little, three-minute s--tty little match on Raw and it was just kind of thrown away. And I didn't want to do it because I said this is a pay-per-view match, but that's the WWE style. I think Joe and Jericho, Joe and Omega, Joe with Cody, Joe with put name here is a money match."

In an interview with ComicBook last week, Jericho put his support behind an invasion angle with New Japan Pro-Wrestling.

"There's a couple of matches there that I would love have," Jericho said. "[Minoru] Suzuki and Jericho. I think [Will] Ospreay and Jericho. I think Kenny and myself as a tag team against Tana and [Kazuchika] Okada or against [Kota] Ibushi and Okada. That's a Tokyo Dome main event. So all of those matches are in the pipeline. I love Japan. I've been there 60 times since 1991. And when I was there, gosh, a thousand years ago, January 4th, 2020, I guess Tanahashi, I had one of my favorite matches I've ever had. So there's no reason to not go back other than the fact that we literally can't right now, unless you want to spend two weeks in a hotel room. Which I'm not going to do, and [Jon] Moxley is not going to do, and Kenny's not going to do.

"So I think when that opens up, that's the type of invasion angle I think would make some big money," he continued. "Because New Japan is one of the biggest companies in the world with some legit, legendary mainstream stars. And I just love the concept of AEW invading them in Osaka, Dominion in June, and then doing a Tokyo Dome invasion show, and then coming back to do a Madison Square Garden invasion show in our backyard, or Staples Center, something along those lines. So that's an invasion that I really could get off on and get behind for sure."