"We'll sue you" - Chris Jericho reveals legendary AEW segment was almost canceled due to legal reasons

Chris Jericho's hiatus from AEW programming seems to be ongoing. Amidst his absence, The Learning Tree has shed light on a unique musical segment he was involved in alongside MJF several years ago, and how it nearly got canceled due to a legal issue.

In October 2020, Maxwell Jacob Friedman attempted to ingratiate himself with Chris Jericho in a bid to join the latter's stable, The Inner Circle. On the October 21 episode of AEW Dynamite, The Salt of the Earth and The Demo God had a dinner meeting at a restaurant to discuss the possibility of them joining forces. Their dinner surprisingly morphed into a musical routine, adapting the popular 1927 number Me and My Shadow. The act, dubbed "Le Dinner Debonair", is widely regarded as one of the Tony Khan-led company's most ingenious and creative segments ever.

Jericho reflected on his musical performance with MJF on Dynamite on a recent edition of the Busted Open podcast. The inaugural AEW World Champion revealed that Tony Khan wanted the segment to appear realistic, prompting him to pitch a grander idea for the routine.

“Tony didn’t want it to be fantasy; he wanted it to be real. So I said, well, why don’t we do like a big kind of a Busby Berkeley dance routine from like the 40s? (...) We were eating dinner, and then suddenly the whole back room opens up and here we are doing this huge singing and dancing routine."

Jericho then talked about the team receiving a legal warning merely hours before the segment was set to air, which necessitated the promotion's music composer, Mikey Rukus, to re-record the track.

"The version we used had been signed off on… and then two hours before airtime, we got a message saying, ‘If you guys use this version, we’ll sue you.’ “ guess they didn’t like the frickin’ horn player or the guy who played drums on it—it was some personal issue... We got it edited again and barely got it downloaded into the system with 10 seconds to spare.Tony said we’d have to do it live, but we were like, ‘We can’t do this live—we’re in the ring!’” [H/T - Ringside News]

MJF defeated Jericho the following month at Full Gear 2020 to officially become a member of The Inner Circle. He would soon betray the group, however, and blindside them with a faction of his own, dubbed The Pinnacle.

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AEW's Chris Jericho announced for an upcoming event

Chris Jericho has been missing from AEW television since walking out on his former acolytes Big Bill and Bryan Keith last April. Amidst his hiatus, rumors have surfaced suggesting that The Nueve could leave All Elite Wrestling after his contract expires and subsequently return to his old stomping ground in WWE.

Despite his absence from television, Jericho is consistently booked for various entertainment and pop-culture events. It was recently announced that the former ROH World Champion will be featured at this year's Rhode Island Comic Con this coming month.

"#ICYMI @chrisjerichofozzy is coming to #RICC2025 November 7th & 8th at the @the_amppvd and @riconvention! Chris is a multiple time champion with the WWE/WWF, WCW, and CWC since 1996 and has been signed to All Elite Wrestling (#AEW) since January 2019. He is the lead singer for the heavy metal band Fozzy and played Adam Burke in Terrifier 2 & 3."

Check out the official announcement HERE.

Official graphic for Chris Jericho's Rhode Island Comic Con appearance [Source: Instagram]

It remains to be seen when Chris Jericho might be brought back to AEW.