Chris Jericho is a locker room leader for AEW, with him stepping up more in that role coming out of AEW All Out 2022 because of the actions of CM Punk, including when he ripped countless wrestlers such as Colt Cabana and Hangman Page at the post-event press conference before being involved in a fight with The Elite.
AEW President Tony Khan has praised Jericho for being a locker room leader alongside Bryan Danielson and Jon Moxley as they assured everyone that things would be okay.
While speaking with the Daily Mail, Jericho talked about the message they sent to the talent roster following All Out. He also shared his belief that the AEW roster became strong after the incident.
“We just let people know that everything’s gonna be OK. We are a great locker room with great people and a lot of momentum for our company that’s still very young and things happen sometimes. There was a lot of uncertainty. We’ve got a lot of young guys and girls on our roster who have never been through stuff like this before, but it’s a part of the business, it happens. We were really getting painted with an unfair brush by the media in a lot of ways like ‘it’s a dumpster fire in the locker room’ and that wasn’t the case. And I don’t want people to believe what they’re reading and think that it’s real, because it wasn’t.”
Jericho continued, “You go through things like that, fights and that sort of thing, I’ve been in them myself with locker room brawls You’ve got to continue forward and Mox, Danielson and I just really wanted to grab the horse by the reins before it got out of control and just let people know that if you have concerns let’s discuss them, if you have issues let’s discuss them but let’s get through them together and come through stronger on the back end.I think we really came together well which was great for the locker room and for the fans because the fans too want to know that everything is going to continue moving forward. And I think we did a really good job of righting the ship and most importantly letting people know that it’s going to be OK. It’s not the end of the world. These things happen and we deal with them and we become stronger as a result, which we have.”
After being suspended and recovering from surgery, Punk made his AEW return in June on the premiere episode of AEW Collision, where he has continued to make headlines.
At this Sunday’s All In pay-per-view event, Jericho will wrestle Will Ospreay.
