“No One Really Knew Who Kenny Omega Or The Young Bucks Were” Before AEW Says Chris Jericho
Chris Jericho has made an interesting statement about how “no one knew” guys like Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks before AEW started.
When AEW launched in January 2019, the biggest name that Tony Khan signed to the company was Chris Jericho. At the time, Jericho had been in WWE for most of the previous 20 years and is highly regarded as one of the greatest WWE superstars ever.
At AEW’s first pay-per-view event called Double or Nothing 2019, Jericho beat Kenny Omega in the main event. At All Out 2019, Jericho beat “Hangman” Adam Page to become the first AEW World Champion in the history of the company.
Four of the wrestlers in AEW were also Executive Vice Presidents – Cody Rhodes, Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson). Of the four, only Cody wrestled on the WWE main roster as a contracted superstar while Omega was a former IWGP World Champion for New Japan and The Young Bucks were highly regarded as one of the best tag teams in the world.
During an interview with AEW’s Renee Paquette on The Sessions podcast, Chris Jericho talked about the early days of AEW.
“I think just being Chris Jericho backstage, like I have the most experience out of anybody in the company with the exception of Dustin Rhodes, but also because I came in as kind of the flagship guy.”
“When AEW first started, it was on my back for the first few months and we knew this. How many stars can we make? Let’s bring in Mox. Cody wasn’t as big as he was. No one really knew who Kenny and The Bucks were. Hangman Adam Page, Darby Allin, Jungle Boy. Those were some of the guys that I can recall working with right out of the gate, like we have to get more plates spinning here.”
While Kenny Omega and Chris Jericho have mostly been doing different things over the last three years, they will be in the same match next Wednesday on Dynamite in their hometown of Winnipeg. That’s because they will be part of a triple threat Trios Tag Team Match as House of Black defends the Trios Tag Team Titles against The Elite and the Jericho Appreciation Society.