Chris Jericho Believes WWE's Vince McMahon Thought He Was Bluffing About Joining AEW

Chris Jericho 'honestly believes' that Vince McMahon thought he was bluffing about joining All Elite Wrestling in 2019 and was actually using the threat of joining them as a way to get more money from WWE.

Jericho surprised the wrestling world by turning up at an AEW media event in January 2019, shortly signing a contract with Tony Khan's promotion not long after.

The first-ever AEW Champion has now detailed how his decision to sign with AEW came about, having last competed in WWE in 2018 before trying his hand in NJPW and on the independent circuit.

The Demo God revealed that, when he tried to tell McMahon about AEW's offer, the WWE Chairman told him to take it, only to ask him if he could get out of it after he signed the contract.

Speaking to Dave Meltzer and Brian Alvarez on Wrestling Observer Radio, Jericho said: "I heard about Tony (Khan) through Barry Bloom (his agent) and like you said Dave (Meltzer), we’ve heard it all before and are like, ‘whatever, whatever, whatever’.

"We had a Fozzy show in Jacksonville, I don’t remember when it was, perhaps the beginning or middle of 2018 and Tony came to the show and we talked afterward. I just thought, ‘this guy’s pretty cool, he won’t really look at me though, he’s just kind of, looking away’, you know how Tony is, he’s got a million things going on and I don’t know if maybe he was nervous or was preoccupied or whatever it was but I thought, ‘he’s a cool guy’ and he seems to have some cool ideas and, whatever.

"Suddenly, it becomes a reality when the show in Chicago (All In) happened and then suddenly it’s full bore and we began talking and I said, ‘well, I’ll go talk to Vince (McMahon) and see what he says’ and it was Triple H who was supposed to talk with me, which I’ve never talked to Triple H before. I talked to Vince and Vince only and then, Triple H kind of jobbed me out by not calling me back when he said he would, and I don’t play games like that, so I was like ‘forget it, I’ll just talk to Vince or no one else’. 

"Then, Vince never really called me either and we got an offer from Tony and Barry (Bloom) told Hunter, who told Vince, who said ‘take it’ and I think Vince thought I was bluffing, so I took it. And when Vince found out, he said, ‘You took it?’, I said, ‘Yeah, you told me to’, and he said, ‘can you get out of it?, I was like, ‘No, you told me to take it’.

"I honestly believe to this day that he thought I was trying to bluff him and squeeze him for more money, which he should know me better, and if that’s the case, I never would have done that. I was always straight with Vince as much as possible but that’s kind of how it all started and I bet Vince regrets that now because of the amount of money he would have paid me not to go, I’m sure he’s paid times a hundred."

H/T POST Wrestling