Chris Jericho Provides Theory On Who Stole His AEW World Championship Belt
Recently on Talk Is Jericho, inaugural AEW World Champion Chris Jericho got in depth on the matter of his missing world championship.
As previously noted, Jericho had his championship stolen on the night of his victory at AEW ALL OUT (2019). During the podcast, Jericho recounted the events surrounding the championship being misplaced and found.
According to Jericho, after defeating Hangman Page at ALL OUT for the AEW World Championship, his flight from Chicago, Illinois to Tampa, Florida was rerouted to Tallahassee, Florida due to weather concerns. Jericho called a car service to pick him in Tallahassee and drive him home to Tampa. As Jericho, his wife, and their friend were having dinner at a local LongHorn Steakhouse, the driver reported to 'Le Champion' that his championship cummerbund was now missing from the limousine.
On the subject of why Jericho opted to dine at LongHorn as opposed to the nearby Outback Steakhouse, Jericho revealed that the driver suggested LongHorn.
"As we were getting ready to leave, I said, 'we were really hungry – let's go get a bite,' Jericho recalled. "And so there was an Outback just kind of near and the [driver] says, 'let's just go to LongHorn – it's closer to where we need to go.' Now, I put it into my GPS and it was a little bit closer, but pretty much the same thing. But, 'Outback, LongHorn, which one would you guys like to do?' 'Oh, let's just do LongHorn. Whatever.' So for the much beleaguered people going, 'why'd you go to LongHorn?,' that's the reason why, because the driver said, 'let's go to LongHorn.' See a pattern here? See a pattern starting to develop?"
As the story goes, Jericho's meal was interrupted by the driver claiming that Jericho's title was stolen even though the driver never saw the title itself. Jericho filed a police report and did not get any followup from the police for days. Jericho only found out the championship was recovered when his wife saw pictures on the Tallahassee Police Department's social media accounts of officers posing with the title. Apparently, a scalloper named Frank Price found the championship on the side of the road and brought the cummerbund to the police coincidently at the exact same time that the owner of the limo company was at the police station.
During the podcast, Jericho shared his theory on the missing championship, suspecting the limo driver and an accomplice.
"Quite honestly, I've kind of said my hypothesis, but I'll just try to encapsulate it one more time," Jericho professed. "And once again, I'm not accusing anybody. It's just what I think happened. 'In my opinion,' I believe is what you say legally if you don't want to get in trouble.
"In my opinion, I think we got picked up. I think the bag went in there. The driver said, 'that's kind of interesting. What could be in that?' I think when he drove back to the airport to return the incorrect luggage, I think he might have taken a quick glance at it, saw the shiny gold, thought it was quite expensive, which it turns out it was very expensive, legit $30,000. Then, called an accomplice to come meet him in the parking lot of the LongHorn. He went inside to stall and kill time, to ask the lame question [of whether his home is an apartment building or house] while the accomplice opened up the back of the limo, and the flowers fell out because he didn't know they were in there, grabbed the title, and split. The driver mysteriously finds it missing, comes in, and knows that he's not lying because he never stole it. His fingerprints aren't anywhere they weren't supposed to be. I'm sure the accomplice may have been wearing gloves because the CSI never found anything or maybe the CSI had DNA samples out the wazoo, but they were all in on it too! I don't know."
In Jericho's estimation, the thieves probably realized after stealing the title that they would not be able to sell it because the buyer would know it is stolen. 'The Painmaker' went on to question the convenient recovery of the championship as the limo company owner was at the police station at the time that Price delivered the championship to the police.
"Then, I think what happened was, a few days later, they realized 'we've got something here that has got a lot of notoriety' and it's like stealing a '59 Les Paul. It's like the most expensive guitar. It's like $500,000. If you steal one, who are you going to sell it to? Everyone's going to know that you stole it." Jericho said, "anybody that's going to be a [pro] wrestling collector, they'd probably feel like a real scumbag to have the actual AEW Championship, knowing that people are trying to find it and just having it in your house, so I think these guys realized that, 'oh my gosh, there are people everywhere talking about this. It's all over social media. It's all over the news. We've just got to get rid of this thing.
"But that's where it gets strange! So they take it and just throw it outside of their car. And do they alert Frank Price, 41, after he went scalloping to pull over to the side of the road or did this nosey motherf–ker actually pull over to the side of the road, find the scuffed up velvet bag, and bring it in? That doesn't make any sense either though! And then, how does that tie into Mike the limo [owner] just happening to be at the [police] station when Frank gets there to drop it off and films it?"
Check out the podcast here or via the embedded player below. If you use any of the quotations from this article, please credit Talk Is Jericho with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.