Chris Jericho shocked the pro wrestling world on Wednesday night in “The Great White North.”
The pro wrestling legend made his long-awaited return to the wrestling world, turning up as a surprise in the opening moments of the April 1 episode of AEW Dynamite from his former longtime hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
Following the show, multiple sources surfaced to shed some additional light on the subject, explaining how the AEW return came about, as well as why he decided against returning to WWE as previously rumored.
Dave Meltzer stated the following on the latest episode of Wrestling Observer Radio at F4WOnline.com regarding Chris Jericho’s AEW return and past rumors of him possibly jumping-ship to WWE:
“A couple days ago, I woke up and received a text message, which you [Bryan Alvarez] had as well, about Jericho and WrestleMania. Five minutes later, I got a phone call from somebody saying Jericho is going to be in Winnipeg for AEW. It’s not something you can go with, but it was what I heard. So, I checked with WWE, because I know he had been talking to them. They thought at one point he was going, and their response was that he is not coming to WWE anytime soon and maybe never.”
“At that point, I figured that he was going, because he had just done the trademark for his return. I just didn’t know which company it would be. I figured when I heard from WWE that he was coming to AEW, Winnipeg clearly seemed like the place to do it.”
“During the day, there were all kinds of rumors, and there were people not only in the company but also in WBD [Warner Bros Discovery] who were aware of this. By the afternoon, it was out that he was most likely, if not for sure, going to be there tonight—and he was. He opened the show.”
“It was weird. They tried to make a gigantic thing out of it. They had a nice crowd in Winnipeg—over 4,500—but it wasn’t really that loud… There was definitely a pop for the surprise, and Jericho did everything to pump them up. They were reasonably excited, but if he was on a WWE show, the reaction would have been much louder. Perhaps the building wasn’t mic’d well.”
Sean Ross Sapp stated the following about the subject on Fightful Overbooked at Fightful Select:
“So I want to say about two or three weeks ago I talked to somebody in AEW — or no, it was probably about a month ago. It was when I got word that the deal had been frozen or extended due to the time he had off. There were also people I talked to who said Jericho may or may not have told them he didn’t really want to give up his outside projects, and that WWE would probably make him do that. That played a role. It wasn’t that WWE didn’t want to pay him what he wanted.”
“Then there was some pushback, because for about a week it seemed like he might be WWE-bound. There were people saying, ‘I don’t know if he’s coming back here.’ I was about to really dig into that and reach out to WWE sources, but they didn’t know anything. They hadn’t heard anything. Then this past weekend, I got a message: ‘Yo, I think he’s coming back.’ I think he’s coming back to AEW. And then today it became very definitive. I found out he traveled into Winnipeg last night under a shroud of mystery. Chris Jericho is back with AEW… without ever really leaving AEW.”
Mike Johnson of PWInsider.com stated the following:
The general belief backstage last night was that Chris Jericho came to terms with AEW for a new deal, PWInsider.com can confirm.
Jericho was not present backstage at AEW until right before Dynamite went on the air.
We are told Jericho was driven right into the venue about two minutes before AEW began broadcasting and went right to the gorilla position for his ring entrance.
Jericho filmed additional content for the company after he returned from the ring and took part in a photo shoot. Jericho made the rounds backstage and introduced himself to talents he didn’t know.
For those interested, you can check out our complete AEW Dynamite Results 4/1/26 here at WrestlingHeadlines.com.
- MORE CHRIS JERICHO NEWS: Chris Jericho Reveals Behind-The-Scenes Footage Moments Before His Surprise AEW Return On Dynamite In Winnipeg
