AEW superstar Chris Jericho was the latest guest on the Geordie Podcast, where the former world champion discussed a number of different topics, including his thoughts on the promotion’s rise in the world of wrestling, and how in the beginning their success was solely on his back. Highlights from the interview are below.
Says AEW was solely on his back when it first started:
When we started AEW, it was solely on my back. I really believe that because if you look at the roster, unless you were a hardcore wrestling fan, no one f*cking knew any of those guys. There’s a perfect example, ‘Chris Jericho’s there? Really? Let’s check it out’ and then you see all the other great guys but I knew right out of the gate, I have three-to-six months to make as many stars as I can, because if not, I can’t — as great as I am and as great as I think I am, if I’m the only guy on the show for six months and the only star, it’s gonna die. It is. I can’t do it all. I’m not f*cking Michael Jackson or Elvis or somebody like that. So I knew very quickly I had to create stars right out of the gate and that’s why we concentrated on reinventing Cody [Rhodes]. Think about Cody when AEW started, he was not the Cody that he is now. Nobody knew who Kenny Omega was, Darby Allin, Scorpio Sky. [Jon] Moxley, he was not the guy that he is now when he came into our company. Jungle Boy, all of those guys I worked with early on in the process to let people know — Young Bucks, Inner Circle. The first night we created The Inner Circle to show here’s some new guys. Who’s Sammy Guevara? I didn’t know how Santana, Ortiz was. Jake Hager was not the guy he is now. He was a useless character in WWE. So we built these stars in three months and that’s when we got a television deal for $160 million for four years.
Say she originally wanted Y2J to be the name of his finisher in WWE, but Vince McMahon liked it as his nickname:
‘Y2J’, I was pitching to him [Vince McMahon] as the name of my finish and he’s like, ‘No, no, no, no. That’s not the name of your finish. That’s your name’ and I was like, ‘Me!?’ Like, ‘Yeah, you’re Y2J.’ I was like, ‘Really?’ And f*ck man, and people still chant it ‘till this day. I thought of the idea and the term ‘Y2J’. He’s the one who saw the overall picture that’s much more valuable for the name of you to be that.
(H/T and transcribed by Post Wrestling)
