Vince McMahon sparked some controversy when he said that he doesn’t consider All Elite Wrestling as WWE’s competition in the same that that WCW rivaled his company. During an interview with Kenny McIntosh of Inside The Ropes, Chris Jericho responded to the matter by sharing his belief that there won’t be a true competition between the two promotions until AEW beats WWE’s demographic numbers and threatens to impact their television deals.
“The WWE is the WWE and they have billions of dollars locked in TV deals and we are working towards that,” said Jericho. “Now when our demo ends up beating theirs and TV deals start coming in for us at the billions, then I truly think there will be a lot of competition because now you’re fighting for money, you’re not just fighting for bragging rights – and bragging rights don’t mean anything. It’s the money that you make from it that counts. So we’ll see what happens.”
Jericho emphasized that AEW is competiing with itself because the company has always been, and will continue to be, focused on its own product and its own growth. He also looked back on the Wednesday Night Wars, a stretch of time in which AEW Dynamite went head-to-head with WWE NXT. It’s fair to say that AEW won the war, as its show gradually pulled away in the ratings battle. In the interview, Jericho looked back on this battle and explained that AEW’s focus on putting on a good show and improving wherever possible made all the difference.
“We could not control the fact that NXT was put up against us,” said Jericho. “All we can control is our own show on the quality of what we’re doing. And we’ve worked very hard to improve the things that need improving and to focus on the things that we’re doing great. I think that’s one of the reasons why we’ve gone as far as we have and why our demos have crept up to where they are and where our ratings have crept up to where they are.”
