Chris Jericho Points To Reason Why AEW Is Still Alive

AEW is currently in its fourth year as a company, with Chris Jericho having been around for the entirety of that journey. He was the face of AEW early on, but was aware that he couldn't carry that load forever, and he thinks that the hot start the company made is a big reason why it is still around in 2023.

"So I think three or four months in when we first got that TV deal with TBS that first giant deal, I think we had built a lot of guys very quickly which enabled us to get a really big television deal which kept us alive," he told "Insight with Chris Van Vliet." Jericho himself played a big part in getting AEW to that point, becoming the inaugural AEW World Champion while working with a wide range of upcoming stars from Jack Perry and Orange Cassidy to Darby Allin and Adam Page. It helped establish those talents to a national audience who may not have been aware of them.

"I knew I had a very short window of being 'the guy' to elevate as many of our talent as I could," Jericho said. "Those are all guys that I worked in the first six months of the company and did everything I could to get them to the next step, and that worked really quickly." Jericho believes that back in 2019 there was a hunger for an alternative in professional wrestling, and to see new stars be created, a task the company had in its early days. "There was this whole collection of guys who had made big names for themselves everywhere around the world except for on national TV in the United States, so they were ready," he said. "They just needed the platform, and the storyline, and the spotlight, and they got it."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "Insight with Chris Van Vliet" with a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.