Chris Jericho Theorises How The AEW World Championship Was Stolen

Back in September, reports confirmed that the AEW World Championship belt had been stolen while Chris Jericho was eating at a LongHorn Steakhouse in Tallahassee, Florida. Ultimately, the belt was returned to Jericho a few days later after, Frank Price, 41, found the title on the side of the road when he was returning from a day of scalloping, and turned it into police.

The events around the belt being stolen are still largely unknown, but on the most recent episode of Talk Is Jericho, the former Le Champion theorised as to how the title was stolen.

Jericho explained that, after All Out, he was travelling back to his home in Tampa, Florida with his wife and friend by private plane, but because of the weather, they were forced to make an emergency landing in Tallahassee, Florida. After being told they could be waiting up to seven hours, Jericho got in touch with a friend, who contacted someone he knew and arranged for a car to pick them up and drive them home.

By this point, Jericho and his companions were hungry so he suggested they go and get some food at an Outback Steakhouse. However, their driver said a LongHorn Steakhouse was closer, so they decided to go there instead. They loaded their bags into the back of the SUV, and Jericho explained the AEW World title was kept in a separate velvet bag from the rest of the luggage, and it was placed on top of his bags in the boot of the car.

Upon, arriving at LongHorn, Jericho ordered food, and while eating, his driver suddenly came into the restaurant, wandered around for five minutes and then walked over to them and asked if their home was a residence or an apartment, which Jericho thought was odd. The driver then went back outside, and 20 minutes later, came back into the restaurant to tell The Painmaker that the title belt was missing, even though Jericho didn’t tell him he was carrying a title belt.

The former AEW World Champion said: "So he was able to get an SUV…We chilled out and when the car finally showed up, keep in mind this was a last minute booking. This was not something that was planned. Nobody knew that it was Chris Jericho, it was just Chris Irvine at the Tallahassee airport to take to Tampa. So the guy shows up and we put the bags into the back and I had taken a picture with the title in front of the jet, so the title was separate from my bag. So, when I put the title into the back of the truck, it was on its own, but I put it there, and nobody knows what’s in this silver kind of velour bag because I’m the one who’s handling it. So, all you see is a sack. What's in the sack? Whatever.

"So, as we're getting ready to leave, I say 'we're really hungry, we want to go grab a bite, lets just go to a steakhouse, lets go to Outback.' And so there was an Outback kind of near and the guy says 'lets just go to LongHorn, its closer to where we need to go'…So we go to LongHorn and we have some food and I notice about 15 or 20 minutes into us sitting there…the guy comes in, the driver and he goes to the front door and he starts kind of walking around the restaurant…He kind of wanders over to our table about five minutes later and says 'hey, I just want to check your address, is that a residence or an apartment?' I'm like 'It's a residence, what difference does it make? You just put it into your GPS.' He says 'I just want to make sure, I'm just checking.' And then he walks out, and I'm like that's peculiar, like why would he walk in here, wander around for five minutes and then come over and ask me a completely irrelevant question to where we're going and then walk out? Huh, almost like he was, I don't know, maybe stalling inside the restaurant.

"So we're hanging out, and we're finishing up our dinner and the guy comes in again about 20 minutes after that and comes in and says 'your title belt is missing.' I said 'What?' He says 'Your title belt, the championship belt is missing.' Now I go, first of all, I'm thinking how do you know there's a title belt in there? Its in a bag. Its not the job of the driver to go through people's bags when they're inside. I go 'what do you mean its missing?' He goes 'yeah, well you put it in there and I came out and its gone.'

"So we go outside, and here's the thing, it was my wife’s birthday that week, so I'd bought her a big bouquet of flowers and a vase and she brought it with her to take home. And when we go out there, the vase that was in kind of the back of the truck is now in the back seat. It's gone from the trunk area to the back seat, and I'm like 'well how do you know the thing is gone?' He says 'well, I just went out here to look at the back.' And its obvious when he looked in the back that the flowers fell out onto the ground. He never mentioned the fact that the flowers fell onto the ground, he just mentioned the belt was gone. So I just start flipping out.”

Jericho later added: "The guy may be some kind of a trafficking guy. Maybe they run some kind of racket where they steal things out of the backs of limos and I'm thinking the guy said to whoever his contact was, 'meet me in the parking lot of LongHorn, I'll leave the car. I'll walk inside, you go in the back and see what you can find.' So that’s what I really think happened.

"So when the guy walked inside and killed time inside the LongHorn, I think that his partner pulled up, opened up the back of the limo, the flowers fell out, he panicked, grabbed the title belt, which this other guy had already scouted because he knew it was a title belt, even though he had no reason to know it was a title belt because I never told him, and he never looked at it while I was around because I never took it out of the bag. So, I assume he saw this one overlying piece of luggage, looked in it, thought it was some kind of a fancy gold belt, called his friend to come steal it and that's what happened. Of course, I can't prove any of that but it seems about as logical as the rest of all this."