Ultimo Dragon recently spoke with Sports Illustrated about wanting to return to the United States and has a score to settle with a current AEW star. The heavily-decorated Japanese luchador had a rivalry with Chris Jericho in WCW back in the late 90s that saw him pick up a victory on their first WCW Monday Nitro match, only to then fail at beating “Lionheart” for the WCW World Cruiserweight Championship on six different occasions (four of which were televised).ย
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While Dragon’s run with WCW ended in 1998 and his WWE tenure only lasted from 2003-04, he has remained active in the ring ever since. According to Cagematch, he has competed in nearly 2,300 matches in his career and has already wrestled 79 times this year at age 55.ย
Why Does Ultimo Dragon Want to Challenge Chris Jericho?
“I am honestly not very familiar with AEW. But if I have the opportunity, I would really like to participate in one of their shows and end my rivalry with Jericho,” Dragon explained.ย
Jericho is currently on his eighth world championship reign, having won the Ring of Honor World Championship at the AEW Grand Slam event last month. He has since started targeting former ROH World Champions, having beaten Claudio Castagnoli, Bandido, Bryan Danielson and Dalton Castle while nailing Jerry Lynn with a piledriver on this week’s AEW Dynamite.
Chris Jericho Discusses AEW’s Recent Backstage Drama
Jericho recently spoke with ComicBook and discussed the recent backstage drama surrounding AEW including the likes of CM Punk, The Elite, Andrade and Sammy Guevara. He explained, “It’s just that we’re a growing company. You know what I mean? When I worked in WCW, it’d been around for 50 years. When I worked for WWF, it had been around for 60 years. We’ve been around for three years, so there’s always going to be growing pains. And that’s why somebody like myself and Bryan Danielson and Jon Moxley, we are the captains of the team. It’s like a football team or a soccer team or a hockey team.
“And there’s always going to be little dips and dots in any company, in any locker room of any type of sport,” he added. “It’s just the way it is. So you just deal with it. And the funny thing is, everyone’s got an opinion when they’re online and the social media and all that stuff. We know what’s really happening and we know, sure there’re things you got to fix, but the positivity in our company is off the charts and the optimism of where we’re going over the next few years is also off the charts. So it’s very exciting and the fact we just had our third year anniversary is huge because we never knew. We never knew if we would have one anniversary. So, there’s growing pains, it’s just the way it is and that’s okay. That’s what I’m here for and we’re taking care of the issues and focusing more on the positives, which are 98% to two.”
