Backstage Origins Of AEW MMA Cage Fight Revealed

Chris Jericho has discussed the backstage origins of the recent AEW MMA cage fight between Jake Hager and Wardlow.

On the June 18 episode of AEW Dynamite, Hager choked Wardlow out to win the promotion’s first ever MMA rules cage fight. Chris Jericho has revealed that the stipulation had already been postponed on two separate occasions by the time the match came to fruition.

Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Jericho stated that the concept was Wardlow’s idea. Discussing previous plans for the debut of the stipulation, Jericho said:

“That was a suggestion by Wardlow months ago. We had it scheduled two separate times and things just changed. One time, somebody was hurt or couldn’t make it. The other time, it didn’t fit the angle where we had it slotted. The funny thing is, we had to do that match before we went back on the road because obviously you have to build that cage and we wanted an actual MMA cage and wanted it as close to an MMA fight as possible because Jake is an MMA fighter.

“We had the cornermen, Aubrey had the black ref jersey, the way Justin Roberts announced it. We really put a lot of time into making it different from anything else you had seen, but it had to be taped because of (the cage). It was the last taped show we had available and we could create and change the story to put it in there.”

This match followed the recent matches between The Inner Circle and The Pinnacle. Jericho has recently fired back at “chicks in WWE” who joked about the finish to the Blood & Guts match.

On this week’s episode of Dynamite, it was announced that Andrade El Idolo will make his AEW Debut next week on the Road Rager special.

Quote via Fightful.

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• Wardlow
• Jake Hager
• MMA
• AEW

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