Chris Jericho On How His AEW Feud With Jon Moxley Will Be Different From WWE, Building Stars In AEW
AEW World Champion Chris Jericho recently spoke with Sports Illustrated and talked about feuding with Jon Moxley in AEW. It was noted that Jericho will likely defend his title against Moxley at the AEW pay-per-view in March 2020. Jericho talked about how he feuded with Moxley (Dean Ambrose) in WWE, and how they will seek to deliver an entirely different story in AEW.
"That feud in WWE was really damn good, but we're both so different now," Jericho said. "It won't be the same. Moxley was never this confident or this good in WWE. As Moxley said in our 'Talk is Jericho' podcast interview, he didn't know who he was in WWE. He was constantly at odds with the creative and at odds with himself. This is a completely new guy. Dean Ambrose was only a portion of his career. To me, Moxley is the real guy. And there is a new-look Chris Jericho with all this creative freedom in AEW, so it's going to be very intense and it's going to be a lot of fun.
"I know a lot of people have already said, 'This is happening too quickly.' Everybody needs to sit back, relax, and watch the story unfold. Trust me, we are not rushing anything. I wouldn't allow it."
Jericho defended his title against AEW Tag Team Champion Scorpio Sky of SoCal Uncensored this past week. Jericho said he was happy with the match, but they did notice some improvements that could have been made after the match.
"Sky is a guy we've built up really well, and I was happy with it," he said. "In retrospect, I would've liked to have seen some video packages throughout the show really building up how big it was for Sky to have this championship match. We could have given him a little promo time in that respect, but those are things we noticed afterward.
"That being said, I thought the match was great. Guys like MJF, Darby Allin and Scorpio Sky have been in main event matches. We've made those guys into stars very quickly. It's only been nine weeks of TV, so imagine where we'll be after nine months?"
It was noted that the future of AEW is centered around creating new stars, and this is not lost on Jericho. Jericho said one of his mission statements in AEW is to build new stars.
"One of my mission statements in AEW is to build new talent," Jericho said. "People complain, 'We don't have any idea who this people are!' It's only been nine weeks, and we're focusing on one person every couple of weeks. Building new stars will make this promotion successful. This past week gave Sammy Guevara some spotlight, as well as Ortiz, Santana, and SCU."