AEW World Champion Chris Jericho recently participated in an “Ask Me Anything” chat with Bleacher Report fans.
In regards to the behind-the-scenes feeling at AEW, Jericho praised the atmosphere and compared it to the difficulties of working for WWE.
“It’s just a lot less stress,” Jericho said. “WWE is a very stressful environment, a lot of walking on eggshells as things might get changed. It’s a lot more relaxed because we’re all kind of in charge of our own destinies. The creative freedom that we have is off the charts. When you come to AEW it’s like going from black-and-white to living in color.”
Jericho also talked about the wrestling fan of today, and how everyone is subject to plenty of criticism from wrestling fans, who can be very hard to please these days. Jericho doesn’t take the heat seriously and generally lets the drama roll off his back.
“The thing about wrestling fans is, they’re a lot like Kiss fans or Star Wars fans,” Jericho said. “They hate everything. But they still love everything. They’ll buy everything, they’ll be at the shows. They just have to complain. With social media… it just gives people a forum to be mad about everything. …
“If you’re going to go into the world of social media you have to accept it when people call you the greatest thing ever but don’t take it seriously. And you have to accept it when they say you’re the worst piece of crap ever but don’t take it seriously.”
Jericho was asked about pro wrestling being able to occupy the same place in pop culture that it did back during the original Monday Night Wars between WWE RAW and WCW Nitro. He said wrestling is as good as it’s ever been, in terms of quality, but the time has come and gone. He also commented on WWE being overly-scripted.
“I don’t know if it could be a big part. That time has come and gone,” he explained. “Wrestling itself is part of pop culture. I think right now wrestling is as good as it’s ever been in terms of quality. You need that one big name star. I think WWE has gone away from that. It’s very overly scripted. They don’t want to put all their names in one basket.”
