It is time for Chris Jericho to go away

There are a lot of things to love about All Elite Wrestling. Whether it’s the story with The Elite. The Blackpool Combat Club stirring up violence. Toni Storm’s fantastic run. So much to enjoy about the promotion. But Chris Jericho isn’t one of them. Fans have had enough and it's clearly time for the company to do something different when it comes to the Hall of Famer.

Jericho is locked in a feud with Hook, the man he defeated for the FTW Championship. Why? We guess it’s to heat Hook up. Even though he was already on fire with the fans. Yes, Hook cooled down a bit from when he initially started taking on more matches, but it didn’t take much to correct that. In fact, he was on fire coming out of his match with Samoa Joe. After that great battle, and what should be the feud for him at this point, he’s stuck with Jericho. Stuck is the right word.

Let’s hope this situation doesn’t go like that of Daniel Garcia. Garcia was red hot. Fans wanted to see him be the man to unseat Jericho when he won the ROH World Championship (another belt he didn’t need to win). Imagine the response if Garcia joined the Blackpool Combat Club. Instead, Garcia turned on Bryan Danielson and re-aligned himself with Jericho. How’d that play out for him? He eventually lost the ROH Pure Championship and hasn’t been a real contender since. In the AEW Continental Classic, he was framed as a loser that fans cheered to a single victory. He was expected to lose when he challenged Christian Cage for the AEW TNT Title. This isn’t the same Garcia that looked like the future of both ROH and AEW. Chris Jericho did that to him.

That’s just one example of Chris Jericho sucking the momentum out of a younger performer on the roster.

Now, AEW has booked Hook into a similar position. Jericho didn’t need to beat him. Hook already looked tough enough coming out of that battle with Joe when he was AEW Champion. What’s taking a loss to Jericho going to do for him? This is especially concerning when Hook has openly talked about evaluating the free agency market when his contract ends. Fumbling a run this late in his contract can open the door for him to be further interested in hearing what other organizations have to offer.

On the latest episode of AEW Dynamite Jericho had another long match, this time with Katsuyori Shibata. Then he had a backstage segment with Big Bill on AEW Rampage hours later. Jericho played a key part in AEW’s development and getting it off the ground, but five years later should the promotion still dedicate so much time to him?

No, the answer is no. Especially when there are so many other talented performers who do not get ample time as fans clamor to see them on television. Jericho has go-away heat at this point. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like he’s self-aware enough to realize that, as he continues to double down on “The Learning Tree” and “Jericho Vortex.” Here’s the kicker, with the farewell that AEW just gave Sting, Chris Jericho’s is probably going to be an epic on the level of Homer’s longest poems.