Chris Jericho Elaborates On Decision To Remain With AEW

When Chris Jericho's AEW contract expired in late 2025, many fans assumed he would make his way back to WWE to embark on the final leg of his career, but that wasn't the case. Instead, he would keep people guessing throughout the start of 2026 and Jericho eventually re-emerged on "AEW Dynamite" in April, almost a year to the day from his last match in the company against Bandido at AEW Dynasty 2025. 

There have been a number of rumors as to why Jericho decided to re-sign with All Elite Wrestling, but during a recent interview with "SHAK Wrestling," the inaugural AEW Men's World Champion admitted that being part of AEW since the beginning played a part in his decision to stay put. 

"You weigh your options, but I helped start AEW. I have a stake in the game you know? And there's something special about that you know? I didn't help start WWE, I didn't help start New Japan Pro Wrestling, or CMLL, or ECW, or WCW, or any of those places that I worked in the past, I helped start AEW. So it was a big risk for me to go there if you remember. Like there was no guarantees, there were people that said we were going to be out of business in three or four months or six months, and here we are six years later and it's gone the opposite direction."

Jericho explained that seeing AEW grow over the time he's been there is something he takes great pride in and is extremely proud to be a part of AEW. He also stated sticking with the company he helped create is another feather in the cap of his legacy, as it shows that he stuck to his guns and didn't abandon ship when an opportunity arose.

While it might not be as hostile as the rivalry between WWE and WCW in the 1990s, AEW is the biggest competition WWE has had in some time, and over the past 18 months, AEW has regained some momentum it had lost when WWE went on a creative hot streak after Vince McMahon was forced to retire. Chris Jericho was asked about what AEW could do gain some ground on WWE with the recent surge of momentum the company has, but Jericho believes that not thinking about the competition has gotten AEW to where it is now.

"We've never worried about WWE ever, we've only worried about our own show, our own product, the quality of what we're doing, and it's not a perceived upswing. You can see it in the numbers, tickets sold, the ratings, I mean our ratings I think last week were very close to the ratings that they were right before HBO MAX became a platform for us. So if we're doing those same ratings, plus there's the HBO MAX [viewers], that would tell me, common sense would say we're doing bigger ratings now than we were doing three or four years ago. I think all of that is just because no matter what's going on around us, we keep our noses to the grindstone and worry about what we're doing."

Jericho went on to say that AEW has never been a light version of WWE, something that has helped the company gain its own audience and establish itself as something different. On top of that, Jericho believes that the level of talent on the AEW roster, combined with the level of passion that Tony Khan has, and the fact that there are a number of top homegrown stars who have never been to WWE occupying the main event scene right now, the only way is up for All Elite Wrestling.

Please credit "SHAK Wrestling" when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.