In a recent interview with Wrestling Observer Radio, former AEW World Champion Chris Jericho discussed several topics, including WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon thinking that Jericho was bluffing about joining All Elite Wrestling.

“I heard about Tony Khan through Barry Bloom and like you said Dave, we’ve heard it all before and are like, 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.

Suddenly, it becomes a reality when the show in Chicago happened and then suddenly it’s full bore and we began talking and I said, well I’ll go talk to Vince 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 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 and I said yeah, you told me to and he asked if I can get out of it and 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.”

The interview is available in full at this link.