Jason Burgos
Some new details have emerged on why Chris Jericho passed on a rumored return to WWE and was back in AEW on Wednesday night.
For months, rumors and reports swirled that the wrestling legend’s run in AEW was coming to an end, and he would likely go back to the company that made him a household name, WWE. However, over the last week, things seemingly shifted as he remained on AEW’s roster page and filed a trademark for the term “cornerstone.” A potential nickname that would seem like a better fit in All Elite Wrestling.
It created speculation that he would indeed stay in the company he signed with back in 2019. The rumors became a reality when Jericho made his grand return on Wednesday’s edition of AEW Dynamite in the town he grew up in, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
On Thursday morning, fans for both companies got some new insight into why the 55-year-old probably chose to go back to AEW instead of returning to WWE.
Is Chris Jericho still nowhere close to retiring?
“I know I was told that [WWE] wanted him for a retirement tour,” Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer reported. “And maybe that’s not what he wanted, but I don’t know… With AEW, perhaps he was gonna get more longevity. There are a lot of advantages for AEW, and there’s always money.
“AEW’s a little bit of a risk in the sense of… He’ll probably have more input into what he’s gonna do in AEW than he would in WWE, but he’d have a better audience in WWE, I think for sure. The better audience, that is certainly part of the deal, but money is part of the deal.”
Meltzer added that after recent speculation that Jericho could return at WrestleMania 42, a source informed him that he would be in Winnipeg this week for Dynamite. When he then reached out to a source in WWE, they revealed that early on, it seemed like he would return, but that as of this week, it was no longer in the cards.
If WWE were firm about a retirement tour, potentially for a year, it might have been a deal breaker because he simply feels he isn’t ready to hang up his boots yet. And AEW is probably more willing to let him wrestle as he closes in on 60.
