AEW Star Names Chris Jericho As His “Hero” In Pro Wrestling
Chris Jericho is beloved by millions of pro wrestling fans, even by fellow wrestlers that are on the AEW roster.
When you have accomplished what Chris Jericho has done in over 30 years as a pro wrestler, it’s easy to see why he might be admired by his fellow peers. Jericho is currently having the eighth World Championship reign of his career as the ROH World Champion. Prior to that, Jericho was also a five-time WWE Champion, the WCW World Champion (while working for WWE), and the inaugural AEW World Champion in 2019.
While AEW has had its fair share of drama over the course of the last four years, Jericho has been a leader and continues to be one of the best performers, even at 52 years old. Most wrestlers are retired as full-time performers by that age, but not Chris Jericho. In fact, Jericho re-signed with AEW in October to stay with the company for at least three more years.
Tony Nese has been on the AEW for over one year after working for WWE from 2016 to 2021. During his WWE career, Nese had a run as the Cruiserweight Champion and he is known for being a consistently good performer.
During an appearance on the AEW Unrestricted Podcast, the 37-year-old Nese spoke about Jericho as his favorite wrestler.
“I’ve never even said this to Jericho, but he’s my absolute favorite. He was my legend. He was my hero growing up and everything. It specifically takes me back to one vivid memory when Jericho won the championship from Triple H to open RAW, and then later that night to lose it back to him was literally the amount of emotions I went through in that, what was it, two hours at that time? The emotions I went through.”
“I remember going crazy calling my friend up, like, ‘Oh, my God, did you see what happened?’ Like, I’m so excited, and then as the show went on, you start to realize things aren’t going so right and then he loses it at the end. I couldn’t eat. The next day at school, no one could talk to me. I was so upset.”
“That’s just a memory in my head of like, man, like, that’s wrestling to me, those emotions, whether you’re angry, whether you’re excited, and so like, that brought out the most emotions in me than anything else I’ve ever watched. From that moment, I was like, I’m gonna ride or die with Jericho. I’m gonna invest all my money in Jericho things, and I’m going to invest in his career. So he was always kind of a hero to me.”
Nese also talked about how when he started to train to wrestle, one of Chris Jericho’s books really helped him.
“Then reading his books as well, or actually, like when I started training is when he came out with his first book. I’d read that all the time. I’d always spend an hour or so reading before I drove out to wrestling and it just kind of got my mindset of like, hell yeah. I’m gonna go and I’m gonna make a freakin awesome career myself and stuff like that. I’ve never told him this. I haven’t had too many long conversations with him because I’m like, I’m actually that superfan. Like anytime I’m around if he says something to me, I’m just like that awkward, I give a response that doesn’t even make sense, type of thing.”
Chris Jericho also recently made headlines when he talked about how believes he dealt with a supernatural abduction.