Chris Jericho lost the AEW World Championship to Jon Moxley at AEW Revolution, and the reason why he was booked to lose may have been revealed.
Jericho lost the AEW World title against Moxley at AEW Revolution on Saturday night, bringing his inaugural title reign to an end after 182 days.
Some AEW might have been surprised to see Le Champion lose his title, but the decision may have been made in anticipation of what’s to come for him, according to Wrestling News.
Many wrestling fans know about Jericho’s ventures outside of the ring with his rock band Fozzy, and he will soon be taking some time away from AEW in order to tour with them.
Jericho will start touring again with his Fozzy band in April through May, and while his tour dates don’t conflict with any AEW Dynamite shows or the Double or Nothing show, but not being champion will give him the flexibility to take time off when he needs it.
Y2J has done a great job so far in AEW as Le Champion, as his segments on Dynamite one of the highest-rated parts of the show each week.
Jericho has also done a great job of helping elevate the youth in AEW, who will be looked at to carry on the promotion’s momentum should the inaugural champion take any time off.
Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Radio, via Ringside News, noted that Jericho has an overseas tour over the summer too and that him dropping the title to Moxley at Revolution could be in anticipation of that as well.
Meltzer argued that AEW didn’t want to be too predictable by waiting until their next pay-per-view in order to take the title off Jericho, so they decided to take it off him now.
It’s currently unclear as to who will be Moxley’s first challenger as the AEW World Champion, but we could know as soon as Dynamite this week.
However, there’s also the possibility that we might not even see Moxley on the show, as he revealed after Revolution that he was ‘half-concussed’ at one point during the main event.