Chris Jericho and Steve Austin didn't waste any time talking about AEW during the new Broken Skull Sessions interview that is out and available now on WWE Network. Within five minutes, they were chatting about how he wound up with the rival wrestling company.
Jericho told Austin that when he first heard about AEW, he thought it was going to be just like all the other stories he'd heard about upstart wrestling promotions. He figured that another guy with money was going to start something, but it would fizzle. Then, when he started talking to Tony Khan, he realized there was something different happening with AEW.
Jericho said that for wrestling company to work, it needed three things: a guy with money and a passion, a television contract, and talent. Khan had the money and the passion and he'd just landed a tv deal. The talent was the last piece and Jericho realized the timing on that was just right. Jericho claimed AEW would need about four or five guys to build the territory around and they had it.
Saying he knew that he and Jim Ross had name recognition, and Cody Rhodes had a little too, but it was the intrigue of The Young Bucks, Kenny Omega, and Adam Page that he thought was the real winner. All of those guys had their contracts coming up around the same time and he knew that mainstream fans would wonder who these guys were and wonder where they'd been all this time, once it was clear how good they were.
Jericho also said the TNT contract was big. They were thinking ShowTime or HBO or Netflix, "but you have to have Network TV to get off the ground and TNT provided that."
The Perfect Storm
Jericho noted it was just the perfect storm for him to make a move he didn't really expect he'd ever make. He saw it as an opportunity he wasn't sure would ever come up again.
Jericho didn't figure after Vince McMahon bought WCW, he didn't think there would ever be an opposing national wrestling company again.