On a recent episode of “Talk Is Jericho”, Y2J went into further detail about his decision to leave the WWE behind for AEW. Amongst other topics, he compared his decision to leave WWE for AEW with his decision twenty years ago to leave WCW for the WWE. Here are the highlights:

On Rumors That He’d Be In The 2019 Royal Rumble:

I knew it would be something that would make a lot of people turn their heads. No more WWE. I still get a lot of people asking if I’ll be in the Royal Rumble. No, I will not be in the Royal Rumble as a surprise entrant which I wouldn’t be anyways [because I had already done it before].

On Some Of The Issues With The Rally In Jacksonville:

There were over 1,000 people there. There was a couple of problems with the rally online when it was broadcast. Obviously we didn’t have great sound as far as the crowd being mic’ed and didn’t show a lot of the overall crowd shots.

On The Parallels Between His Move To AEW & Leaving WCW For WWE:

I put myself into Chris Jericho’s shoes back in 1998 when I was contemplating leaving WCW and thinking, ‘How much further could I go in WCW under these rules and conditions?’ I realized I couldn’t go much further. With WWE coming in and putting their money where their mouth was, in addition to their ideas, attitude and excitement, it wasn’t hard to step away from WCW and go to WWE.

Yes, I can do this. What AEW is doing is showing me respect and showing me they have a lot of expectations for me. The cart is on my back. I have to do great work and go the extra mile to make this work….I have to use my 30 years of experience to help build this company.

And that’s exciting to me.

On AEW Needing A TV Deal:

We’ve got the money. We’ve got the talent. We’ve got the momentum. We’ve got the creativity. Now we need the television to match it. Everybody knows it. I believe there will be a very big television deal that’s gonna be announced very soon and the roster is going to expand as well. We’ve already started with a great roster, but now it’s time to build it. But we don’t want to give all of our ducks away and surprises away right off the bat. We have a looooooong way to go.

On Who He Thinks Has “It”:

Hangman Page, I tell you what. That’s a guy who’s gonna be a big star here. I’m salivating at the chance to work with him.

On Whether He Thinks Most Of The Talent Will Be Signed To Exclusive Contracts:

I don’t think the idea for AEW is to sign 50 guys to exclusive contracts. I think the idea is to use the guys that we want to use that are available in the right positions at the right time.

It’s January…our first show isn’t until May 25. That’s a long time to get more ducks in a row. There’s a lot of guys out there that haven’t signed yet that I guarantee will be signed. Most importantly, we’ve got a brand new venture, a brand new company – All Elite Wrestling. It’s exciting for the first time since WWE bought WCW, you have a company that has more money than Vince McMahon…

You need to spend money to make money – that’s been my verdict since I started…That’s what the Khans are going to have to do. That’s what AEW is going to have to do. We’re gonna start and go through some money at first. But if we can continue the momentum started by All In and the [launch] rally, if we can take that to Vegas and sell out within 10 minutes – now we’ve got some steam. Now we’ve got some thunder! So it’s exciting for me.

You can listen to the full episode of Talk Is Jericho below:

 

Credit: Talk Is Jericho. H/T WrestlingInc.