AEW fans are some of the most vocal in the business, and Chris Jericho has taken umbrage with one aspect of their cheers and jeers, in particular. The Wizard is arguably the most seasoned veteran All Elite Wrestling rosters and has a legitimate claim to be on the Mount Rushmore of professional wrestling. He's had massive matches in WWE, WCW, AEW, and NJPW and has successfully reinvented himself numerous times.
This current heel iteration of his character is a heat-seeking missile—both on the microphone and when he's launching fireballs into the faces of his opponents. It has opened the door for Jericho to speak boldly on a handful of topics over the last several months. The Jericho Appreciation Society has remained central to AEW's programming since Double Or Nothing, and the veteran has been involved in an individual feud with Eddie Kingston for a while now.
In a recent interview on the True Geordie Podcast, Jericho went in on wrestling fans who call out botches during matches. "Things happen in a match. The f***ing word I hate the most that fans use is botch. ‘Oh, you botched that one.’ Shut your f***ing mouth. There is no such thing as a botch. This is a live show. Mistakes happen. Why? Because we are human beings and we’re live." He furthered those thoughts, saying that fans don't chant following mistakes during other live forms of entertainment. "If it happens in a hockey game, the fans don’t start chanting in unison ‘You f***ed up, you f***ed up’. If you go to a Broadway play and someone fumbles their lines, people don’t start chanting ‘You f***ed up, you f***ed up.’ You go to a wrestling match and miss a hip toss. People start chanting. That’s bulls**t. It’s f***ing disrespectful. And wrestling fans walk the line of being disrespectful." (h/t to www.sescoops.com for the transcription)
One can see both sides of this argument. The general feeling has always been that, when fans pay their money, they can cheer or boo for whatever and whoever they want. Jericho isn't taking issue with that, however. His point seems to be that if one move is performed wrong in the middle of an otherwise spotless 12-minute match, then the negative chants aren't really necessary.
There have been a few recent examples of this. Over in WWE, Shotzi "botched" a spot or two during the Money In The Bank ladder match. The blowback from fans was so harsh that the superstar deleted her social media accounts to preserve her mental health. Jeering a match that simply hasn't been good is one thing. AEW rarely, if ever, puts on those kinds of bouts, though, and wrestlers deserve a bit of wiggle room when it comes to putting on these matches each and every week.
Sources: True Geordie Podcast, www.sescoops.com