Why Chris Jericho Left WWE For All Elite Wrestling

During his recent podcast Talk is Jericho, Chris Jericho explained why he left WWE for All Elite Wrestling:

“It’s a little bit hard because I worked for WWE for 19 years. I love the WWE. But I put myself into Chris Jericho’s shoes back in 1998 back when I was contemplating leaving WCW and thinking, ‘how much further can I go in WCW under these rules, under these conditions?’ And I realized I probably can’t go much further. So I put myself in those shoes. Could I walk away from WWE and go to All Elite Wrestling? A brand new company that doesn’t even own a wrestling ring at this point, as far as I know? And after some introspection, the answer was ‘yes, I can do this’.”

“I still kind of gave WWE the benefit of, hey listen guys, the train is leaving the station, are we gonna work together or not? And to their credit, we talked and all the way up to a few days before the rally, but there was never really an offer given.”

“The cart is on my back and I have to do great work, and I have to go the extra mile to help make this work. In WWE, it doesn’t matter what I do. It’s still gonna be WWE. In AEW, it does matter what I do, and I have to be my best, and I have to really use my 30 years, or my 29 years of experience to help build this company. And that was exciting to me.”