Jericho Warns About WWE Stars Joining AEW After McMahon's Offer Snub

All Elite Wrestling (AEW) has been making waves in the pro-wrestling world before they have even hosted their first show, which is set to take place May 25 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), the world’s most popular wrestling promotion, has taken notice and is considering the new company a genuine threat to their supremacy that has lasted almost two decades.

The first major move AEW made was to land Chris Jericho, a WWE legend in his own right, and they then landed Kenny Omega, who was also highly sought after. And the former has now turned heads of several wrestlers by revealing that he got an NFL-style offer to sign on the dotted line from his new employers.

AEW is backed by Pakistani American billionaire Shahid Khan and his son Tony and have deeper pockets than the McMahon family that runs WWE. They are said to be willing to match or even better the lucrative deals on offer from the WWE, which has now given pro-wrestlers an added advantage on the negotiating table.

WWE CEO Vince McMahon is said to have instructed management to ensure all the wrestlers on their roster are tied down to new deals in order to prevent them from jumping ship. But many top stars are coming to the end of their deals and are yet to agree to new terms as they are exploring other options on the table.

And Jericho, who recently sat down for an in-depth interview with Wrestling Observer Radio admitted that he was initially shocked when McMahon did not match the offer he had on the table. He believes the decision will come back to bite the WWE CEO “in the a--” as he can be the bridge for WWE stars wanting to explore AEW.

The WWE legend claims to be on par with Brock Lesnar in terms of what he brings to the table and revealed that he had a mid-seven-figure offer from Impact Wrestling when he was in talks with New Japan Wrestling and AEW’s Tony Khan.

"In my mind, from a pure business standpoint, I'm worth as much as Brock Lesnar at this point in time to WWE as far as what I bring to the table,” Jericho said, as quoted on Wrestling Inc. "That was just the watermark I had. So, for me to go back to Vince, I was like, 'I want that type of deal.' Because that's the way it should be in my mind.”

“When I was starting to talk to Tony [Khan], and I was negotiating with New Japan, and even with Impact as well and, like I said, Impact offered me a hell of a deal for a four-match series. It was a really good amount of money, like, we're talking mid-seven-figures. In the back of my mind, I always thought, but in this day and age with the amount of money that WWE has, Vince will come through at the end and match this offer,” he added.

However, McMahon’s offer never materialized and Jericho revealed after that the WWE CEO asked him to take the deal in front of him and “go with god”. The one reason for McMahon’s decision is said to be his desire not to break the wage structure currently in place.

If McMahon decided to match the offer on the table, Jericho believes a number of other wrestlers would demand pay parity, which would not work out for the promotion in the long run. But the former WWE wrestler feels it was a bad decision by the chairman as he could now ensure that they lose more superstars by creating a bridge for them to explore other options like AEW or New Japan.

“Vince is Vince since 1982, and he's got his ideas, and his rules, and his structures and nobody's bigger than the WWE. But this is the one time that it might come back to bite him in the a-- because, once again, there's a real chance that I can be a bridge to a lot of people that haven't experience or have wanted to check out, AEW,” Jericho explained.

“Except for the fact that I'm there, and when they see it, they're going to see me with these other overnight sensations that have been doing this for ten-fifteen years. Some of the best in the world. And it could hurt. We don't know, but that's something to me that I feel is a very distinct possibility," he added.