Chris Jericho isn’t interested in spending the final stretch of his career stacking up wins over the rest of the AEW roster. At this point, Jericho says he’d rather use his matches to give other wrestlers something they can actually take with them.
During Wrestling Observer Radio, Jericho explained that his recent match with Kevin Knight wasn’t even part of AEW’s original plans. Jericho came up with the idea following their interaction in Arena Mexico and pitched Tony Khan on turning it into a singles match that could add another piece to Knight’s story with Darby Allin.
“I suggested to work with Kevin Knight. There was no plan for that. But last week at Arena Mexico, we had the idea of me stopping him when he did the coast-to-coast with the Judas Effect, and then Darby pins him. So I was like, ‘Well, if you guys are going to Wembley, why don’t we do a match with Kevin and I? Because if it wasn’t for me, Darby wouldn’t have beat him.’ So as a heel, to me it’s like, ‘Okay, fine, Darby, but let me take care of this guy that helped you win in the first place. And if I can beat the legendary Chris Jericho, what chance do you have?’”
Jericho said Khan liked the idea, and he felt Knight came out of their match looking better while also getting another piece of story going into Wembley. That’s when Jericho made it clear that protecting his own record is nowhere near the top of his priority list anymore.
“That’s kind of what I pitched, and Tony liked it, and it went good, and Kevin looked great. It was a really fun match. And now they’ve got an extra layer to go to their Wembley show. To me, those types of things are what I like.”
“Having Ciampa beat me on Dynamite or Ricochet beat me a couple times, that’s what you want. It’s never about winning or losing, but those guys should be getting some good wins and some good matches and some experience about how to do things maybe a little differently. So that’s my goal, just to continue to have fun.”
Jericho has enough years behind him that one loss isn’t going to erase his career, and he clearly understands that. Instead of treating every defeat like something that needs to be protected against, he wants those matches to actually help somebody else move forward.
Do you think AEW is using Chris Jericho the right way by having other wrestlers score wins over him, or should he still be protected as one of the company’s biggest names? Leave your feedback below.
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