Chris Jericho Explains Real Differences Between WWE & AEW

Chris Jericho has worked hard to establish himself as one of the most well-respected wrestlers in the pro wrestling business. Jericho has competed in various promotions all over the world in his career that has spanned more than 30 years. It seems AEW helped bring back Jericho’s passion for pro wrestling as well.

Le Champion was one of the first people to sign with AEW back in 2019 and was the biggest name for a long time in the company. He was the first AEW World Champion and helped carry the company during its initial stages.

While speaking on The Kurt Angle Show, Chris Jericho talked about the key differences between WWE and AEW. Jericho then stated that creative freedom in NJPW and AEW made him love pro wrestling all over again.

“I think the biggest difference right out of the gate is [AEW] is our company. That’s what really appealed to me to go there in the first place. I went to New Japan between WWE and AEW and the first match I had was with Kenny Omega in the Tokyo Dome and I remember when we did the beatdown angle for it, Kenny got color and I was like, because we can’t do color in WWE, this needs this type of intensity.

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When you get blood it’s not a blood bath, it’s the intensity that it adds to the performances of the players in the ring and the people watching. Then when we had the match, very similar to the Shawn [Michaels WrestleMania match], I had the whole ending, Kenny had the beginning. I thought who do we have to tell this to, who do we have to talk to? And Kenny said what are you talking about? I said ‘Well who’s the agent?’ Kenny said ‘There’s no agents here. This is the match, this is what we’re doing. Gedo is the booker, we tell Gedo the finish and then we do it.

I was like, are you kidding me? Really? Creative control. More importantly, they trusted me to be an artist and let the artists be artists. You’ve got Kenny Omega who is the top guy in New Japan, you’ve got Chris Jericho who’s coming in, business went through the roof when the match was announced. So that kind of made me fall in love with wrestling again, the creative element of it. It was like flying live without a net, not everything is connected, you don’t have to tell the cameraman, nobody knows what you’re going to do. No one knows what you’re going to say

Chris Jericho recently debuted his new faction called the Jericho Appreciation Society, as he turned heel and attacked Eddie Kingston and Proud N Powerful. We will have to wait and see how Jericho’s new faction will fare in AEW.

h/t: WrestlingInc

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