Chris Jericho comments on tribalism in wrestling.
Chris Jericho was a top star in WWE for years. He has been with AEW since they launched in 2019, and the company recently secured a new multi-year media rights deal. The competition between the two companies has led to some tribalism in the wrestling world.
Speaking on Busted Open Radio, Chris Jericho commented on tribalism.
“Tribalism is always a thing, and that’s okay,” Chris Jericho said. “Listen, nobody should be universally loved. That’s not cool. It’s okay. Hate is, love us, hate WWE, love WWE, hate Busted Open, love Busted Open, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is it’s thriving, and pro wrestling is bigger now than it’s ever been, from a financial standpoint.
“Maybe not from a ticket standpoint or ratings standpoint because the landscape has changed, but from a pure dollars and cents, there has never been a time in this business where companies, both WWE and AEW, two separate companies, are making hundreds of millions of dollars a year to be on TV. It was never liked that when we worked there.”
Chris Jericho On The Changing Landscape
Jericho went on to highlight how the television business and wrestling as a whole were changing, and it was an interesting time.
“This is a great time for the business, to be in it, for the fans, and everything else,” Chris Jericho said. “Live sports, and I’ll call wrestling a sport, is the last bastion of advertising. Meaning with all the streaming that’s going on, nobody’s watching commercials anymore. There isn’t commercials. The only commercials that we have are live sports, and that’s why it’s worth that much money. It’s all they have left to make the money. It really is an interesting time for the television business, for the wrestling business, and for live sports and for advertising.”
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