TBS was initially against Chris Jericho appearing on ROH pay-per-view, according to a new report.
Chris Jericho‘s run as Ring of Honor World Champion was a key part of AEW TV following AEW Dynamite: Grand Slam. Chris Jericho would lose the Ring of Honor World Title back to Claudio Castagnoli at ROH Final Battle and a new report suggests that a TBS executive was not initially fond of Jericho appearing on ROH pay-per-view and considered having Jericho drop the belt at AEW Full Gear.
A TBS Executive Wasn’t Fond Of A Top AEW Star Appearing For ROH
According to a report from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Sam Linsky, Associate General Manager and Senior Vice President of scripted programming and operations for TBS, and TBS as a whole were initially against Jericho appearing on ROH PPV.
Originally, it was discussed to have Jericho lose the ROH Title to Claudio Castagnoli at AEW Full Gear 2022.
Tony Khan always booked [Jericho’s ROH Title run] to end with this show. Sam Linsky and TBS actually were at first against Jericho, as one of the top guys in AEW, appearing on this PPV show. Because of that, at one point the plan was for Jericho to lose in the four-way at Full Gear to Castagnoli, but that result reversed when everyone got on the same page regarding not being against Jericho being on an ROH PPV show.
Now that Castagnoli is ROH Champion, he is hoping to defend the ROH Title in an open-challenge format, as he expressed during the post-show press conference following ROH Final Battle.
As for Chris Jericho, now that he is no longer ROH World Champion, he is trying to reset his career in All Elite Wrestling. That is off to a not-so-hot start as Jericho lost to a relative newcomer, Action Andretti on Wednesday, December 14 at AEW Dynamite: Winter is Coming. Fans can learn more about that here.