Chris Jericho on How the AEW and Owen Hart Foundation Partnership Came Together

– Chris Jericho was recently interviewed by Stephanie Chase, and the AEW star discussed the promotion partnering with Dr. Martha Hart and the Owen Hart Foundation for the upcoming Owen Hart Cup Tournament and for upcoming Owen Hart merchandise releases. Below are some highlights (via Fightful):

Chris Jericho on AEW’s Tony Khan working with Owen’s widow, Dr. Martha Hart: “It was a passion project for me and obviously for Martha and Tony. We worked on it for a long time, about a year and a half, to put the deal together and figure out what we wanted to do. I just knew I wanted Owen’s legacy to be something positive and something great as far as wrestling goes, rather than just be dwelling on his death. That’s the main reason why we all wanted this to happen, so we can celebrate Owen Hart’s career and the contributions that he made. He was a pioneer.”

Jericho on Owen being an inspiration to him: “‘What’s his connection to AEW?’ some people are saying. Well, one of the connections is that he’s specifically the reason I got into wrestling. Owen Hart was the guy. To an extent, Shawn Michaels and Ricky Steamboat, but Owen Hart, to me, I thought, ‘I want to be like that guy.’ There is your connection to AEW. The original AEW face of the company is an Owen Hart fanatic and disciple. That’s the reason we wanted to do this. We’ll do the Owen Hart Cup and tournament and make people feel good about Owen rather than sad. We know what happened, but that was over 20 years ago. Let’s move forward remembering his amazing contributions and legacy in the ring that still resonate to this day. I’m really excited about it and very happy about it and really happy the deal got done. We put a lot of time and work to make it happen, but it did and now we can move forward and have great times with Owen involved, which I’m sure he would love as well.”