Chris Jericho Says He Returned To AEW Because He Has “Skin In The Game”

Chris Jericho has revealed why he stayed with AEW.

On April 1, Chris Jericho re-emerged on AEW Dynamite having been off TV for around a year. In his absence, rumors were spreading about whether he’d come back to All Elite Wrestling at all, or whether a return to WWE was on the cards. In the end made the choice to stay with All Elite Wrestling, and has gone on to feud with the likes of Ricochet and Tommaso Ciampa. Now, the former AEW World Champion has revealed more about why he renewed terms with the promotion.

In a guest appearance on Wrestling Observer Radio, he explicitly stated why he chose to come back to AEW.

“When it was time to kind of start thinking about coming back, obviously you weigh your options. And there is a lot of factors, but the bottom line is this, and this was the one that really clinched it for me, was I’ve got skin in the game in AEW. I helped start AEW, and in a lot of ways, if there was no Chris Jericho, there might not have been an AEW. And there certainly wasn’t one before me. There was a WWE before Chris Jericho. There was a New Japan before. There was a CMLL before. And there’ll be an AEW after I leave, obviously. And I can’t wait to see how much bigger the company gets over the next 10 years, etc. But when it came down to it, it was like, I like working for Tony. We had to work some things out, which we did. It wasn’t hard to do.”

-Chris Jericho

Jericho isn’t wrong about his importance to the start of AEW, especially in getting a TV deal, as Jericho was a well-known wrestling name across the world. The company had him become the first AEW Men’s World Champion to further capitalise on his popularity, plus, they gave him a faction on the first AEW Dynamite via in the form of the Inner Circle, immediately becoming a key part of their programming.

While it’s fair to say that Jericho’s relationship with the AEW fans over the last seven years has been anything but straightforward, it seems he is keen to see the company thrive in the coming years.

As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on why Chris Jericho returned to AEW as soon as we hear more.

H/T to F4WOnline for the transcription.