Chris Jericho has been one of the best performers in wrestling entertainment. 2018 was his final year in WWE as he decided to call it quits and joined AEW in 2019. He also went on to become their inaugural AEW World Champion.
AEW had just entered the professional wrestling world. Jericho was one of their first major signing to get the company running. On speaking with Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Sessions he revealed one of the reasons that led him to leave the company. He said:
“I had this big programme with Kevin Owens in 2016, which in my opinion was one of the best stories, if not the best story for that year. We get to WrestleMania, it changed from Kevin and Jericho to Brock and Goldberg and great, no problem. But when Kevin and Jericho went from the main event – proposed – to the second match on the show. I thought to myself ‘this is where I’ll be, in my opinion, for the rest of my time in WWE – the second match guy’ and in my mind I wasn’t a second match guy.”
Jericho revealed that he was not even asked or told prior of this decision being made. Jericho later revealed that Vince McMahon could’ve stopped him from joining AEW but he didn’t. McMahon didn’t think that Jericho would actually sign with the AEW so he was quite confident that Y2J won’t go anywhere.
All this had made Jericho upset and he did not want to continue with the company who thinks of him as a second match guy. After giving so much to the WWE for so many years his exit was not in the most positive manner one could think of. McMahon would definitely keep WWE’s door open for Jericho if he considers to come back to the WWE after his contract expires.
Jericho made his WWE debut in 1999 and was with the company till 2018. Y2J won six world tittles and nine intercontinental championships during his time at WWE. Jericho was a famous figure in the company. He gave many great performances throughout his career at WWE.
In 2005 he took a break from wrestling when he focused on his band fozzy and revealed that he had burnt out mentally. He returned to the company 2 years later in 2007. Three years later he left the company again only to come back in 2012.
During his time with the company Jericho gave the fans a treat with his excellent feuds with the likes of Triple-H, CM Punk, Edge, Shawn Michaels to just name a few. Also his tag team with Big Show called the Jeri-Show was an amazing storyline. He will definitely go down as one of the best performers in the WWE and if all goes well he might even end up in the WWE Hall Of Fame for what he has done for the company in 19 years.
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