Chris Jericho On Why AEW Decided Not To Go To Madison Square Garden or Barclays Center

As noted earlier today, AEW will make its debut in New York City this September at the Arthur Ashe Tennis Stadium in Flushing. In an interview with New York Daily News, Chris Jericho spoke about the upcoming debut and why the company didn’t choose more famous venues like Madison Square Garden or Barclays Center. Here are highlights:

On how he feels about the big announcement: “It’s a real cool end to the chapter of our lives that we all want to move on from. It’s a trumpeting call that AEW is back on the road at the highest of levels. It’s ready to take control of New York City. It’s a celebration. It’s a victory. We’ll be vindicated as the coolest wrestling company in the world today. What fans can expect is what we’ve been doing, just at a higher intensity level and a higher energy level because of the people in the crowd giving us more inspiration and more energy and more reward for what we’re doing.”

On the choice of venue: “We’ve expanded to a lot of people that are just excited to see a different style of wrestling after being fed the same dish for 20 years plus. One of the reasons why AEW’s done so well is we’re different from WWE and that’s obvious. We do things differently than the way they do it. They’re a huge successful company, especially in the New York market. That’s a WWE stronghold. But there are a lot of people who are excited to see things done a little bit differently and I think that’s one of the reasons why we’re making our debut in New York City in a stadium WWE’s never been in. I’m sure we could have gone to the Garden or done the Barclays Center, but those do have a WWE brush on them. Let’s go somewhere else and make it our New York market arena. Let’s go to Arthur Ashe Stadium and that now becomes an AEW stronghold in the middle of New York, which is a McMahon country.”