All Elite Wrestling (AEW) star Chris Jericho was recently interviewed by Collider Live to talk about several professional wrestling topics. Jericho talked about competing against WWE, possibly signing CM Punk, AEW going after a younger demographic and more.
Competing against WWE:
I think competition is kind of a big word, because we don’t compete with a worldwide juggernaut like WWE. But I think it’s good to have an alternative. Give people an option. Cause there hasn’t been that for 20-odd years, right? So, when you have that, automatically it’s better for the fans, it creates a huge buzz for our company – we’re selling 12,000 tickets in five minutes in Chicago for August 31 and we did it for Vegas and this that and the other thing – but also, here’s the best part, it’s good for the wrestlers.
For the boys and girls themselves. And the moment I signed with AEW, I think it took them by surprise, even though I told them I was going to do it. They were like, ‘Okay, do it.’ And when I did it was like ‘What, you f*cking did it?’ And I think right off the bat, the rule over the next week or so was that everybody under contract gets double their salary if they re-sign their contracts today for five years so that nobody could get out earlier. So if you’re going on that aspect, everybody in WWE made money just because I signed with AEW. So they all owe me a giant thank you.
WWE gearing up for war:
Now, WWE realizes what’s going on. And it’s a war to them. To us, it’s not a war. I know it’s gonna be a war. I don’t think the company, AEW, realizes it. But this is the way it is. You’re encroaching on this turf that the McMahons have owned for the last 20 years, and they don’t like it.
CM Punk and going after a younger demographic:
Once again, don’t confuse—I’m not one of the EVP guys. If they ask me I’ll tell them, but I haven’t been asked about CM Punk. Do we need him? No. Would it be a huge pop to get him? Yes. I don’t know man, I don’t know what his attitude or mindset is, but I think our roster is jam-packed right now. So, we’re not looking to headhunt the WWE, and we never were. And that’s one of the funny things about the guys getting the double salaries and all that stuff.
We didn’t want to be WCW in 98, or IMPACT, TNA in 2011 when you’re just bringing in a lot of old WWE guys. We don’t want that. We have enough guys that nobody has ever seen before. And that’s what we want to do. We got a lot of young guys like Jungle Boy, MJF, both those guys are 23-years-old. That appeals to a new demographic, like my daughters are 12. They don’t like wrestling, but they like Jungle Boy.
They love Riverdale, they watch Luke Perry, they like Jack Perry. But they like the fact that, here’s a young, good looking guy, and they’re almost in the same age group. Or at least they can have a crush on a 23-year-old kid. WWE doesn’t have 23-year-old kids. They put them in NXT and five years later when they’re 27, 28 they come up. We wanted to really focus on the younger demographic which I think is missing in wrestling, the teenage heartthrobs that they used to have at every wrestling territory up until over the last 10 years in WWE.
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