The Most Expensive Bad Steak in History
Professional wrestling is a deeply unserious business run by deeply unserious people. We pretend it is a carefully calculated machine of long-term booking and demographic analysis. Then you hear a story about a multi-million dollar angle getting flushed down the toilet because an old man was served an overcooked piece of meat.
Chris Jericho recently spilled the beans on a pitched storyline with Shawn Michaels that Vince McMahon killed on the spot. Why? Because Vince was chewing on a tough filet mignon at the exact moment of the pitch.
You cannot make this up. The mood of the most powerful man in wrestling history was dictated by the culinary incompetence of a random hotel chef.
Jericho and Michaels had gold ready to go. They had arguably the greatest feud of the 2000s, and this was supposed to be the next chapter. Vince chewed a tough piece of beef, got annoyed, and said no.
That is the reality of working under the old regime. You could be a surefire Hall of Famer, holding a script that guarantees television ratings, and your fate was decided by the catering staff.
It is a hilarious anecdote. But the timing of Jericho telling this story is the real hook.
The Silence is Deafening
Jericho is currently a ghost. He is completely absent from All Elite Wrestling television.
AEW Dynasty is exactly three days away in Kansas City. Tony Khan is putting together one of his biggest cards of the year, and his inaugural world champion is nowhere to be found.
Instead of building a pay-per-view match, Jericho is filing paperwork. WrestleTalk noted this week that Jericho has initiated a brand new legal filing during this TV hiatus.
"Chris Jericho has filed a new trademark amid his ongoing absence from AEW television and WWE return speculation."
Naturally, the internet has lost its collective mind. A Chris Jericho trademark filing is the wrestling equivalent of white smoke at the Vatican.
It means a new gimmick is coming. Or a new podcast segment. Or, if the loudest corners of Twitter are to be believed, a jump back to WWE.
Escaping the Vortex
Let us be completely honest about Jericho’s recent AEW run. It was getting brutally rough to watch.
The "Jericho Vortex" became a painfully accurate meme among the fanbase. You would see a red-hot young talent enter a feud with the veteran, and suddenly they were trapped in booking purgatory.
They would wrestle random multi-man tag matches for six months, trade clunky promos, and exit the feud noticeably colder than when they started.
The "Learning Tree" gimmick felt like a forced wink to the audience that just dragged on forever. The fans in the arenas were checking their phones. The ratings during his segments were routinely dipping.
Taking him off television was not just a good idea. It was an absolute necessity for the health of the AEW product.
This is the negative observation that nobody in the locker room wants to say out loud on a media call. AEW might actually be a much better television show when Chris Jericho is not eating up twenty minutes of broadcast time.
For years, he was the crutch. Tony Khan leaned on him heavily to establish the brand when they had no mainstream stars. But the roster has matured.
They have Swerve Strickland. They have Will Ospreay. They have Kazuchika Okada. They do not need a veteran dragging out a bloated stable storyline to pop a quarter-hour rating.
Tony Khan finally stopped putting his most expensive talent out there out of sheer habit. But Jericho does not sit still.
The Trademark Game
Jericho is constitutionally incapable of fading quietly into the background. F4WOnline confirmed the trademark activity, and while the exact details of the intellectual property are vague, the intent is blindingly clear.
He is rebranding. Again.
Wrestlers do not just file paperwork with the government for fun. It costs real money. It requires lawyers. It is a deliberate, calculated move to secure assets.
He knows that owning your intellectual property is the only real bargaining chip a worker has in this industry.
If he is filing trademarks now, while sitting out the build to Dynasty, it is a flex. It is a public notification that he is building a brand independent of Tony Khan's immediate television plans.
The WWE Hallucination
The WWE rumors are fascinating to dissect, mostly because they make zero logistical sense right now.
WrestleMania 41 is rapidly approaching next month at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. The card is already massively stacked with legitimate box office draws.
We have the John Cena farewell tour hitting its crescendo. We have CM Punk firmly entrenched in top storylines. We have Cody Rhodes and the Bloodline.
Does Paul Levesque actually need Chris Jericho in 2026?
Think about the current WWE roster. It is bursting at the seams with main event talent. They are currently turning away incredibly popular acts just to fit the essential matches onto a two-night card.
If Jericho walks back into WWE, he is not getting a main event spot. He would be walking into a midcard that is currently being fought over by guys ten years younger and working twice as fast.
Triple H is booking a totally different company than the one Jericho left in 2019. Back then, Vince McMahon was tearing up scripts at 7 PM and screaming at writers.
Today, WWE is a rigid, heavily structured corporate machine. They plan out their major angles quarters in advance.
Jericho thrives on chaotic, improvisational energy. He likes throwing fifty ideas against the wall to see what sticks. That style worked beautifully in early AEW. It sounds like a total nightmare for the current WWE creative team.
What Happens in May?
The nostalgia pop of a WWE return would be undeniable. Imagine the lights going out in Vegas. The countdown clock hits the screen.
The roof would blow off Allegiant Stadium. WWE loves a cheap pop. Endeavor loves a viral social media moment.
But what happens the week after WrestleMania? You still have to book the guy on Raw.
Plus, there is the undeniable reality of his AEW contract. Jericho signed a massive extension a while back. Tony Khan is not releasing his most recognizable mainstream star to go make a surprise appearance for the competition.
This is why the trademark filing is more likely a pivot for his inevitable AEW return. Tony Khan pays him far too much money to sit at home indefinitely.
AEW Double or Nothing is coming up in May. That feels like the logical target for a reinvention.
Jericho is a master at reading the room, even if he sometimes reads it a few months too late. He knows the fans turned on his last persona. He knows the criticisms about his ring work getting slower.
The Reinvention Playbook
Every time the industry writes his obituary, he finds a way to completely reinvent himself. Let's look at the track record:
- The silent return in 2012 that played perfectly with fan expectations.
- The "List of Jericho" that unexpectedly saved his late-stage WWE run.
- The "Painmaker" persona that gave him a gritty, violent edge in New Japan.
- The "Le Champion" era that legitimized AEW in its critical first year on television.
We are waiting for the next trick. The new trademark signals that he is going to try to flip the script again.
Maybe he comes back as a vicious, no-nonsense veteran. Maybe he leans into a completely unhinged, delusional legend gimmick. Whatever it is, he is plotting.
Tony Khan has to be extremely careful here. When Jericho returns, it cannot be a retread of the same exhausted tropes.
No more endless factions. No more dragging out feuds until the heat entirely dissipates.
If AEW is going to maintain its hardcore base, it needs a streamlined, focused product. A bloated, nine-month Jericho storyline is the absolute opposite of that.
The Bottom Line
The bad steak story is a fun distraction. It is a hilarious reminder of how far the business has come, and how strange the journey has been.
But the trademark filing is the real news. Chris Jericho is bored.
And a bored Chris Jericho is a dangerous thing for a wrestling booker to deal with. He is watching the build to Dynasty this weekend. He is figuring out exactly how to insert himself back into the conversation.
Will he show up in Vegas and shock the world? Probably not. The legal tape around his AEW contract likely prevents it anyway.
Will he show up on Dynamite next month with a completely bizarre new catchphrase and a fresh coat of paint? Absolutely.
Jericho is resting. But he is definitely not done. Depending on how this new trademark plays out, we are all going to be talking about him again very soon.
Whether we want to or not.
