It’s official: The Ocho has left the building.
After losing his ROH World Championship to Bandido and watching his Learning Tree protégés flunk out of tag team gold school, Chris Jericho rage-quit AEW Dynamite like your uncle leaving a family reunion when the potato salad runs out.
And according to everyone’s favorite kayfabe whisperer, Dave Meltzer, we might not see Jericho in AEW for a hot minute—unless you’re stalking him on the Fozzy tour bus, in which case… seek help.
Here’s what went down: After Dynasty turned into Dysentery for The Learning Tree, Jericho smashed a TV (wrestler coping mechanism 101), declared he “needed to go away for a while,” and stormed off like a man who just found out someone booked the Young Bucks in a main event again.
Behind the scenes, Jericho is hitting the road with Fozzy, who are celebrating their 25th anniversary of playing music that somehow always sounds like the end credits of a direct-to-DVD action movie. The tour runs until May 12, and while Wednesdays were initially kept free for Dynamite appearances, Meltzer reports that Le Champion is now fully embracing his PTO.
There’s technically an opening for Jericho to pop up at Double or Nothing on May 25, or even All In Texas on July 12, but insiders say don’t count on it. This marks Jericho’s first real break from wrestling since before TikTok ruined everyone’s attention span, and his first AEW sabbatical since he showed up in 2019 like a leather-clad wrestling messiah with a scarf and a dream.
So for now, The Learning Tree is leafless, the Jericho Appreciation Society is MIA, and someone at AEW has to replace their ringside flatscreen. Thoughts and prayers.