Chris Jericho Backs AEW Policy Change

Chris Jericho has expressed his support for the recent decision to hold AEW shows in smaller venues.

Tony Khan’s organisation has taken the decision to act after being plagued by low tickets sales in recent months. Most notably, AEW’s upcoming debut in Australia has been moved to a significantly smaller venue following slow fan interest.

The company had been due to host Grand Slam at the 52,500 seat Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane on February 15th 2025 before announcing in November that the show would now take place at the 13,500 capacity Brisbane Entertainment Centre instead.

Speaking during a recent appearance on ‘Z100’, the former AEW Champion shared his full support for the decision, noting his belief that a packed audience in a smaller venue translated better visually on television:

“I think the worst thing you could ever do is to kind of in any business overprice yourself or overextend yourself. We’re at a place where to go to some of the middle-size venues not in every city but in some of them, it’s a very smart move.

For many reasons, but most importantly, just the vibe of the fans and like you want to put 10,000 people into an arena, and if you can, you do. If you’re down to 5,000 but you go to a 4,000-seat arena, it increases demand. It just makes the show that much more exciting, and it translates so much better on TV.

I think right now, with all of the different choices that people have to buy tickets to go to shows, I think we’re smart to moving to some of these, like you mentioned, different-sized venues. Because it just makes it cooler, and we have always had the cool factor in AEW, especially when we started and then going into the pandemic and coming out of the pandemic.

I think one way is the supply and demand. If you have this many tickets for sale and they’re gone. It just makes the product hotter and you can just continue to grow.”

Chris Jericho Surprised By Returning AEW Star

One such smaller venue that AEW has opted to run in the coming months is New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom. The venue is perhaps best known for being the original host site of WWE Raw following it’s 1993 debut.

The company will tape an episode of AEW Dynamite at the famous building on 22nd December, but Jericho himself was in action there 48 hours ahead of time as he successfully defended his ROH World Championship against Matt Cardona at ROH Final Battle on 20th December.

The Canadian’s joy was short lived, however, when Bandido made a shock return to thwart a continued assault on Cardona by Jericho, Big Bill and Bryan Keith.

H/T: WrestlingNews.co for the above transcription.