Why Chris Jericho Didn’t Jump Ship To WWE
Chris Jericho is back in AEW. He returned to the television on the April 1, 2026, episode of AEW Dynamite in his hometown of Winnipeg.
Jericho had been absent from AEW for nearly a year. His original deal was reported to have expired on December 31, 2025. But, AEW reportedly froze or extended his contract to account for his time away from the company.
It was rumored that he was WWE-bound. However, Jericho shocked the world by returning to Tony Khan’s wrestling promotion.
Why Chris Jericho Turned Down A WWE Move
Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful recently commented on Chris Jericho’s decision not to return to WWE. According to Sean Ross Sapp, if Jericho were to join WWE, they would have made him give up his outside projects, which he did not want to do. Therefore, he ultimately chose to stay in AEW.
“So, I want to say about two or three weeks ago I talked to somebody in AEW — or no, it was probably about a month ago. It was when I got word that the deal had been frozen or extended due to the time he had off.”
“There were also people I talked to who said Jericho may or may not have told them he didn’t really want to give up his outside projects, and that WWE would probably make him do that. That played a role. It wasn’t that WWE didn’t want to pay him what he wanted.”
“Then there was some pushback, because for about a week it seemed like he might be WWE-bound. There were people saying, ‘I don’t know if he’s coming back here.’ I was about to really dig into that and reach out to WWE sources, but they didn’t know anything.”
“They hadn’t heard anything. Then this past weekend, I got a message: ‘Yo, I think he’s coming back.’ I think he’s coming back to AEW. And then today it became very definitive. I found out he traveled into Winnipeg last night under a shroud of mystery. Chris Jericho is back with AEW… without ever really leaving AEW.”