Major AEW Star Says WWE Doesn’t Care About NXT

During a recent interview with Busted Open Radio, former AEW World Champion Chris Jericho opened up about how he truly feels about how WWE higher-ups view the NXT brand, and he didn’t hold back.

When asked about the first year of AEW, Jericho spoke about how Dynamite isn’t too far off the numbers that Raw is bringing in every week. Here, Jericho spoke about how NXT is just used to take viewers away from AEW, and isn’t something WWE properly cares about:

“It’s hard to say this without sounding egotistical. I’m not saying this from a place of ego. I’m talking from a place of fact. It really did change the business. When I signed with AEW, it was the equivalent of when Bobby Hull signed with the WHA in 1972. He was the biggest star in the NHL and when he left to go to this new upstart league, everybody in the NHL got a raise including my dad, Ted Irvine, and a big one because they didn’t want to lose any other players. That’s what happened with me.

“The day I signed with AEW, everybody in the WWE got a raise. Finally, the guys were making money, but still not what they should get in some cases, but still more than they got a whole lot more than what they were getting. I think if those guys think about it, they all owe me a steak dinner because they are all making double what they were making all because Vince didn’t want them to go to AEW. He didn’t give a sh*t about their talent level or what they were doing or who they were.

“It became a real war at that point more than there has ever been. But all this could have been avoided by Vince if you think about it, but he was the one that kind of allowed me to go and now look where we are a year later. We are kicking their ass and if there wasn’t NXT on a Wednesday, and it’s only there to stop our momentum. They don’t care about their own show. They care only about stopping our momentum. We would be getting close to RAW ratings on certain nights.”

This is certainly not the first time that Chris Jericho has said how he really feels about WWE. He recently said that NXT is “embarrassing” itself by going head-to-head with AEW, and should move to Tuesday nights.

Thanks to Wrestling News for the transcription.