Last week, Vince McMahon made it clear he doesn't view AEW as competition to WWE the same way WCW was once upon time. Now, Chris Jericho (who was on both sides of the Monday Night War) has shared his take on that during a recent interview with Inside The Ropes.
He started by talking about the short-lived Wednesday Night War that, ultimately, AEW won.
"We’re not worried about what WWE is and we haven’t been since day one. We weren’t worried about what NXT did. The whole time with the NXT vs. AEW war, which ended in a total abysmal failure for NXT, we never once had a TV screen watching what they were doing when we were doing it."
"So, WWE is not competition for us. We’re competition for ourselves," Jericho continued. "So for Vince to say that – to me, it’s probably reverse psychology and that he does see us as competition. But deep down inside, what does it really matter?"
As for when AEW could potentially become competition for WWE, Jericho explained how those ratings could ultimately factor into TV deals and the big money that obviously comes with them.
"Now when our demo ends up beating theirs and TV deals start coming in for us at the billions, then I truly think there will be a lot of competition because now you’re fighting for money, you’re not just fighting for bragging rights – and bragging rights don’t mean anything," he concluded. "It’s the money that you make from it that counts. So we’ll see what happens."
It's certainly going to be an interesting few years to be a wrestling fan.