Chris Jericho

All Elite Wrestling star Chris Jericho donated $2,000 to the GoFundMe of an independent wrestler who suffered significant injuries to both legs during a backyard match over the weekend, according to TMZ Sports.

A video made the rounds over the weekend of the wrestler, identified only as Justin, jumping from the second rope and landing awkwardly. Both of his legs bent backward. 

"That was so terrible!!!!!" Jericho told MZ Sports when explaining why he contributed to the wrestler's recovery.

The fundraiser's organizer set a $200,000 goal, writing that Justin has already had three surgeries and had rods and pins inserted in his left leg. Doctors have yet to rule out possible amputation and Justin is in for at least a two-week hospital stay.

Bleacher Report catches you up on the latest news from the WWE Universe. 

Orton vs. Edge Set Up for WM37?

Randy Orton winning his 14th WWE championship at Sunday's Money in the Bank pay-per-view was, well, a surprise. It's a result that few predicted, even with the bout going on as the main event. The Miz cashing in the Monday in the Bank contract seemed like the most likely justification of Orton-Drew McIntyre going on in the main.

Alas. That didn't happen.

Instead, it appears WWE may be setting up Orton for a longer run with the title.

Dave Meltzer said on Wrestling Observer Radio (h/t WrestlingInc) that WWE could be looking to set Orton up for a WrestleMania 37 match against a returning Edge. That could signal that the Rated-R Superstar, who is currently out with a torn triceps, may wind up making his return in time for WrestleMania season.

The overwhelming odds are here that Edge will go over. It's just hard to see why this feud needs a championship when it already has more than enough baked-in history to find a place on the WrestleMania card without it.

Plans in WWE are always subject to change, but Edge entering the Rumble and winning before challenging Orton at Mania seems like a pretty solid bet at this point.

Jericho Congratulates Undertaker on 30 Years in Wrestling

Earlier this month, AEW celebrated Chris Jericho reaching the 30-year milestone in professional wrestling.

With WWE set to celebrate The Undertaker for reaching the same feat at Survivor Series, Jericho sent out his congratulations:

Jericho and Undertaker are on just about any shortlist of the greatest wrestlers in history, with both combining in-ring ability, character work and longevity to stay in the business far beyond most of their peers.

The pair also had their fair share of classic one-on-one battles in WWE, so it's only fitting that Jericho honors a fellow legend in the business.

Heath Slater Suffers Injury

Heath Slater, now wrestling as Heath in Impact, was slated to win the Call Your Shot Battle Royal at Bound For Glory but suffered an undisclosed injury. 

“He went to the hospital after the match and he had a hernia and the thought is that he will need surgery which means he’ll be out for a while. I don’t know if it’s 100 percent, but that’s what the doctors told him. He was back at the hotel after going to the hospital that night," Meltzer said on Wrestling Observer Radio (h/t Ringside News)

It's a disappointing blow given that Heath was set for a push at Impact after signing with the company. However, it's possible he'll wind up keeping his momentum with an out-of-ring role until he's cleared for action. 

AEW Dynamite scored another ratings win over WWE NXT in the latest edition of the Wednesday night wrestling war.

According to Showbuzz Daily, AEW Dynamite averaged 753,000 viewers during its two-hour show on TNT, while the two-hour episode of WWE NXT on USA Network averaged 639,000 viewers.

The primary focus of Wednesday night's Dynamite was the tournament to determine the No. 1 contender for the AEW World Championship. All four first-round matches were held with Wardlow beating Jungle Boy, Kenny Omega beating Sonny Kiss, Hangman Page beating Colt Cabana and Fenix beating Penta El Zero M.

Dynamite's main event was a four-way tag team match to determine who will face FTR for the AEW World Tag Team Championships at Full Gear.

The Young Bucks beat Private Party, The Butcher and The Blade, and Dark Order members Alex Reynolds and John Silver to become No. 1 contenders, but it was FTR who got the last laugh of the night by attacking The Bucks to close the show.

Perhaps the most talked-about moment of Dynamite was the meeting between Chris Jericho and MJF over steak. They concluded that it will be decided next week if MJF will be allowed to join The Inner Circle, but not before they randomly broke into a song and dance number.

The main event of NXT was supposed to be an NXT Tag Team Championship match pitting Breezango against Roderick Strong and Bobby Fish of Undisputed Era, but both Strong and Fish were attacked, which led to Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch earning the title shot instead.

Lorcan and Burch won the titles after a masked man interfered, and it was later revealed that the masked man was former NFL punter Pat McAfee. Although he didn't explain himself, it seems likely he was behind Ridge Holland's attack of Adam Cole at NXT TakeOver 31.

NXT's opening match was a Triple Threat between Tommaso Ciampa, Kushida and Velveteen Dream. Kushida won the match after Dream apparently hit Ciampa with a loaded cast.

Also on NXT, Ember beat Jessi Kamea, Legado del Fantasma defeated Isaiah "Swerve" Scott, Jake Atlas and Ashante Adonis in a six-man tag team match and Bronson Reed beat Austin Theory twice, which prompted Theory to quit.

Listen to Ring Rust Radio for all of the hot wrestling topics. Catch the latest episode in the player below (warning: some language NSFW).

On Wednesday night's episode of AEW Dynamite, Matt Hardy announced that he has been cleared to return to the ring.

Hardy suffered an injury last month at AEW All Out during a Broken Rules match against Sammy Guevara. Hardy and Guevara were supposed to go through a pair of tables after jumping off a scissor lift in the backstage area, but Hardy overshot the tables and hit his head on the concrete floor.

The match was initially called off when Hardy appeared unsteady and unable to stand, but he and Guevara went back to the stage and climbed some scaffolding. Hardy knocked Guevara off to score the victory.

Hardy has continued to appear on AEW programming since suffering the injury, but he has done so in a managerial role for Private Party rather than as an active competitor.

A few weeks ago on Dynamite, AEW ran an angle that saw Hardy laid out backstage by a mystery attacker. Guevara revealed Wednesday that he was the one who took Hardy's knee out, and he noted that he intended to keep making Hardy's life miserable:

In response, Hardy made it clear that his focus is on getting back at Guevara now that he has been cleared for action:

The 46-year-old Hardy's WWE contract expired in March, and it wasn't long before he surfaced in AEW. Hardy immediately got involved in a rivalry with The Inner Circle, specifically targeting Chris Jericho.

He eventually branched off into a feud with Guevara, and they were at odds for several weeks prior to their match at All Out.

Although Hardy beat Guevara at All Out, it was far from a satisfying conclusion because of the scary injury Hardy suffered, and there is little doubt that both he and Guevara would prefer to conclude their program in a far more decisive manner.

Listen to Ring Rust Radio for all of the hot wrestling topics. Catch the latest episode in the player below (warning: some language NSFW).

When Cody Rhodes, The Young Bucks and everyone else involved helped to make 10,000-plus sellout All In the most successful U.S. indie wrestling event in years, if not ever, the dream of a new U.S. promotion became a reality.

Setting up one show like All In was difficult, so forming an entire company would be even harder. It would take money, a TV deal, a great roster and a team of employees. This is where Tony Khan comes into the story.

As the co-owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars and Fulham F.C., Khan has experience in business and sports. As a lifelong wrestling fan, he also had the passion to make All Elite Wrestling into a show he would have wanted to watch as a child.

Khan recently spoke with Bleacher Report to talk about the one-year anniversary of Dynamite.

When WCW closed its doors in 2001, TNT was officially out of the wrestling business. Other networks have aired promotions like TNA Impact and Ring of Honor, but they were usually on obscure channels many fans did not have access to.

AEW brought pro wrestling back to TNT with the debut of Dynamite on October 2, 2019. The fledgling promotion was looking to showcase new talent and veterans of the business the same way WCW did during the early years of Nitro.

Khan grew up watching pro wrestling, but unlike most kids who wanted to be Sting or Shawn Michaels, he dreamed of being the person making the show. "I've been writing shows in notebooks, Microsoft Word files and even Word Perfect going back to 1995. As a kid, I dreamed of having a wrestling show on TNT, and it felt like one of my most unrealistic dreams because there was no vacancy on TNT. After WCW folded and the assets were sold off, I still thought it was really unrealistic until I got to know the company."

While the opportunity to work with Cody and The Young Bucks on a new promotion was a great way to enter the wrestling business, it still took a lot of work to get everything to where it is today. 

"It was a long process. It was probably about a year from when I started pitching the show to when it got picked up. There were other networks interested in it, but I think we ended up at the best possible place for us. TNT is where I always wanted to go. From a marketing standpoint, there was such a great promotional push around the debut and they [TNT] were so happy with the results that we got a four-year contract extension all within the first four months. It was a very successful debut, but it was a long road to get there."

The first half of Dynamite's inaugural year was going smoothly. The company was doing well with TV ratings, and the newer stars were starting to become popular with wrestling fans who didn't know them from the independent scene. 

What nobody could have predicted was a viral pandemic that would shut down borders and make both touring and performing in front of fans impossible. This meant certain international stars became unavailable and storylines had to be adjusted. 

AEW has set up shop inside Daily's Place in Jacksonville, Florida, a venue physically connected to TIAA Bank Field, which is the Jaguars' home stadium. Even though the state has lifted restrictions on the size of live crowds, that doesn't mean Khan is rushing to sell the arena out any time soon.

"Live events have changed in the past year, more so probably than in all the previous years combined. TV rights now more than ever are the most important revenue stream. Now all of a sudden, things are possible to do legally. That doesn't mean you should try to pack the place."

"We were in this amazing place with our stories right after Revolution, and then the pandemic hit. Resetting everything since then and what we did with this year's Double or Nothing was great. I had access to a small percentage of my roster and had to book shows in a matter of minutes. When we returned and put our COVID testing procedures in place, we had a great foundation for Double or Nothing. It was hard to get anybody to look forward to anything back in May. I was widely quoted after a media call saying I thought Double or Nothing was better than WrestleMania, and I truly feel that way. I thought it was a tribute to how hard we worked during the pandemic to keep the fans' interest."

Throughout the last year, Dynamite has introduced several stars to the mainstream wrestling audience, many of whom have been working for years in other countries and on the American indie scene. 

One of the people who has made the biggest impression has been Orange Cassidy. While he is primarily known for his slacker persona, he also formerly wrestled under a mask as a member of a group called The Colony as "Fire Ant" and displayed a much different set of skills than what we have seen from him on TNT. 

He began in AEW as a comedy character who was known for never putting any effort into anything. As his popularity grew, he began to show what he was capable of, which earned him some big opportunities along the way. 

"I can talk all day about Orange Cassidy. There was stuff about his independent act that I hated and would never do on our show. Matt [Jackson] said this guy's really got something and he suggested putting him with Best Friends. I went to a PWG show and really got to know him and learn what makes him tick. I had no idea that Orange Cassidy was Fire Ant until he told me that night and I was like, 'Oh my god, you're a great wrestler.' So I said what if we hold it all back and build it up little by little to make people want to see him wrestle. After seeing his work, Jericho wanted to work with him. Chris and I put together a lot of ideas, but Chris was so generous and did so much for him because he believes in him."

Jericho and Cassidy's feud culminated in the first-ever Mimosa Mayhem match at All Out, and Cassidy picked up the biggest victory of his career when he knocked Le Champion into a vat of champagne and orange juice.

Another wrestler who had a great showing at the pay-per-view was Maxwell Jacob Friedman. Jon Moxley defended the AEW world title against MJF in a main event that was widely praised for showcasing the 24-year-old star's in-ring ability.

"MJF is somebody who was close to fully formed when he came in. He doesn't get enough credit for how good he is because he was so far along when he got here that you forget how young he is. People take him for granted as a main eventer because he is so polished at such a young age."

Even with so many established names like Cody, Jericho, the Bucks and Kenny Omega, Dynamite has still managed to feature a lot of fresh faces. In addition to Cassidy and MJF, the likes of Britt Baker, Darby Allin and everyone besides Brodie Lee in The Dark Order are getting their first tastes of fame on a national stage. 

"I can't name a person I have less in common with than Darby Allin, but I talk to him every single day, and he's a genius. He is a genius storyteller and a great filmmaker. Cody brought him to my attention, and now I work with him as closely as I work with anybody."

"I was watching Being The Elite, and I went to John Silver [of The Dark Order] and was ribbing him. He is one of the only people I rib. I called him into my office and said, 'I'm really upset with you. You've got this great personality and apparently, you choose to only show it in BTE. I want you to do that stuff on Dynamite.' So he is doing more stuff and developing his own personality, which is great. Another person who I am so proud of for the way they developed their character is Britt Baker. Her run as a heel has been outstanding, and she has gotten so much better as the year has gone on."

The pandemic has changed things for a lot of industries. Many promotions are shutting down or cutting back on talent, but AEW has continued to make hires. Notable additions in recent months include Miro, Eddie Kingston, Will Hobbs, Ivelisse and Ricky Starks.

"We bring in new people every month. We bring in people from the independent scene and a lot of times you will see those people on AEW Dark, too. Sometimes these are one-off things, but if somebody impresses us, we'll bring them back. Will Hobbs is a good example of somebody that I really took a liking to and is doing a really great job for us. We're always looking for different partnerships. We've had the AAA tag titles on the show. Kenny Omega is the AAA champion, and he's defended the title on Dynamite and Dark. Thunder Rosa defended the NWA women's title. We're always looking for ways to work with people, but I am also keeping my eye on the independent scene."

When asked about the future, Khan said, "Stay tuned because there are going to be some big announcements ahead. I think Full Gear is going to be a great pay-per-view. I think there are going to be some fun twists and turns through the rest of the year."

Bleacher Report catches you up on the latest news from the WWE Universe. 

Moxley Wins at Bloodsport

Jon Moxley made his anticipated Bloodsport debut Sunday, submitting Chris Dickinson in what most are calling the event's match of the night. It was a brutal match that neared shoot fighting at times—falling in line with the whole Bloodsport vibe—and left both competitors with massive red marks on their chest from chops.

Moxley was always going to go over Dickinson, a veteran of the independent circuit who isn't well known to the mainstream audience. That said, the 33-year-old was impressive enough that promotions should be looking to book him for appearances once the independent circuit picks back up.

It's possible Dickinson could even get an AEW look if Mox was impressed enough by their match. Regardless, it was a match that shows how much Moxley can elevate an opponent in any style and a showcase for Dickinson. A true win-win.

Jericho Lists Favorite Matches

"The List of Jericho" was one of Chris Jericho's most memorable gimmicks from his WWE run. Turns out Jericho actually does keep a physical list that may have served as the inspiration.

The Demo God revealed that he keeps a handwritten list of every match he's ever competed in dating back to 1990, which includes ratings, results and other notes. 

Jericho is currently working on promoting a book that's set for presale later this month in which he lists his top 10 matches of all time. Speaking on his Saturday Night Special (h/t WrestlingInc) show, Jericho gave a little preview of what to expect: 

"It's really hard to say your favorite. What's your absolute, gun-to-the-head favorite? And before, I used to say what's your favorite match – the match I had with Shawn Michaels for the WWE World Title Ladder Match in Portland, Oregon, I believe in 2008 of October. That's one of them because it's the match that not only was it a great match, a perfect match, it was the culmination of a seven-month-long story that was originally just supposed to be a one and done," revealed Jericho. "It was supposed to a one-month story, and Shawn and I were like, 'Why are we rushing this? Neither one of us are doing anything', and we created this whole amazing, probably textbook of how-to-put-together an amazing angle. And if I still worked in WWE, I would have suggested they do a special on it for the Network because it really was a textbook how do you put together a great storyline."

"Kenny Omega, The Tokyo Dome, January 4, 2018 – that was the match. A) That was my first match away from WWE in almost 20 years. B) It showed what a draw Chris Jericho was because that match did an extra 15,000 tickets, and sales, and bought an extra 30 percent in New Japan World's subscriptions and C) It showed Tony Khan that there was a segment of the fanbase who were looking for something different from WWE, and it was basically where the spark of AEW began. So, that was a big one," stated Jericho.

"And I'll do another one with Jon Moxley, where I dropped the title to him, February 29th of this year. A mere 10 days before the lockdown. I thought that was a great story with a great payoff and a great finish. But there are so many other ones that I can mention. But if you want to go—Ultimo Dragon from 1995 at the Sumo Arena. That's the match that got me hired in ECW and WCW. I have to mention that, as well. So, there are quite a few side posts along this Chris Jericho highway for sure."

It'd be nearly impossible to come up with a top-10 list from Jericho's long career that would adequately satisfy anyone, but it speaks to his longevity that some of his own all-time favorites are recent matches. 

Rob Van Dam Likes Rollins

Rob Van Dam hasn't been in WWE since 2014, but he's the rare former employee who never goes out of his way to rib the current product. Van Dam seems wholly at peace with his time in WWE and departure, and he maintains an overall positive disposition about the company in public.

Case in point: Van Dam went out of his way to praise Vince McMahon while also issuing a compliment to Seth Rollins.

The Monday Night Messiah has credited Van Dam as one of his favorite wrestlers growing up, and the pair did get to have some head-to-head clashes before RVD's departure. The matches were nothing either party will put on their Mount Rushmore, but it was likely enough for Rollins to battle one of his idols.