Chris Jericho won the FTW Championship from HOOK at AEW Dynasty.

The shock value of Jericho’s victory will depend entirely on where one stands on the Chris Jericho love/hate pedestal in 2024. The AEW original’s penchant for going over any popular youngster he stands against has been a recurring theme across the past year, with Jericho’s work against the likes of Ricky Starks and Konosuke Takeshita having done very little to benefit the opposition; now, HOOK can add his name to the list.

Chris Jericho’s victory of the FTW Championship came after a wild FTW Rules match in which tables, trash cans, and kendo sticks were in abundance. With two Judas Effects failing to get the job done, ‘Lionheart’ opted for a low blow and baseball bat shot to the skull of HOOK to gift him the title.

The FTW Championship, which has never been officially sanctioned, was introduced by Taz in ECW in 1998, doing so when then-ECW World Heavyweight Champion, Shane Douglas was unable to make a scheduled title defence. It was unified with the official ECW World Title soon thereafter before Taz reintroduced it in the summer of 2020 in AEW; this time, it was done in lieu of Jon Moxley missing an AEW World Championship defence vs. then-Team Taz client, Brian Cage.

Chris Jericho: “I Still Love What I Do”

Despite the Dynasty audience greeting him with a series of negative chants, Chris Jericho remains positive about his work, stating during a Q&A session aboard this year’s Jericho Cruise that he still has love for what he does (H/T Fightful):

“AEW really did save my perspective of wrestling and really kind of, like I said, reinvigorated my career to where I have no interest or reason to retire as of yet because I still enjoy it, I still love what I do, and I still feel that I can still do it a high level. I can still have the best match of the night on any given night, not every night, but any given night I can. To me, that means a lot and you guys all seem to love it and appreciate what we do. My retirement match will be whatever storyline we have when that moment comes, it could be tomorrow, it could be ten years. I mean, Sting is freaking 65 and he’s retiring in a couple months. I could still have some time left.”

In winning the FTW Championship, Chris Jericho has now held 24 different titles throughout his 34-year career.