Tony Khan Praises Chris Jericho For “Best Year Of Jericho’s Career”
Chris Jericho has been with AEW since day one and the company’s owner Tony Khan recently stated that 2022 is the best year of Jericho’s career.
When AEW launched in January 2019, Jericho was one of the big singings that Khan announced. Jericho was determined to lead the company to huge success starting in that first year. Later in 2019, Jericho would become the first AEW World Champion in company history at All Out 2019 while also forming the group “The Inner Circle” shortly after.
At 51 years old (he’ll be 52 on November 9th), Jericho is still performing at a high level after 32 years in pro wrestling. Jericho had very successful runs working in Mexico and Japan before appearing in ECW in the mid-1990s leading to a WCW contract. When Jericho debuted in WWE in August 1999, it was a huge signing for the company and he spent nearly 20 years working for WWE with a few breaks in between.
Jericho is currently leading the Jericho Appreciation Society stable as the Ring of Honor World Champion while wrestling on television regularly and remaining one of AEW’s biggest stars. Jericho has been referring to himself as “The Ocho” which means “eight” (in Spanish) due to the eight World Title wins in his career. That’s six in WWE (including the WCW World Title when WWE was booking it), one in AEW and one in ROH.
AEW Owner/President Tony Khan praised Jericho heavily on a recent appearance on My Mom’s Basement with Robbie Fox. Khan called Jericho one of his favorite wrestlers of all time while also crediting Jericho for being one of AEW’s Most Valuable Players.
“In addition to Mox, who’s such a great champion, and has been an amazing top guy for us this year, Chris Jericho is having the best year of his career. So I think if Chris Jericho was having the best year of his career, then you have to consider Chris Jericho for the MVP, too, and he’s the other world champion in AEW right now. He’s the Ring of Honor World Champion — or the Ring of Jericho World Champion. It’s the eighth World Championship for Chris Jericho. I’ve been watching Chris Jericho for over 27 years, going on 28 years now. He’s one of my favourite wrestlers of all time and it wasn’t me saying this.”
Khan also referenced Jericho losing weight to get in incredible shape and doing things this year to reinvent himself, which Jericho has been known for during his career.
“It was scrutinizing wrestling fans who are really cynical that I was around recently. They were not just saying it to pacify me, ‘Chris Jericho, the run he’s on, it’s unprecedented.’ isn’t it amazing how he’s coming in this year? I mean, he’s lost 31 pounds. So that is, visually, almost jarring to see the Chris Jericho we remember from a decade ago or two decades ago, and the things he’s done this year you talk about reinvention, but he’s been able to do it in a completely unexpected way. Jon Moxley, the other great MVP name is the person who actually came up with the idea for Chris to bring The Lionheart back this year, which I loved.”
On the October 5th episode of Dynamite, Jericho teamed up with Sammy Guevara to beat Bryan Danielson and Daniel Garcia thanks to Jericho hitting Garcia with a belt shot leading to Guevara getting the win. The referee didn’t see it, of course. Jericho will defend the ROH World Title on October 12th in Toronto at AEW’s first Dynamite episode outside of the United States.
H/t to Fightful for the transcription.