TJR: It’s The Right Time For Chris Jericho’s Return To WWE
My name is John and I’m a Jerichoholic.
As a wrestling fan for about 40 years, I can assure you that Chris Jericho has always been one of my favorite wrestlers ever and will always be among my favorites. I don’t know where I would rank him at this point, but I loved peak Jericho from his WCW run in the late 1990s to that first decade he spent with WWE. I bought the “Jerichoholic” shirt that was on sale decades ago, too, and I’m not one of those people who bought a lot of wrestling shirts.
It’s incredible to sit here in 2025 and think about the fact that Jericho, who will turn 55 years old in November, is still in the pro wrestling business. The man started wrestling about 35 years ago, so I think first of all, we need to applaud and appreciate him for his durability in a business that beats people, spits them out, and makes us forget about them when they’re gone. You could say Jericho is lucky for not suffering a serious injury in his career, and that’s true.
I also have fond memories of WCW’s conspiracy theorist Chris Jericho, who was so entertaining and so cool on a show that featured a lot of old dudes moving around slowly…along with some exciting cruiserweights. One of the problems with WCW in the late 1990s was that they didn’t elevate enough young and “new” talent. Yes, there was Goldberg, but that’s just one guy. Diamond Dallas Page was relatively new to the main event scene, yet he was already in his 40s. When Jericho got over with the crowd, the company should have pushed him heavily. Instead, he toiled in the midcard scene, and he left in August 1999 for WWE to have one of the best debuts in wrestling history.
On Monday Night Raw in Chicago on August 9, 1999, Chris Jericho interrupted a promo from The Rock. By the way, I can still remember the date and city off the top of my head without looking it up. Sometimes in life, we remember moments forever without needing to be reminded of them. That’s one of them for me. Anyway, every time I watch that clip of Jericho and Rock exchanging words, I can still remember being excited about it and then calling up a friend during a commercial break to talk about it because of how cool it was. These days, you’d text somebody, of course, but not in 1999.
One of my favorite moments in WWE Monday Night Raw history will always be April 17, 2000, when Chris Jericho shockingly beat Triple H for the WWE Championship. Admittedly, I had to look up the specific date, but I remembered April 2000, of course. Anyway, that was the night when referee Earl Hebner did a fast count because of his problems with Triple H. Jericho only got to hold the title for about five minutes before he was stripped of it, but it was such an incredible moment and one of the loudest ovations I’ve ever heard at a WWE show.
My favorite Chris Jericho persona was the cocky heel wearing the suit and using big words to insult the crowd from 2008 to 2010 or so. It was that 2008 feud with Shawn Michaels (my favorite wrestler and Jericho’s wrestling hero as well) that will forever be one of my favorite rivalries in wrestling history. As Jericho has said many times, it wasn’t supposed to be a six-month story, but it was so good and so layered that it became an epic rivalry that will be remembered forever.
Later in his WWE run, Jericho became super over again with “The List” gimmick during his pairing and rivalry with Kevin Owens. It was such a stupid thing, but sometimes in pro wrestling, the easiest things get over, like one-word chants (“What” or “Yes”) or a guy putting somebody on a list for saying or doing something that made the other person angry.
When Chris Jericho left WWE to go to New Japan and eventually AEW in January 2019, it was absolutely the right move for him at the time. It was also very smart for Tony Khan’s AEW to make Jericho the first AEW World Champion because of his name recognition in the pro wrestling world. Think of the casual fan who may not have known what the letters “AEW” meant, but when they found out that Jericho was the World Champion, maybe they would have been more likely to tune in and like what they saw.
There were some things in his AEW run that I liked. He led multiple stables there as a way to try to elevate other wrestlers in the group, but I don’t think the long-term plans were always the best. The Learning Tree group certainly didn’t work that well. I’d say the last two years of Jericho’s AEW run had more hits than misses, while the first three years were a lot better.
I like to call Chris Jericho a “master of reinvention” in pro wrestling. Many wrestlers do the same thing for a long time because it’s easy and comfortable. Jericho is a guy who not only welcomed change, but he did it very well. I’m not just talking heel or face, either, because he is excellent in either role. I’m talking about going from being an excitable, young rockstar kind of character to a dark, evil, silent heel, and he could play either role well.
When we talk about Jericho’s ability to reinvent himself, does the next reinvention involve a return “home” to WWE?
We have news stories up about how Jericho may be open to leaving Tony Khan’s promotion just because he liked an Instagram story about a potential return to WWE. Jericho signed a contract with AEW in 2022 for three more years, so his deal with AEW likely expires toward the end of this year.
There is also a story up about the Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer talking about Chris Jericho potentially leaving AEW for WWE with a return at the Royal Rumble, which is in Saudi Arabia next year. I like Dave, and I know he has his haters, but he also knows Jericho really well. I’ve listened to many podcasts with them. Dave also knows AEW as well as anybody, and many people think he’s biased toward AEW as well, so for him to say this about Jericho going to WWE is significant in my opinion.
Jericho’s actually a really big story. His contract’s up at the end of the year, and there’s certainly been lots and lots of talk about WWE. I know from a WWE standpoint that there is lots of talk there about Jericho. People are speculating about the Royal Rumble. Nobody has officially said anything, nor will anyone officially say anything. From a timing standpoint – all things being equal from Jericho’s standpoint, it’s time to go to WWE.
The stuff that has been plaguing him, like fan response, he goes to WWE…a guy that goes from AEW to WWE is going to be over like crazy. It’s new again, so from that standpoint, especially for a guy that’s always looking to revitalise his career, it’s the move.
I agree with what Dave said. I also think if you’re AEW’s Tony Khan, I can see him wanting Jericho to stick around just because of what Jericho meant to AEW in the early days, but at the same time, do you really need him? I don’t think. If I were AEW, I would let Jericho go because it’s more important to utilize your current stars and feature the likes of Will Ospreay, Swerve Strickland, Darby Allin, Jon Moxley, Kyle Fletcher, and so many others. The 2019 AEW roster definitely needed a Jericho. I don’t think the 2025 or 2026 AEW roster needs Jericho at all.
The WWE that Jericho left is a lot different now. It’s no longer a Vince McMahon-run company, and they have cut way back on live events. There are many older wrestlers involved who are working on a part-time schedule, who come and go at various times.
If Jericho returns to WWE in 2026 and he’s a 55-year-old wrestler winding down for a year or two, then you can easily give him a schedule where he only wrestles once or twice a month. There can be breaks for a few months as well. I don’t know if Jericho would want to do it that way because he has said he likes being a full-time guy, but think about Randy Orton (who is 10 years younger than Jericho) and all the time he gets off to be with his family and rest his body. Orton is full-time in WWE, but he’s also on the sidelines for weeks and months at a time because he’s earned that right, just like Jericho has.
There are also a lot of current WWE wrestlers who never worked with Jericho, but probably grew up huge fans of his. It’s an easy story to tell when you have a legendary wrestler who is still competing against a younger talent who idolized the guy. There are so many things that can be done with Jericho, who is still one of the best talkers in the business, and can still put on entertaining matches, albeit maybe less frequently than he used to. I also think Jericho would enjoy a player-coach role, so he might be able to help behind the scenes as well.
As a Jericho fan for over three decades, I hope that Jericho does return “home” to WWE because it’s the place where he should end his career and be celebrated with a WWE Hall of Fame induction in the coming years. I also recall when he said, in December 2023, that it doesn’t matter if he’s in the WWE Hall of Fame while bashing the idea of it. With that said, is he saying that because he is under contract to AEW and he’s trying to trash the competition, or are those his genuine feelings? We don’t know.
Will Chris Jericho return to WWE? I’m leaning towards saying yes, but I also think Jericho is the type of guy who is going to stay quiet and keep people guessing. That’s just the way he is.
There are just over four months left in 2025, and I get the feeling that the longer Jericho stays away from AEW TV, the more people are going to speculate about his return to WWE possibly happening in 2026. Frankly, I’d love to see a WWE return, and I would assume that there are plenty of other Jerichoholics who want to see it as well.
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John Canton
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