Chris Jericho talked about his Learning Tree gimmick in an interview with TVInsider.com to promote the 2024 AEW All In PPV event.
Jericho said, “Every time I switch up characters it’s because I know it’s time. There was some weird internet vitriol of angry people yelling at me to retire. I thought, ‘Why don’t I embrace that and lean into it?’ For those who know, you know. It made those people mad. Others thought it was clever. That lasted about two weeks and it became this new character. People got into the story we were telling. It became another era in Jericho. It has worked quite well. I was very sarcastic in the beginning with a certain cadence I was speaking. Then I changed it again to be more serious. Characters are the most important thing in wrestling as are stories. I think the Hook storyline that has been going on for the last six months has been a great one with twists and turns.”
On inspirations for his current character:
“There were a few different ways I was playing it at first. There were a couple of characters I was channeling, but I can’t recall right now what they were. At first, I just gave facts, was sarcastic, and was this know-it-all character. The accusation was I was this know-it-all who was just stealing TV time and burying everyone and being this awful behind-the-scenes person, which has never been the case. I think you can ask anyone in AEW about how much I’ve done or tried to do. It was almost something from a Christopher Guest mockumentary or something like that. I enjoyed creating the persona and laughing at my own jokes and those kinds of things. This very annoying type of person. You know those types of people that are over-the-top and have an answer for everything even though they don’t know what they are talking about. It was probably just different blowhard people that you meet.”
