2023 has been a year of ups and downs for AEW star Sammy Guevara, though even that might pale in comparison to his 2022. Starting the year as a firm fan-favourite, he soon found himself reviled by the company's passionate fanbase, largely because his relationship with Tay Melo was made public.
While their personal lives are just that, many AEW fans accused them of cheating after he ended his engagement (to the woman he proposed to in an AEW ring not that long ago), leaving the babyface Guevara to deal with hate online and in front of live crowds.
Talking to Chris Van Vliet, Guevara reflected on that period but put the backlash from fans down to him winning the TNT Championship.
"Before I got the TNT Title, everybody loved me," he said. "And I knew once I got the title, it was going to change. And then I got the title again, I got the title again. It was like too much success in a way, the people were like 'Whoa whoa, we wanted you to win, but not that much. Oh, and you got the girl? You're married now? Whoa whoa whoa, we don't like this!'
"What you just said is a perfect thing. They want to see you win, but they don't want to see you do better than them. That's how I felt it was, and I said it was going to happen," Guevara continued. "And then it did. And it was just like 'I don't know what you guys. You guys want to see me win, right, but then once I start winning, it's all of a sudden like 'Whoa, why are you winning?” You wanted me to win! You said you wanted me to win. Now I'm doing it. Why am I a bad [guy]?"
During the same conversation, the AEW star also shared his thoughts on Chris Jericho, the former WWE Superstar who is often accused of using AEW's younger talent to keep himself relevant.
Explaining that he "gets a target on his back just because he's doing it at such a high level for such a long time," Guevara defended his friend and admitted he wasn't on board with Tony Khan's idea for him to turn on Le Champion at this year's AEW Grand Slam.
"I didn't even know the turn was going to happen that day and truthfully didn't even want the turn to happen. I never wanted to turn on Chris," he revealed. "I was telling Tony [Khan] and everybody, I'm like, 'Let's just go our separate ways, let's just never turn on each other.' But it ended up happening and it went in a really cool way."
They seemingly buried the hatchet on this week's AEW Dynamite (Kenny Omega's injury has left Jericho without a tag team partner), so it should be interesting seeing where things go from here and whether we'll see them paired up on TV again each week.