Chris Jericho Reveals He Requested Aubrey Edwards Ref First AEW World Title Match

Within a day of officiating the Chris Jericho-Adam Page match to determine the first ever AEW World Champion at last year's All Out pay-per-view, Aubrey Edwards was hired to the promotion full-time. Today, she's the most prolific official in the company, and even co-hosts the AEW Unrestricted podcast with Tony Schiavone.

As a guest on Talk is Jericho this past week, Edwards and Jericho discussed the All Out match, and Jericho revealed that he's the one who advocated for her to work the bout.

"I'm sitting and just watching the matches and seeing this vibe, and I said to Cody, 'She's really a ref,'" Jericho recalls. "That's when I was thinking, okay, we're doing this title match with Hangman. I want to have Aubrey, the first ever female ref in a world heavyweight title match."

He added, "I mean, I thought that was a pretty big deal. It it was WWE, they'd shove it down people's throats to where it's like, oh my gosh, but we didn't have to. We made a point of it, and once again, now we have another main event ref because that is a thing, a main event ref that works the main event."

Edwards, for her part, admitted having nerves about working the title bout, saying, "I'm not going lie, I was scared in that match. People ask me my favorite matches and they assume it's that one. Oh, no. I was all in my head. I was so worried. It's my first time working with Chris. Turns out you're cool, great guy, and super easy to work with, but I'm like, oh god. I'm so nervous.

"I'm worried I'm just going to drop the belt because it's 40 pounds. I was so in my head about that whole thing that I don't think I enjoyed it in the moment. And watching it back after, I'm like, okay, this was good. I'm happy with my performance. I could have done a couple things differently, but I was nerve-racked."

(Credit to Wrestling Inc for transcription)