Chris Jericho was the inaugural AEW World Champion in Tony Khan’s company. Last year, Jericho had a brief run as ROH World Champion. He won the title on the September 21st, 2022, episode of AEW Dynamite by defeating Claudio Castagnoli. The Ocho dropped the ROH World Title to Castagnoli at last year’s Final Battle.
In an interview with Joey Hayden of the Dallas Morning News, Chris Jericho was asked about defending the ROH Title at the 2022 Final Battle. Jericho said that it was a good idea for Tony Khan to make him the ROH World Champion at the time. Le Champion added that he, as the ROH Champion, was a huge success.
“I think it was a pretty cool time for Ring of Honor. It was a good idea for Tony to have me as the champion because I think he put a lot of eyeballs on the company and kind of really put that title under the spotlight [by] defending it as much as I did…
We did the match, and Claudio is obviously amazing. That’s when we did the finish, where I tapped out to the giant swing, which I thought was so creative. I don’t know if anyone has done it since, but I just thought it was the best way to lose the title. I think the whole Chris Jericho as Ring of Honor champion experiment was a huge success, culminating in this great match at Final Battle.”