AEW Superstar Chris Jericho Reveals How Difficult It Was to Work With Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair and Sting Early in His Career

Chris Jericho has had an illustrious wrestling career that has crossed the three-decade mark, and he is still going strong as one of the key players in AEW. He may be ‘Le Champion’ now, but back in the day, he was ‘Le Amateur’ just like the rest of the starters. 

In the early days, mixing in with the veterans of the business was an extremely hard thing to do. When it came to the upcoming stars, the big shots on the roster weren’t exactly approachable.

In a recent interview on Hollywood Raw, Chris Jericho recalled the time he first entered a big locker room in WCW and found himself standing amongst some of the best names in the wrestling world. 

“When I first walked into the WCW locker room at 25 years old, and there’s Hulk Hogan over here and Ric Flair is over there and Sting is here and, you know, Lex Luger is over there, and you’re just like, ‘I’m so nervous right now’. But I was also smart enough to know that I can’t be nervous because I work here now,” explained Jericho.  

“These are my peers. I’m not a fanboy. So shake their hands, laugh when they tell a joke, throw a couple of lines in when the time is right. But don’t, you know, overtake the conversation,” Jericho said.  

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Chris Jericho is optimistic about the locker room attitude these days

Y2J describes how it is much easier to gel in the locker room these days since other established stars are a lot more friendly.

“I wish there was a book, especially back then- ‘The Backstage Etiquette of Wrestling’ where you could go through and read it and go ‘Oh, okay, okay’ but there’s not so you just have to kind of find your own way,” explained Jericho. “Thankfully, it’s not as vicious as it used to be. And guys are a lot more accommodating now.”

There have been numerous stories on certain Superstars being ribbed in the locker room. Some ex-members of the WWE roster have claimed that this was a result of jealousy from some older stars, who wanted to protect their position in the business. 

However, things seem to be a lot more open now, which has fostered a large scale development of the next generation. This ensures that WWE and AEW alike have no trouble promoting their younger stars rather than losing out on their talent. 

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