Chris Jericho Discusses Being Referred To As “The Learning Tree”

(Photo Credit: AEW)

AEW star Chris Jericho recently appeared on an episode of the Kevin Karius Show, where he discussed a number of topics including being referred to as “The Learning Tree” and how it all came about.

Jericho said, “I just started doing this Learning Tree gimmick a few weeks ago. That’s the best thing about wrestling, when people start to get mad at you, you turn into a bad guy and when people like you, you turn into a good guy. This is the start of this whole new persona as we continue the story. That’s the most important thing about wrestling, the story. The matches are important, but the characters and the storylines are what really draws people into watching you and draws people into following what you’re doing. To me, that’s always been the most important thing.”

On what it means:

“The teacher. I’ve been doing this for a long time. I thought, what’s a cool way to personify that and make people mad? I’ve been doing this at a high level, I thought, I’ll adopt this persona of being the seasoned vet that teaches the rookies the ways of the game. That’s how it started, and the way we’ve portrayed it, people get really mad at me for it. That’s what you want. By being the seasoned vet who knows everything, that makes people mad at me. That’s wrestling for you.”

You can check out the complete podcast below.


(H/T to Fightful for transcribing the above quotes)