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Chris Jericho Comments on AEW Dynamite Beating WWE NXT in Ratings for AEW’s First TNT Show: “They Got Destroyed”

By Matthew Fowler • Published 4th October 2019
TJR Wrestling

Chris Jericho recently appeared on Complex Sports to give his thoughts on the “Wednesday Night War” between AEW Dynamite on TNT and WWE NXT on USA Network. In case you missed it yesterday, AEW Dynamite had about 1.4 million viewers on TNT compared to 890,000 viewers for WWE NXT on USA Network.

When asked about WWE releasing a statement congratulating AEW for a successful debut. Jericho responded with the following.

“Because they’re embarrassed. I know how they work. And the fact is, I haven’t seen the actual rating but I’m assuming they know how what it is, and I think we probably kicked their ass. They started this. Everything that they’ve done has been a reactionary move to us. We’re not in a war with anybody besides ourselves. I don’t care if you put…you resurrect John and George and it’s the reunion of the Beatles at the Super Bowl or whatever. All that matters is our show. You can put anything up against us, and we can’t compete with that. We can compete with what we’re doing.”

When asked about going head to head with NXT every Wednesday night, Jericho commented.

“They kinda started this war, and the very first night they got destroyed. Big deal, it’s our first debut, great. But they have to come back and say you know, ‘It’s a marathon and not a one-night sprint.’ Who’s ever said it’s a one-night sprint? It’s not a war for us. Now, we’re placed in one and we’re gonna kick ass because we’re gonna do what we do very, very well. There’s a little bit of an arrogance toward us that’s now gone. I was very excited to get that sh*t going. All that talk, its like hockey, against someone yapping against you. When you score 10 goals, and someone is talking sh*t, you say ‘look at the scoreboard, it’s 8-0’..that shuts people up in their place and then they get mad and then they get desperate. I’m not saying anyone is desperate, I’m not saying anything at all. We put on a great show and got a great number apparently and if some people are excited, as most people are, that’s great and if others are angry at us, then we’re sorry.”

Matt’s Musings: Jericho clearly isn’t taking WWE’s congratulations at face value. After getting 500,000 more viewers than NXT last Wednesday night, AEW can take a minute to be excited and enjoy the victory. However, this is a marathon (as WWE said in their statement congratulating AEW), and AEW is going to have to show that they can pull in these kinds of numbers week after week.

Jericho’s comments can be seen in the clip below.

Jericho also went to a New York Rangers game last night.

At one point, Jericho was shown on the video screen saying he was a WWE Superstar.

Oops. Later in the game, they put Jericho on the screen and got it right.