Chris Jericho on Tony Khan’s Genius for AEW Dynamite Grand Slam at Arthur Ashe Stadium

– In an interview with Jen Eckhart for Reinvented, Chris Jericho discussed Tony Khan booking AEW Dynamite: Grand Slam at the Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, New York over Madison Square Garden and why it was a genius move. Below are some highlights (via Fightful):

Jericho on Tony Khan bringing AEW Dynamite to Arthur Ashe Stadium: “It was unbelievable. There was a little bit of genius on Tony Khan’s part because everyone was talking about Madison Square Garden. What people don’t understand is, to play the Garden is very expensive, for one. You don’t really make money at the Garden, you just do it because it’s Madison Square Garden. Everyone was saying, ‘AEW has to go to the Garden, that’s going to be your coming out party in New York.’ Tony was like, ‘What if I don’t want to do the Garden? There must be somewhere else.’ He found this Arthur Ashe Stadium. The moment I went in there, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this place is amazing. It’s better than the Garden.’ The seats go straight up in the air, so all the noise comes right down to the ring.”

Jericho on AEW making the stadium their place over MSG: “People are over top of you and it was really cool to see this place. This atmosphere was off the charts crazy. We don’t need to go to the Garden now because we created a new place for us because there’s never been a wrestling show at Arthur Ashe. We were the debut for that and what an amazing venue and building. We do things outside of the box. ‘Let’s do a show in New York.’ ‘If you want to be big in New York, you have to go to the Garden.’ ‘I disagree, what if we find our own place in New York, make it the AEW homebase in New York, and turn that into the place to be.’ I’ll bet you there will be other wrestling companies in Arthur Ashe. They’re probably already negotiating it now. We did it first and it is ours.”