Bill Apter Thinks Chris Jericho Should Lead AEW Booking Committee

In an interview with Wrestling Inc, Bill Apter said that while he’s not sure he would take the position, he thinks that Chris Jericho would be the best choice to lead AEW’s booking committee. Here are highlights:

On if a promotion could go back to no music or pyro: “Vince McMahon and WWE started the whole thing with the pyro, titan trons, music and entrances. They were the first national company to make that really look like something. AEW, I haven’t seen the product but I’m sure there’s gonna be entrance music and pyro and special effects. How can you differentiate and make the product look different aesthetically? I don’t know how to do that. And will the fan want to see that.”

On AEW not hiring writers: “I like that because my favorite days in the business were in the dressing rooms and hearing the wrestlers creating, along with Vince Sr and Jr, and coming up with this, ‘Hey why don’t we do this? One of you talk about this in the interview and then do 2-3 minutes of this.’ They were creating it and they had a lot of fun doing it. The guys in the business were always more creative than the people brought in from the outside.”

On who should lead the AEW booking committee: “Jericho has re-invented not just himself but angles in the wrestling business in this country and Japan as well. He would be able to take an idea, fine tune it and turn it around or make it better.”

On Chris Jericho as AEW World Champ: “It surprised a lot of people. They thought they were gonna put the new guy [Adam Page] out of the gate as champion. I think it’s a great idea because of the infectious Jericho fans from WWE who wanna see everything he does. They were infected by Y2Jism. They will follow anything he does; it doesn’t matter what company.”

On how other promotions will fare with AEW vs. WWE going on: “Most wrestling fans that I talk too, Impact has fallen off their radar because they’re on TV but they’re not on TV. [AXS TV] will hopefully raise their profile greatly. MLW I don’t get on anything here in terms of cable. I have to watch their shows online and I wish I could tune in and watch it on TV.”

On if Impact should go against NXT: “I think it would be deadly. I think Impact needs to recoup their TV audience and do it on a night when there’s no other wrestling going on. I wish they would have a six-hour block on [AXS TV] starting with Impact Wrestling going to the Women of Wrestling going to New Japan and maybe some other companies. It’s a concentrated wrestling block on a Friday night or Saturday night.”

On who will win the ratings war on Wednesdays: “That’s a question a lot of people have asked me and there are two ways to look at it: 1) the excitement of AEW is gonna draw great and they are the new kids on the block. 2) With NXT, the only negative there is that a day or two later you can watch it on the Network. While not everybody has the Network, but then again there are diehard WWE fans and whatever brand they put out there, they are gonna be loyal to it.”