Earlier this week, AEW made a splash when they officially announced Chris Jericho as a member of their roster. While Jericho working outside of WWE isn’t news, him joining a North American wrestling company seems like something that could irk Vince McMahon.
But according to Jericho, McMahon is cool with it.
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In an interview with Busted Open Radio, Jericho revealed that McMahon knew beforehand that he’d be joining AEW.
“A lot of that stuff is private but I did have a very amicable conversation with him. He knew what I was doing it wasn’t a surprise. I didn’t just show up in Jacksonville and that was it. The bottom line is the Khan family isn’t messing around. They want to make a go at this and you know they have a lot of money and they have a lot of capital,” he said.
Per Jericho, The Khan’s are backing AEW, but are no strangers to sports and entertainment. The Khan’s own both the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Premier League’s Fulham F.C., signaling that a pursuit into professional wrestling won’t be breaking their bank.
With the Khan’s money combined with Cody Rhodes and the Young Buck’s passion, Jericho seems convinced AEW will be a success. Especially now that he’s there.
“That’s another thing that I was going to say,” mentioned Jericho, “By me joining the company, fans and wrestlers most importantly go, ‘Holy sh–, this is the real deal. If Jericho went there, this is real.’ Because a lot of people don’t know Kenny [Omega], or Cody [Rhodes], or The Bucks. We know them, but your average fan doesn’t, and your guy that’s in the WWE making a decent living, but thinks they can do better, now knows that, ‘Wow, Jericho can go there, I can go there too.’”
As for Omega, all indications point to him joining AEW in the near future. There were reports that the international wrestling sensation was passed a handsome WWE offer, but current hearsay has Omega joining his pals at AEW.
For Jericho, this marks the continuation of him becoming wrestling’s finest ambassador. At 48-years old Jericho has close to nothing left to prove. However, instead of collecting easy checks in WWE, Y2J is literally traveling the globe, spreading the Word of Jericho. By him lending his services to NJPW, All In, and now AEW, the first ballot WWE Hall of Famer is legitimizing wrestling across the globe.
[H/T Ringside News]
