Chris Jericho on The Biggest Difference Between WWE and AEW
During the most recent episode of Talk Is Jericho, Chris was joined by former Presidential candidate, Andrew Yang where the two discussed Joe Biden’s campaign, Yang’s universal income idea, along with his love of wrestling and why he has been targeting the WWE for how they treat talent.
Towards the end of the podcast episode, the two touched on All Elite Wrestling with Chris Jericho articulating the biggest difference between them and WWE:
"I think the difference is what we've been talking about this whole conversation. WWE treats the business as a wrestling business because that's what it's been for 60 years from Vince's father to Vince's grandfather. Almost from the old school carny attitude and you can see that with the 'Independent Contractor' for example. It's not right, but it's just the way it is.
AEW treats things from a sports team perspective. The Khan family owns the Jacksonville Jaguars. They own the Fulam Football Club in England. So they treat the company like they treat their football team and that's a whole different vibe is how the talent, the athletes, the performers get treated.
Right off the bat, not to get into total specifics, things that I have here in AEW, I never had in WWE for 20 years. Even something as simple as paying your expenses on the road, like any team does. If the Jaguars go to play a game in St. Louis, the hotel is paid for and here's the trip and here's the team bus to pick you up and drive you around. That's just the way it is. It's not even a second thought, right? That's how it is in AEW as well, which it's never like that in WWE. They still go with here's your plane ticket, you're flying to Detroit. You're working Detroit, Chicago, Cape Girardeau and St. Louis. So, you rent your car in Detroit, you drop it off in St. Louis, you've got to find your hotel room. You've got to get a car that has a good rate for the drop-off. All that stuff and those are your expenses and your responsibility to do that.
That's another thing that I think people are like, are you kidding me? You really have to do that?
So, that's the biggest difference."
Note: The full Talk Is Jericho episode Andrew Yang Slams WWE can be listened to in its entirety below.
