 How do you feel to have that first episode kind of done with it? It feels great because we basically changed the entire industry before we even had one minute of national TV time. And now that we have a show under our belts, that was very successful, both in the ring as a program and of course with the ratings, the demographics and all that sort of stuff. I think now it's shut a lot of people up and it's excited a lot more people. Maybe some people that were kind of on the fence about AEW are now completely like wow that was really cool, I'm gonna check it out. And I think that we've really appealed to a segment of the fan base that might have left wrestling for a while. And now they're kind of returning because we're giving them something different, a little bit of an option and I think that's why AEW has such a buzz and why we've become basically the coolest company in the world is because it's something different and it's beginning in front of your very eyes and growing in front of your very eyes. The newer talent that I think people had some concerns about or maybe we're kind of like I don't know if this person, particularly I'll say Sammy Guevara even though he did some dirty business to my husband on the way out there, he really just rose to the occasion. So many people at Rio that did, the talent came up, they showed up, they showed you what they could do and that was just so inspirational to see. It also gives me so much hope moving into what I know is happening next that people are going to continue to be super hooked because I feel like it was hard to not connect with someone on that show. Can you talk a little bit more about how AEW is going to distinguish itself from its competitors? I think one of the, you know, I'm talking to somebody that worked for the WWE for 19 years. It's an amazing company, it's worldwide. It's the standard for what pro wrestling is but there's a certain style that they have. It's very much an overly written show and AEW is not. AEW allows the performers to perform, allows the artists to be artists and I think especially for a guy like myself, like you know if I'm going to be in a Netflix show and I'm playing George Swanson and you give me a script that's great, I can create the George Swanson character that's written for me, nobody can write for Chris Jericho like Chris Jericho can, it's my character and I can't write for Jungle Boy or I can't write for Awesome Kong or anything like that. We're allowing the performers to be creative and either you're going to sink or you swim and if you swim you're going to be very successful when you have an organic character that gets over with the audience because of what you're doing with it. To me, our artists, our talent, our artists, our wrestlers, our collaborators with the heads, the powers that be and me as an artist I feel heard when I come to the powers that be over at AEW and they are open to let me be the artist that I am and when you feel heard it brings joy to your life because you're creating the art that you are. Three, four days prior to being in Washington, D.C. to kick off a dynamite I did my last official independent booking and I definitely looked at that as a turning point like a new chapter if you will, maybe even a new volume and from here on out with AEW the experiences are going to be bigger and bolder and I'm going to try to drink it all in and grow as a performer, obviously grow as a person. There's so much in every little nook cranny and corner to learn and me personally that's what I'm hoping to do. I think any time wrestling is on TV or wrestling gets hot no matter what company it inspires guys to get in the business I know it did for me. I think what this does not just for the wrestlers but for the fans as well this is the first time you've ever been able to see a major company starting from scratch. You know if you were a WWE fan that started in the 40s if you're a WWE fan via NWA started in the 20s there's been small companies that started bingo halls and you know sports bars but our very first show was in front of 14,000 people out of sold out arena on the TNT network that drew one and a half million people. That's something cool. I remember when Metallica first came out I got in them in 1985 as the band grew and got bigger I took great pride in that because they're my band. I was there from the start and you take some ownership in that and I think that's one of the school about our fans is they're taking ownership in the fact that we can see this company build and grow and we've never had the opportunity to do that before so there's a lot of brand loyalty for us as a result. We just need to stay on our track not be distracted by anything else that's going on and just stay headstrong and continue to trust our focus that's what we've done up until this point a lot of our focus is on our fans and being listeners and paying attention to what it is that they like and what they're seeing that they're wanting more of and I think in wrestling sometimes people want to you know have a straight narrow path and they never want to deviate we're welcome to deviating when it comes to the fan base there's something that they're just really feeling and it means we have to change course for a bit we're going to do that. I think where I was a year ago I've not expected this so I'm really kind of excited to see the thing I can tell is things are changing I knew that from day one things are different I've been saying this all day but I get to ride to the ring on the dinosaur every week and that is the thing that in other places and then other times would never fly but we're doing that on national TV in arenas with 15,000 people and people love it and it's cool and we do get to do that and she does get to wrestle it we get to do what we want to do and be different wrestling is changing and it's up to us to decide what we want to put forward and what people want to see people want to do and there there are rules but there are no rules you know it has to evolve we all do we have to move forward and create new things so in a year from now I don't know who knows where we go how you reflect on your personal growth this point in your life is really a turning point a bookmark for you but how you personally reflecting on your personal growth as an artist as a person yeah really I really do feel like an entirely different person like not not just in the ring not just as character obviously but really like I just feel like a better person I just feel like myself again I just feel like I didn't like the person that I was becoming because just they just a lot of just negativity around that whole situation like I didn't really realize how miserable I was for as long as I was until it was over because you're at just you're at the top that always be like I'd never want to be a complainer or not be like grateful because I'm like well I got I came into this with nothing when I drove I drove to Florida with nothing but like my beater car and like whatever cash I had in my pocket and like my wrestling bag I literally had nothing when I moved down to Tampa drove from Philly to Tampa and that was the gamble I was like all right let's see if this WWE thing works out a lot of people funnily enough didn't think I had even a shot of making it because they're like well if he can't bleed and swear and stab everybody then he's never gonna make it WWE funnily enough I became almost too child-friendly so I succeeded too much but you know the WWE gamble not that I had anything to gamble but it worked out you know I went down there with nothing and I left with literally everything so I'd be like thinking to myself like you know I was the most beautiful wife in the world this is the greatest person in the world I got perfect house yeah my dogs that I got my truck I'm like I don't I got everything and it and I'm at the top of the end of these fans you know I'm like and so I'd be like I don't want to complain so it's just I kind of ignored that anything was wrong and what's wrong was I hated my freaking job but I didn't you know I just I'd be like oh well at least I'm not working in like a factory somewhere you know so I always try to like look at it I don't think I realized how miserable I was cuz I kept trying to put a positive spin on it because I wanted to be like grateful to the universe like and you know you feel like a responsibility to like fans and stuff and like you know make a wish programs and things like that you know see you don't want to just bitch about like like you're bad creative when there's people who have to work 12 hours in the factory and stuff like that so but now it's like I feel like I'm I feel like I literally was asleep for like years you know this moment it's something that we've all recognized but also inspired a great conversation you know this this situation happened in your life at the same time AEW bubbling I think it inspired wrestling culture in general like wrestling independent wrestling shows like they've talked a lot about it now it's just AEW conversation so how are you reflecting on that unlike on adding fuel to like even bigger picture me my situation was just like right place right time like when I was leaving WWE I didn't even know everything the AEW thing wasn't even a thing yet you know it just literally happened at the exact same time as like I didn't like I didn't even find AEW AEW found me it's like we just our paths just converged in the exact same time so that was really fortunate but I think it's cool it's it's coolest for the fans because it's well it's good for everybody right now just this is the most exciting time to be a wrestler to be a wrestling fan that since I've been in the business there's the most exciting time for the wrestling business probably since I was 12 like 96 97 so 98 you know and back then you know ECW is still not building so is WCW so is WWE so I think right now everybody's just I think everybody's gonna start doing better than they're doing right now you know and you know the rep is the wrestlers who are getting more money from WWE you know just because they're trying to lock everybody down which is great it should have been like that all along you know you're seeing you know just I think I think they're gonna start reducing their schedule too it's good you know which is good because their schedules stupid makes no sense so you're gonna I think you're gonna see a better quality of life for guys you know in the competition so to speak just because of the existence of AEW I mean you're there's guys in Japan that are getting that I know that are getting raises that are under contract that aren't even coming don't even want to come here but just just as like a sign of good faith so it was literally the entire industry all over the world is like benefiting from the fact that now there's like a viable alternative and once we like hit 10 o'clock and we got two hours in the can there the night we were like we did it high five there and now we got the ratings out there is a viable alternative you know I mean like this is real this actually happened like I'm sure there are a lot of people that are gonna keep wanting to wake up from the nightmare like this it's a really real but like oh this is happening this is a hundred percent real and it's great for everybody and they're great most and I don't say this to try to like do some corporate speak like that that passive-aggressive ass WWE statement the other day but it is ultimately the fans benefit you know because they get to see these guys who are like all across the board or more inspired or from like from the indies getting hyped up to like all across the board is everybody's more passionate more excited and like it's the other night I was watching role like with my wife the other night and was like I was like this is fun because we're like watching them react like oh now they got now they brought pyro back and like now they're bringing they brought in Hogan and there's watching them try to like make moves it's like it's fun it's excited like the fan part of me is like this is so much fun they're a challenge with all these new names that like unrecognizable names in the wrestling industry that you know to the casual fans to to give them to the forefront there is but here's the difference for us like we have a lot of star power if you look at what happened at the end of our very first show who was out there Jericho we know him moxie we know him Cody Rhodes well we haven't seen him for a while but we know that name Dustin Rhodes we know him Jake Hager we haven't seen him in a while now he's undefeated MMA fighter he's back that's star power then as a result people know these guys and they get to see Nick Jackson Matt Jackson Kenny Omega Sammy Guevara Santana Ortiz we build stars by putting them with stars that's how you get people over if you just have a bunch of names that nobody's heard it's hard to get momentum for us we have the bridge as you mentioned to bring people that haven't seen AEW who's on ad up in Jericho well we like him let's watch it and then you watch Jericho on AWC oh my gosh who the young bucks these guys are great this Kenny Omega's awesome hangman page in MJF that's how it works so we have a real great balance like a great football team or a great hockey team of rookies guys in their prime and a selection of very select selection of seasoned vets who are still working at the top level helping guys with the experience humor is an important part of your character for years and that was a good part of the WW even that golden era the teddy bear season yeah is that an area that you think AEW will concentrate as opposed to the ECW the hard action try to bring it I think it brings the marginal I think you know the original mindset for AEW is to be a is to be more of the sports oriented show but listen if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck it's a duck it's pro wrestling especially when I'm in the ring yeah there's a serious side but there's also a comedic side that's what connects with the audience and that's the most important thing about wrestling and if you look at the guys in our company that the people might not be familiar with the young bucks are hilarious Kenny Omega's very uniquely quirky funny there's a lot of humorous guys in the company who also understand when you turn the humor off and turn the seriousness on so I mean the other day I was in the ring and it was during a TV break but not everywhere some people were watching it live on different streaming services stuff and we were beating somebody up and I've been doing this for 29 years and I look over I see a wiener in the ring like a hot dog someone threw a hot dog in the ring hold on hold on who threw this wiener in the ring what is this it's funny but how you can't just kick a hot dog out of the ring I'm talking a wiener like you took it out of the fridge it wasn't even cooked that's funny stuff right you have to be able to play on that sort of thing and then take the crowd back into the seriousness of the match as well that's the beauty of wrestling and that's the beauty of AEW we have the freedom to do that to go with the flow and take advantage of the opportunities that come about while you're in the middle of the match so what do you feel is the best way to kind of reach disillusioned fans who have kind of walked away from wrestling? I think there's a buzz about it word of mouth is very important and to now once you see the show we don't have to explain it anymore now people know okay we saw the first AEW dynamite it was amazing you got to see this show really what is it it's this new company Jericho's there moxies there you know Dustin Rhodes is there Wilson a bunch of guys that we've never heard of before man they're amazing these are guys that have honed their craft for a dozen years around the world that are now getting a chance to show it in front of a national audience so I think there's a different feel to us it's fresh with a bunch of guys you've never heard of before that are fucking amazing and that's the secret you know it really is you have to have fresh exciting good talent on top and we have that it is so fresh like I said that they basically unwrapped when it comes to to a national TV