• Top AEW Star Says WWE Has A Problem With Building New Stars
During a recent appearance on the “Wrestling With Freddie” podcast, WWF Legend & current AEW Superstar Chris Jericho talked about AEW’s starting days from 2019 and wanting to create new stars in Tony Khan’s promotion.
Below is what the first-ever AEW World Champion said:
“This is not a WWE bash. I worked there for almost 20 years and I loved working for WWE, but one thing they still have an issue with, and you can see it if you watch the show is building new stars. They really have a problem with that and I don’t know why.
Once again, it doesn’t matter what they do. From day one in AEW, when we showed up on October 2nd, and even before that when we showed up for the first couple PPVs, we had no television deal. Then when we finally got one on TNT, it was an ad revenue share.
What that means for people that don’t know is you make the money based on the advertising. If you have 50 advertisers, you get a share. If you have one advertiser, you get a share. It was not a big monster deal.
I realized early on kind of being the face of the company and the one guy the national audience knew besides Jim Ross, but the one guy that’s in the ring, and they knew Cody maybe but not really.
Kenny (Omega) and The (Young) Bucks were more independent or popular in other countries. I needed to make new stars as quickly as I could, Cody being one of them. Kenny Omega being another one.
You look at my first few programs. Match three in AEW was against Darby Allin. Jungle Boy was right around that time.
Then Jon Moxley who had to be rehabbed when he came from WWE because Mox was not Mox when he first showed up. He was still Dean Ambrose, the goofy guy who wasn’t funny doing all the stupid sh*t they made him do. We had to make him into a star right off that bat.
All of those guys, if you look at the first 6 months pre-lockdown in AEW, I worked with all of them. So very quickly, we had 6, 8, or 10 guys shouldering the load.
4 Months after our first date, October 2nd, or three months, we went from an ad rev share to a contract I believe $160 million for 4 years because of the demos and ratings we got right out of the gate.”
Also Read: AEW Star Thought Vince McMahon Was Going To Tell Him “You’re My Guy”
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• ON THIS DAY IN WWF HISTORY (January 27, 1996) – WWF Superstars
On this day in 1996, the World Wrestling Federation aired an episode of their weekly TV show ‘WWF Superstars’.
This episode was pre-taped at the Convention Center in San Jose, California and featured matches & storyline segments on the road to the ‘WWF In Your House 6: Rage in the Cage’ PPV.
Here’s the card:
Duke Droese vs. Steve Rizzono
Justin “Hawk” Bradshaw (JBL) vs. Bob Holly [Bradshaw’s debut]
Hunter Hearst Helmsley vs. Tim Patterson
Shawn Michaels vs. Tatanka
