AEW’s Chris Jericho on ‘Vietslam’ Documentary, ‘Tracker’ & ‘Dexter’ Roles and More

Scott FishmanFri, July 31, 2026 at 12:24 PM UTC

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Vietslam - Chris Jericho and Rocky Huynh ('Vietslam')

Chris Jericho has spent decades entertaining fans around the world. For the 55-year-old veteran, the experiences really drive home how universal pro wrestling is regardless of nationality or language spoken. It’s also at the root of why he felt so passionately about helping shine a spotlight on the documentary Vietslam: Squashing the Cultural Gap.

The project executive produced by the legendary performer follows the evolution of the independent wrestling scenes in one of the most unlikely of places, Vietnam. It’s an idea that was formulated when he had Vietnam Pro Wrestling promoters Rocky Huynh and Carey Wass on his podcast Talk Is Jericho in 2023. From there, the former multi-time WWE Champion and AEW star made the trip to the Southeast Asian country. It’s then he got a firsthand look at what the crew there have accomplished despite limited resources and under a strict government. Jericho believes the story transcends the ring.

Along with the doc currently available via Amazon Prime and August 6 on Tubi, the Fozzy singer remains an important fixture in AEW. He also landed a series of high-profile spots on top TV shows including Trackerand Margo’s Got Money Troubles with one on Season 2 of Dexter: Resurrection upcoming. Here we caught up with the busy multi-hyphenate.

Talk about how Vietslam came together. It really shows how pro wrestling connects with audiences internationally.

Chris Jericho: It’s one of those things where when I heard about this company in Vietnam, that it started pro wrestling, I was kind of turned on to them by Talk Is Jericho. They sent a request to talk about it, and I didn’t know what to expect. We still think of Vietnam as being, you know, jungles and a war and all that sort of thing. I thought, “Vietnam wrestling? That’s kind of weird.” When I started talking to them I realized that there was a really big story here that wasn’t just the typical, “Hey, Scott, let’s put on a show at the Veterans Hall this Saturday. Let’s call Johnny, and let’s see if we can borrow his ring.” You’re talking about a country that had never had pro wrestling, had no pro wrestlers, had nowhere to learn anything about pro wrestling, and didn’t even have a wrestling ring in the country. None.

So these guys basically one guy named Rocky said, “You know I really want to learn how to wrestle. Where can I go?” There is nowhere in Vietnam. And he’s like, “Well, that’s not good enough, so I’ll just start my own.” They just basically started training themselves, and then worked their way up to doing shows in a dance recital hall, mats on the ground and attracting crowds from that. Then kind of building their way up the ladder of figuring out as they went along. And I just thought, “What a great story, a human story of perseverance. Really following your dream and putting in all the work and sacrifice that’s necessary to achieve it.”

You don’t have to be a pro wrestling fan with this overarching story of believing in oneself to have this vision and see it realized.

Not only that, but you’re also talking about a very oppressed, suppressed government. They don’t like the word communism, but that’s basically what it is. And having to go to the government and say, “You know, we want to put on these wrestling shows.” And they’re like, “No, what is wrestling? You can’t do that.” Anytime somebody wants to do something for the first time, there’s always resistance. And here you are a guy who’s basically an office worker that goes to basically fight the government for the love of pro wrestling. I thought, “That is a story that we can all get into.” These aren’t guys that just love pro wrestling. They had to go to the next level. Then once they started kind of selling out these dance studios they get a call from Viva Van, who’s a female wrestler that works for AEW.

She’s of Vietnamese descent. She hears about this company in Vietnam and wants to go wrestle in Vietnam because of her homeland. They’re like, “We’d love to have you, but we don’t have a wrestling ring.” She’s like, “What?” So she started the GoFundMe to raise enough money for these guys to be able to get a wrestling ring built. Okay, now they’ve got the money. Where do you go? They have to go to Singapore, take pictures of a wrestling ring, bring it back to a welder in Vietnam, and say, can you make this? Like, think about that. We take all of this for granted. These guys had to literally start from scratch to create this company that now sells out shows once or twice a month. It really is a great story of what you can do when you put your mind to it.

I think now more than ever we talk about the negative side of social media, but here is a positive use of it. This reminds me of what happened with Soft Ground Wrestling in Uganda where I think Cody Rhodes paid for them to have a ring. What kind of impact do you think this documentary will have?

That was another interesting form of wrestling…Wrestling really is kind of a universal language, and that’s something that attracted me to this as well. Of all the things that are out there, and all the activities and sports and entertainment, pro wrestling is the one that kind of bridged this gap between North America and Vietnam. It’s something that we both have in common. I just really was fascinated by that. I’ve never been to Vietnam. I don’t know what Vietnam even was. You know, is it jungles? Is it thatched huts and triangle hats and that sort of a thing? Well, there is that element, but Ho Chi Minh City is a very vibrant life. It’s an amazing city like Chicago or something. So, even from my own personal experience, I got to go to Vietnam and see what it’s like there. So, for a guy like me that’s been around the world countless times, to go to a new country and experience a new culture. I can’t wait to let people see this via this documentary.

Viva Vam (‘Vietslam’)

Do you see AEW running a show there one day? Have there been any discussions?

I haven’t because I want to go to Vietnam, it’s not like going to Dallas. It’s a long way. It was a long trip. It’s even longer than going to Japan. So there’d be a lot of expenses and a lot of, you know, and once again, you’re going to a country where you have to basically get permission to do anything. And I don’t know what the fan base is for pro wrestling as a whole there. I know that VPW, the Vietnam wrestling company, Vietnam Pro Wrestling has built a fan base. But you’re talking about 500, 600 people, which is great. Could you do 5, 6, 7,000 people in Vietnam? I don’t know. I mean, I just came back from Greece a couple days ago, another country I’d never been to before. There were some huge wrestling fans there, but for the most part It’s one of the few countries I’ve been to where I wasn’t getting recognized, you know, every 10 minutes. And that’s because wrestling just never really caught a hold in Greece. I don’t think it’s really caught a hold in Vietnam either, which is another reason why these guys wanted to start their own company to start to teach people and train people what pro wrestling is

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You’re at such a cool part in your career. We’re seeing you play this villain on Tracker and also on Margo’s Got Money Troubles. Do you find it’s easier to land roles in Hollywood because wrestlers are being looked at differently?

I don’t ever look at myself as a wrestler. It wasn’t easy. Those parts weren’t given to me. I had to audition for both. Dexter is the same when it comes out. There’s another huge show that’s coming out in November that I have a pretty good part in as well that’s going to be big. You’re auditioning, and that’s great. I’ve gotten some movies offered to me, like the Terrifier movies and Dark Match and that sort of thing, but to get a role on Tracker or Margo. With Margo I would never play myself. If you said, “Hey, there’s a role where you play yourself for two minutes of wrestling.” I’d be like, “You’re crazy. When that role is with Nick Offerman and Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning, suddenly you’re like, “Where do I sign up?”

I’ve dabbled in acting for years, but I think now I’m at the point where I’m going full force into it. Before I really didn’t want to audition. Just give me the offers. And now I will audition for everything because there’s nothing sweeter than auditioning and getting a part because it’s hard to get a part. There’s thousands of actors… this is not even a joke. When a part comes out. thousands of submissions from actors that want to work. To even get to the place where you get cast is hard. You have to do it through producers, casting director, director, the studio itself has to sign off on all the parts. Like, it’s crazy. So, to get the part, then you really got to nail it because you know there’s a whole line of people that are waiting and chomping at the bit.

It’s something that I’m delving into more, and I’m really enjoying it because like anything else, you got to work your ass off. And that’s something that I learned from wrestling.  I have no problems with the work ethic that you need to make it in anything. It’s like making a documentary. There’s millions of documentaries out there. So now that ours is released, you know, on Amazon Prime and on Tubi upcoming and all these different platforms, I have to do the press to let people know that it’s out there. Because if not, just getting it released is nothing because there’s literally millions of things. You go on Netflix, you scroll and look up true crime, there’s 17,000 true crime. Who can watch all of this? With Vietslam, not just the fact that I produced it, you know, I financed it. Will you make money off it? I don’t know, but that’s not the point. It’s about telling these stories and getting experience as a producer and getting experience as a filmmaker because all of it is valuable when you want to go to the next step in this business or any other.

NEW YORK, NY – APRIL 29: Michael C. Hall and Chris Jericho are seen on the set of “Dexter: Resurrection” in Brooklyn on April 29, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)

You’ve been on sets with some big stars. Are any of them wrestling fans?

The cool thing about doing this for so long in so many different eras is there’s a lot of wrestling fans. I mean, the whole Margot organization were Chris Jericho fans, which is why I got that part in the first place. I auditioned for the role of Jinx that Nick Offerman played. They really liked my audition, and they said, “Well, why don’t we write something for him?” So that scene was written, they were going to have it, but it wasn’t going to be quite as involved. It was actually a bigger scene when we filmed it, but things get edited and all that sort of thing, but the producers were big fans.

You go on set for Tracker. A couple of the guys that I worked with are big fans. The show that I still can’t mention yet, they were all big Jericho fans. Dexter, you know, that was another one that I got the part. I think a lot of it is where I crushed the audition, but also it doesn’t hurt when they’re fans of yours. So, when you’ve been doing this as long as I have, and wrestling is massive, man, you know this. When people are wrestling fans, it doesn’t matter if they’re a fan for a year or 10 years, they’re fans for life, fans forever. Fans of the era that they grew up in. Like they’d tell me I used to watch Monday Night Raw, every Monday during the “Attitude Era.” That doesn’t go away, and that’s kind of cool to have all that experience, and to have those relationships with a lot of kind of high-class people all around the world

What can you tease about your Dexter: Resurrection part?

If you saw after Dexter kills Peter Dinklage’s Leon Prater, he gets some files with all the serial killers that Peter Dinklage knew about. So that kind of ties in with that. The new season starts with Dexter scouting out these guys, and I may or may not be one of them, shall we say?

On top of all of this, you returned to AEW as the company gained momentum going into All In. You look rejuvenated. What kind of vibe are you getting during this run?

I mean, all of that that you said is true. I think people forget that I helped start AEW. I think when we first started, the two major reasons for the success out of the gate was Tony Khan’s passion and mindset and knowledge, and the name of Chris Jericho. So I have skin in the game with AEW. So when AEW does good, I take great pride in that because we started it. We changed history with AEW, and so many things happen as a result of this company existing. So to take the year off and to come back, you’re right, Rejuvenated is a great term for it, and taking it very seriously. Every time I step in the ring, I know how big the roster is. I know how many guys are waiting in the wings. But I also know that I’m Chris Jericho.

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There’s certain things that I bring to the table that no one else can at this point after 35 years of doing this. Taking it seriously from a physical standpoint, from a fitness standpoint, I’m not coasting and never will coast. The moment I decided to come back and return to Winnipeg, I knew that I’m hitting the ground running and I’m ready to go. And the match that we had at Beach Break with Ciampa was one of my favorites. It was a great match that I enjoyed. The venue was great. My family was there. It was so hot, but we were able to pull it off, and I had freakin’ sand in my ear for the next week-and-a-half, no matter how many showers or Q-tips I used, but that’s okay. That’s all part of it. And it just made me realize that I made the right decision [to stay in AEW]. I still can contribute at a high level, and that’s all I need to continue doing this for as long as I decide to.

Vietslam: Squashing the Cultural Gap is streaming on Amazon Prime Video (August 6 on Tubi)

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”