When Hulk Hogan went to WCW in 1994, the landscape in wrestling began to shift. Hogan's arrival signified that WCW could be a major competitor to WWE. Two years later, Hogan formed the NWO and Nitro was winning the Monday Night Wars on a weekly basis.
When AEW was announced in January 2019, fans rallied behind Elite favorites The Young Bucks, Cody, and Hangman Page. But the arrival of Chris Jericho showed that the promotion could be a true competitor to WWE.
“I always call [Jericho] our Hulk Hogan,” said Nick Jackson in an interview with Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated. “He’s done it all, and there is something about that. Even though he has been in the business for 30 years or so, he still wants to give back and get characters over. You never see that.”
Matt Jackson continued, saying, “Most wrestlers want to be over, and they don’t care about anybody else. The prevailing attitude in this business is often, ‘I want you to do good, just not as good as me.’ Jericho wants everyone to be elevated. We made the right call. Look at how he made Darby Allin. Those matches with Jungle Boy and Scorpio Sky were really important, too. And Jericho watches all our matches, too. People don’t realize he’s the guy that pulls us aside and says, ‘This was great, but you could do this better.’ We don’t have enough of those guys in the business.”
Jericho has been open about his leadership role in AEW, previously telling the story of how he addressed the tag team rules in AEW after they weren't being followed. You can find his full comments by clicking here.
Fightful will have live coverage of AEW Dynamite beginning at 8 p.m. ET.
