There are plenty of great wrestlers who can forever brag about wrestling in the WCW and WWE promotions, but Chris Jericho is one of the only few that will have also competed in both companies plus AEW.
Jericho was among the handful of ultra-talented WCW cruiserweight talents who got frustrated with their place in the company. They all rallied together and moved over to WWE, where the majority of them went on to have Hall of Fame careers.
Two decades later, and Jericho is experiencing something similar: He left a wrestling giant -- WWE in this case -- and signed up for a company that was simply a better fit for him. In what was only the start of the next great chapter in Jericho's illustrious wrestling career, he defeated Kenny Omega at AEW's first event, Double Or Nothing.
Jericho appeared on Busted Open Radio (h/t Ringside News), and talked about Jon Moxley's frustrations in WWE that led to his departure. On top of that, Jericho compared his departure from WCW 20 years ago to the one he recently went through in WWE:
"I had the exact same frustration that he had. First of all it’s the exact same frustration that I had when I left WCW in 1999. It’s a carbon-copy story and Dean Malenko, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, and Myself we all had the same thing — ‘We don’t wanna do this anymore’...
Eddie Guerrero, you know second generation, legendary he didn’t wanna do it. ‘I wanna go quit. I wanna get a job in a gas station.’
That’s what it can do to you when you’re creatively frustrated and you know stifled where you don’t wanna even think about wrestling and I think for me for the last few years with WWE and I loved it, but I could tell that it was starting to get difficult because you start feeling that pressure."
Related: Chris Jericho Says WWE Isn't Happy About AEW's Quick Success
Jericho has revealed some of the many ideas he presented to Vince McMahon over the years, which the WWE chairman shot down. In AEW, Jericho is obviously a lot happier, and the company seems more motivated to listen to his suggestions. He's only had great things to say about the company through its first official event, after all.
Since joining AEW, Moxley has also been quite vocal about his displeasure in WWE, which paved the way for his departure. Moxley took aim at Vince and creative, and said their way "sucks," so it's easy to understand why he decided to leave after an excellent run in WWE. Moxley and Jericho have simply found better homes in AEW, where they get to be happy instead of being forced to do content that doesn't suit their needs.
What This Means
It's interesting to hear what Jericho and Ambrose have had to say, and it sheds light on what is clearly a dysfunctional locker room in WWE right now. Superstars are growing frustrated with the direction of their characters, prompting some (Like Luke Harper and The Revival) to request being released. It's up to Vince and WWE officials to figure out a solution before the locker room grows more tense, all while AEW tries to surge to the very top.
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