Chris Jericho says AEW has never worried about WWE ‘ever, ever’
Chris Jericho believes that, throughout its existence, AEW has only been focused on itself and not worried about what WWE is doing.
SHAK Wrestling spoke with Jericho and asked him about the perception that AEW is gaining momentum on WWE due to the “corporate paint” and prevalence of ads on WWE programming. While Jericho believes that could be one of the reasons why AEW is on an upswing, he largely attributes it to AEW’s roster, Tony Khan, and the way the company has focused on itself and building homegrown stars.
“I think it’s the same as always, in that we’ve never worried about WWE — ever, ever. We’ve only worried about our own show, our own product, the quality of what we’re doing,” Jericho said. “And it’s not a perceived upswing. You can see it in the numbers, tickets sold, the ratings. Our ratings, I think, last week [at the time the interview was recorded] were very, very close to the ratings that they were right before HBO Max became a platform for us. So if we’re doing those same ratings, plus there’s the HBO Max, that would tell me — common sense would say we’re doing bigger ratings now than we were doing three or four years ago. And I think all of that is just because, no matter what’s going on around us, we keep our noses to the grindstone and worry about what we’re doing and what kind of matches and quality of matches and variety. We’ve never been a WWE-lite. We’ve been AEW since day one. That’s never changed. And sometimes you like it and sometimes you don’t, but we’ve never changed it.”
Why Chris Jericho chose to stay with AEW —
At the start of 2026, it was heavily rumored that Jericho could be leaving AEW and going back to WWE. SHAK Wrestling asked Jericho if there was anything about WWE’s current landscape that affected his decision.
“Once again, you weigh your options,” Jericho said. “But I helped start AEW. I had a stake in the game. There’s something special about that, you know? I didn’t help WWE. I didn’t help start New Japan Pro Wrestling or CMLL or ECW or WCW or any of those places that I worked in the past. I helped start AEW.”
Jericho feels it was a big risk for him to sign with AEW when the promotion launched in 2019. There were no guarantees and some fans expected the promotion to fail, so Jericho takes great pride in the success AEW has had. He considers it another feather in the cap of his legacy. Jericho is also very proud of the match he recently had with Tommaso Ciampa at AEW Redemption.
Joseph Currier is the lead editor of F4WOnline.com, directing daily news coverage and writing articles on professional wrestling. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, obtaining a journalism degree in 2016. Joseph joined F4W during his time at UMass and has now been writing about the industry for nearly a decade.
In addition to his work with F4W, Joseph has previously contributed to Sports Illustrated's wrestling coverage. He lives in Massachusetts and is a diehard fan of the Boston sports teams and Liverpool Football Club.