Chris Jericho has been in every major wrestling promotion in the last three decades and more and he’s become successful and won championship titles in these promotions such as WCW, ECW, NJPW, AEW, and the WWE. For the past three decades, “The Demo God” Chris Jericho has seen every ups and downs as well as problems and issues each and every wrestler faces, and one of those major issues is drug use.
Top AEW Star and the first-ever AEW World Champion “Le Champion” Chris Jericho recently appeared as a guest on Keeping It 100 with Konnan podcast, where he noted that drug use has significantly decreased in today’s wrestling compared to when he first broke into the wrestling business.
This is what Chris Jericho said:
“Now, it’s you know, weed and alcohol,” “There’s really no pills, there’s really no drugs.”
Jericho then talked about the main differences between WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon and AEW CEO and President Tony Khan. According to Jericho, it has been a really cool environment with AEW because Khan is one of the boys to an extent as he hangs out after the show and is very generous.
Jericho has also said that in AEW there is always food after the show and half the time there is even alcohol and the reason for that is the Khan family has a sports background, while the McMahon family is more of a wrestling background. This means that in sports you take care of your athletes and you make sure they are fed, but in WWE, they don’t.
This is what Chris Jericho said:
“It’s been a really cool environment with AEW because Tony is, you never want to say this, but he’s one of the boys to an extent.” “He’s one of the boys in that he hangs out after the show. He’s very generous.”
“There’s food after every show for the entire crew. Half the time, there’s alcohol as well, so it’s almost like there’s an after party after every show, but the reason for that is the Khan family have a sports background. The McMahon family is a wrestling background. In sports, you take care of your athletes and you make sure they’re fed. You make sure they have a place to stay. In WWE, you don’t. You find your own food, you rent your own hotel, you get your own rental car, and have at it.”
Jericho then talked about AEW being similar to WCW in how there was that camaraderie because everyone was together and unlike how WWE is except on tour everybody was in different hotels and some guys are even leaving right after the show, which means that there really isn’t any cliques or groups.
This is what Chris Jericho said:
“The way WCW was, there was that camaraderie because everyone was together.” “And the difference now, like you said, everybody is just cool. Everybody wants to be hanging out. Not saying WWE wasn’t like that, but unless you did a European tour, everybody was in different hotels, and some guys are leaving right after the show, some guys have to drive to the next town, some guys like to stay. In this one, there really isn’t [any cliques]. I mean, there are your cliques, but usually it is a pretty cool crowd, and everyone is just hanging out man.”
“I feel like this is the modern day equivalent of driving down the highway, and instead of having 2-3 guys in my car, which I never would if there was driving at this point, I got 15 guys gathered around for stupid stories.”
Jericho then talked about how Tony Khan loves the stories of WCW and what they were doing in the past since he is so obsessed with that as he is like the ultimate wrestling fan.
This is what Chris Jericho said:
“Tony Khan loves the stories of the worldwide tapings.” “The ones we used to do in WCW. Everyone was getting f–ked up, and drunk, and whatever we were on back then. The advent of ecstasy, for example. And all of that, he’s so obsessed with that because he is like the ultimate wrestling fan. He watched those shows. When I tell him that those shows, 80% of the guys on those shows were either still drunk or super hungover, he just thinks that’s the greatest story in the world, ‘So tell me more.’ Of course, Cody loves all that history, he’s a big historian.”
