AEW has signed many former WWE stars during their three year existence, including CM Punk, Bryan Danielson and Adam Cole, but they were far from the first names to sign with AEW from WWE.
Chris Jericho has been with AEW since the company was first announced on January 1, 2019, before going on to become the company’s first World Champion at All Out later that year.
With Jericho being a WWE star since the year 2000 up until that point, only wrestling outside the company for a few dates in New Japan Pro Wrestling, the move came as a bit of a surprise to many.
Jericho spoke about signing with AEW on the latest episode of Talk Is Jericho, where he detailed Vince McMahon’s reaction to him being offered a contract by AEW, and his reaction after he signed it.
He said:
“I did give WWE a chance though, I did give them a chance. I said, here’s the offer that I’ve gotten from this new company, and I was told to, Vince said, ‘Take it.’ I think he thought I was bluffing. And when I took it, then about a week later he’s like, ‘You took it?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘Can you get out of it?’ I said, ‘No! You told me to take it, why would I try to get out of it?’ And then he’s like, who is kind of bringing in guys, who is the broker to get guys to come in, that’s what Vince is asking me, and it’s like, I’m thinking, well, it’s me, but I don’t want to tell him that. And he’s asking me all these, what kind of TV deal, you can’t ask me these questions!”
Jericho is set to challenge Claudio Castagnoli for the ROH World Championship on next week’s AEW Grand Slam episode of Dynamite.
transcription via 411mania
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