Jay Lethal could have been Elite a lot sooner if he took the offer a few years ago.
Jay Lethal was a guest on Talk Is Jericho and spoke about his Ring Of Honor career, which ended in November after a ten-year run. Overall, Lethal enjoyed two stints with the company that totaled 14 years, but he explained how it could have ended sooner if he took the offer to join All Elite Wrestling when Cody Rhodes and the Young Bucks left ROH in 2018.
“Let’s talk about that, that massive exodus of a good group, a solid group of people who were drawing the fans there. When this exodus, this massive [group of talent] leaving, my heart broke. And this was also during a contract negotiation time for me, and an offer was made for me, they extended the invite to me to say, ‘hey come with us’ [to AEW]. I didn’t take it, obviously, and here’s why — throughout my entire Ring Of Honor career, it really feels like they laid out the red carpet for not only me, but my family. They’ve always gone above and beyond, I can’t think of a single bad thing to say about them other than they let us sit home too long and paid us [during the pandemic].
“So when all of these guys were leaving — and I don’t want to make it seem like I’m some savior — but when all those guys left, I literally thought about the state of the company, but not only that, but the state that my friends would be left in. I’m friends with everybody there and I thought, ‘Well, I can’t do it all by myself, but at least if I’m here I can try and help because I really feel like the company is going to suffer and they’ve been really good to me. Let me repay the favor.’ And that’s the only reason I stayed. I wanted to go so bad, but I already knew from the start what was going to happen. My loyalty [took precedent] and even today, I feel like it was the right thing to do.”
Known as “The Franchise” of Ring Of Honor, Jay Lethal won the ROH World Championship twice, and had one reign each with the World Television Championship, Pure Championship and World Tag Team Championship, ending his career as the third ROH Grand Slam Champion.
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If you use this transcript, credit Talk Is Jericho with a h/t to WrestleZone and link back to this post.
