Chris Jericho reveals what made him decide to leave WWE

AEW star Chris Jericho recently celebrated 30 years in pro wrestling on the last episode of Dynamite. Jericho was also the first AEW World Champion, a title he lost to the current champion Jon Moxley.

Thanks to the amazing, star studded cast of characters who joined me to celebrate #Jericho30this week on #AEWDynamite...including the funniest man in America @fluffyguy and one of my oldest and dearest friends in the business @mexwarrior! Gracias Pinche Ghost! pic.twitter.com/156MfGMP9O

— Chris Jericho (@IAmJericho) October 11, 2020

Chris Jericho on what made him decide to leave WWE

Chris Jericho was recently a guest on Busted Open Radio. During the interview, Jericho spoke about his run alongside Kevin Owens in WWE. Jericho expressed how much fun that storyline was to be a part of before calling it the best story on RAW at the time. Jericho then expressed his disappointment that the storyline culminated in him facing Kevin Owens on the second match at WrestleMania, instead of the opener or the main event, saying that this factored into his decision to leave WWE:

I decided to do a three-month contract in 2016 to do something at WrestleMania – it was supposed to be with [Dean] Ambrose and they changed it to AJ Styles. Then I hooked up with Kevin Owens, and I was like ‘Man, this is really fun.’ It kind of reinvigorated my love and creativity. And then midway through 2017, we had the best story on RAW by far – I’m not being a jerk about that, you can go back and watch how entertaining that story was – and all that garnered us was second match on the card at WrestleMania. Second match – that’s a jobber match. First or last – those or the two, and maybe semi-main event. We were on second after having the best story of the year. I said ‘I’m done, I’m not doing this again.’ H/T: 411Mania

Chris Jericho added that a call from Don Callis led to him showing up in New Japan Pro Wrestling to wrestle Kenny Omega. Jericho added that his run in NJPW rediscovering his love for wrestling and eventually led to him signing with AEW:

When I went to New Japan, it was like this whole new world of creativity opened up where I was like ‘This is what wrestling is supposed to be.’ There are no scripts…….it was real. That was where it all started coming back to me again doing those New Japan shows which led into AEW.

"If there was no @AEW, I might not be wrestling anymore..."@IAmJericho talks to @davidlagreca1 & @THETOMMYDREAMER as he celebrates 30 years in pro wrestling...@AEWonTNT #AEWDynamite #AEWonTNT pic.twitter.com/C0L3e8YRjE

— SiriusXM Busted Open (@BustedOpenRadio) October 7, 2020

Chris Jericho recently teamed up with Jake Hager on AEW Dynamite to beat his old friend Luther and Serpentico. MJF has said that he has a big announcement on the next episode of Dynamite and that he wants Chris Jericho out there in the ring during the announcement.