Chris Jericho: I Think Eventually Swerve Strickland Will Be Our World Champion

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Chris Jericho was recently on Gabby LaSpisa's "Gabby AF" podcast to talk all things AEW.

Chris Jericho on teaming with HOOK:

"Things got kind of thrown into a loop storyline-wise when Kenny got sick. You do the best you can when you have to switch midstream. We kind of did the best we could with the Don Callis story and then it was time to kind of go into something new. The idea of working with HOOK was something that I had thought about for a while. It just kind of really seemed to fit with the match that we had at Revolution with the eight man scramble and HOOK was in that, and I thought, well, let's do something with this. The story is just beginning, but I think we got some good ideas and some good stuff going on. That's kind of what my mission in AEW has been since day one is to do the best I can to elevate the younger guys."

Jericho on Sting's retirement:

"Sting is one of those guys that when he came in, he's super humble. No one ever says anything bad about Sting, ever. I think his retirement match is kind of one of those things where like, you could probably never duplicate that with his sons and just the match with Darby being out there and The Bucks. Sting worked his ass off when he was in AEW and I really respected that because he really didn't have to. He wasn't here just to collect the check. He was working hard and taking crazy bumps. The match that Sammy and I had against him in Darby in Hamilton, Ontario, when he jumped off the ladder to the table and slipped and hit his head. It's like Sting can't continue and he comes back in the ring and he's like, 'Fu**ing right I'm going to continue. What are you talking about?' He never gave anything less than 1,000%. I think once again, it's almost like Kiss, like Paul and Gene when you have the makeup. You don't think of him as being 64 or whatever, 65, whatever he is. He's just Sting. He did such a great job of evolving his character and still being relevant and still being cool. What a great story. It's sad to see him go, but nobody's career lasts forever and nobody's career lasts until you're 65 and still working great matches.:

"He was really smart. If you look at him, he never had a singles match in AEW. He had a couple of the cinematic ones, but in AEW, he never wanted to have a single match. He always wanted to do the tags. As much as he helped Darby, Darby helped him. That's one of the greatest mentor/student, one of the greatest tag teams of all time for that reason. It was great to be a part of that. Once again, what an inspiration. In a company where I'm kind of like the seasoned vet, when Sting came in, it's like, man, I was learning from him. When we did our matches together, you fall back on what Sting wants to do first and then work from there. He was great. I'm glad that we got to do some matches together because we had never been in the ring before, ever. With both the careers we had, we never had that opportunity, so we had a couple of really good matches and a couple of really good moments, promos, bat wars, like it was really a lot of fun to be there with him.”

On Paul Heyman being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame:

"Not just in the ring, but behind the scenes too, Paul is just one of those guys. He gets it. He's a genius, but he also knows how to play the game. He knows how to play the wrestling business game. I mean, that's a first ballot Hall of Famer for me. He knows exactly what to do to tell the story. He knows exactly what to do to build his guys. Whoever he attaches himself to becomes a better performer and a bigger star. He's just one of those guys. He's very smart. He'll be in the business until he's 80 years old if he chooses to be and he started when he was 15. So definitely a no-brainer for the Hall of Fame and like I said, one of my favorite characters I've ever met in the wrestling business."

Thoughts on Swerve Strickland:

"I'm a huge fan of Swerve. I think eventually he'll be our world champion. I mean, it's just a matter of time at this point. He's got the cool factor. He's new. He's fresh. He can talk. He looks great. I mean, he's a guy that can be a crossover super-super star, which is I think exactly what AEW needs to go to the next level, someone like Swerve or someone like Will Ospreay that people don't really know, that have the look, they have the uniqueness, they have the charisma, and once again, I'm not just talking about inside the ring. I'm talking about outside the ring because that's what wrestling is. You become a mainstream star and you build the company. Look at all the guys that have done multiple things and get out of the wrestling bubble into the mainstream world that just makes your company stronger. It makes you a bigger star and makes your company bigger."

If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Gabby AF with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription. Quotes were transcribed by Jim for WrestlingNews.co.