Why Have Mike Tyson and Chris Jericho Joined Forces on AEW Dynamite?

Boxing legend Mike Tyson made his return to AEW Dynamite last week and surprisingly saved Chris Jericho from an attack by The Pinnacle faction. Jericho and Tyson have been enemies in the past, tracing back to a decade-old episode of Monday Night Raw and their pull-apart brawl last summer (which was supposed to lead to a pay-per-view match but fell through). Tyson spoke on the latest Road to AEW Dynamite special this week and explained his sudden change of heart.

“Of course everybody knows I have a long relationship with Mr. Chris Jericho,” Tyson said. “And what’s the use of making enemies with someone that you’ve known so long?”

Tyson will serve as the special guest enforcer for a match on this week’s Dynamite between Jericho and Dax Harwood of FTR.

Despite being well past his boxing prime, Jericho has openly stated he could bring a solid match out of the former heavyweight champion.

“I’d like to see it go all the way. Mike has been an enforcer, Mike has thrown a punch that has knocked somebody out — which is me — and Mike’s been involved in this wild and wooly brawl,” Jericho told WrestleZone last year. “The one thing he has never done is have a match, and I think this is the perfect time for him. The aura and the mystique of Mike Tyson is back. He looks great, you’ve seen his sparring videos, he moves fast, he’s ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson again.

“Probably one of the worst things you could do is put him in an actual boxing match. Maybe if it’s somebody in his own era and doing kind of an exhibition and that sort of thing, but we want to keep Mike Tyson’s aura at a maximum which is why AEW is perfect for him. We can do whatever storyline we choose and wrestling is all shapes and sizes, we can do whatever we need to do and plug him into any situation that we want to make it. I think there’s no better person for that than Chris Jericho after all these years of doing this who is kind of a ‘Mike Tyson’ of wrestling. I’ve never lost my aura or my mystique but you can see that I’m doing some of the best work in my career after doing this for 30 years. So it’s a perfect match-up.