Chris Jericho discusses Dynamite on the 'Jericho Cruise', Marko Stunt, wrestling Cody at Full Gear and Randy Orton using AEW as leverage (Exclusive)

Kenny Omega dissed NXT

Because we were one of the sites that blew it up a bit with a Kenny Omega interview we posted with him calling NXT ‘developmental’ and that blew up and it was massive and it definitely got attention from the fans. But would you say that AEW should focus more on the things that make it special, like the talent that weren’t given a chance elsewhere and are getting the spotlight here, instead of other companies? What do you think?

Jericho: I don’t really care, I mean that’s up to you guys to decide. What AEW should focus on is putting on the best show possible and if people are talking s*** and you want to respond to it then that’s fine too because so far the four weeks of television we’ve had have been great, the ratings have been awesome, the demo has been insanely great. So, whatever.

For me it’s like, you can analyse it and say you should do this or you should do that. All we should do is continue to do what we’re doing to remain a very popular show that’s in competition with nobody. We didn’t start this war, if that’s what you want to call it, we didn’t start this competition, we’re just doing our own thing. If there’s contenders at the door knocking and trying to get into our world, that’s fine.

But to me the most important thing is what are we doing right as a company? What are we doing wrong as a company? What can we do better? Once again we’ve got four weeks of television under our belts, it’s not like we’ve had ten years of experience, or eight years of experience or whatever, to get everybody on the same page.

Of course there’s going to be some growing pains but so far the numbers tell the tale of what’s going on. So, whether you want to say something about it or don’t’ say something about it, or concentrate on something else, or concentrate on this, either way we’re doing really, really well and we’re going to continue to do well, so say what you want to say, I don’t give a s***.

Absolutely! You mentioned about the numbers and especially the numbers in that prime demographic that you’d want. Can you tell me what the feeling is backstage about how AEW is going and how happy everyone is going forward?

Chris Jericho: Everybody is happy, but once again I think we all realise there’s always things that have gone really well and things that we can do better. You know, everybody has patted themselves on the back and congratulates, but what do we do for next week and how do we keep the ball rolling for the next few shows and stay on top of what we’re doing.

So, it’s now a weekly vibe, a weekly task. It’s not like it was when we had a PPV and then three months later we had another show and a show here and a show there. It’s every single Wednesday so you don’t rest on your laurels and it’s very gruelling, it’s gruelling to put on weekly TV. But I can say this from my experience; it’s a lot of fun doing it the AEW way is a lot less scripted, it’s more, kind of, flying by the seat of your pants, a guerrilla warfare, wild west atmosphere and it makes it really fun.

I think this is one of the reasons why the product has been so well received is because people can see the difference. It’s not as regimented as other shows are, and that’s by design. And listen, whether that’s going to make us huge or whether it’s going to end the company in a month, it’s the way we chose to do things, it’s different and right now it’s working so there’s no reason to change anything to continue building upon the efforts and the shows that we’ve done so far.

I can definitely agree with that, especially in the segment that was in the last episode that spawned the ‘I’ve got a ticket T-shirt’ [Jericho and the Inner Circle watch AEW from the Royal Box and then have a physical altercation with Cody Rhodes and Co) It certainly came across as extremely fun, really well put together, I certainly wouldn’t have believed that it was unscripted or unplanned it just worked so well.

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Next: Chris Jericho shares his thoughts on his huge title defence against Cody Rhodes at Full Gear