Summary

Jack Perry says one of the roughest stretches of his career ultimately helped him grow into the Scapegoat character that reshaped his presentation in AEW.

While speaking with Chris Jericho, Perry reflected on the fallout from the backstage incident with CM Punk at AEW All In 2023, the time he spent away, and how that period pushed him out of his comfort zone. He said the backlash forced him to stop trying to win over everyone, which in turn gave him more freedom in how he approached the character.

That reinvention carried through Perry's NJPW run before his AEW return in April 2024, when he came back into the promotion alongside The Young Bucks and Kazuchika Okada as part of The Elite. Perry and Jericho have crossed paths in AEW before, including when Perry revealed Jericho's Stadium Stampede team for Double or Nothing.

Quote from Jack Perry

"During the time, it was not nice. It was uncomfortable and scary. That’s why I think I ended up growing a lot because it forced me out of my comfort zone. I was out for a long time. At that time, it was not something I ever anticipated happening, obviously. I always just imagined what my road would look like. 'Work hard, do this.' I never saw something like this. Now, I’m kind of grateful for it because a huge portion of the wrestling world turned on me, and I had always been wanting to make everybody like me. It was kind of holding me back as well because it’s not possible for everyone to like you. I was kind of playing it safe in a lot of ways. I realized, at a certain point, 'Okay, now it’s done.' There are people now where, they’re never going to like me. When I came to terms with that and realized that it kind of frees me because I don’t have to worry about trying to get this guy to like me, it’s like the shackles were off. I just dove into the deep end at that point. It’s not going to get worse."

Perry later went on to say:

"I was at the gym, I remember texting you, and you asked how it was going. 'Really, not good,' and you said, 'Yeah, you’re the scapegoat.' As soon as I saw the word, I was like, 'That’s interesting.' I didn’t actually know what it was or where it came from. I looked it up, and it’s an ancient religious thing where once a year, people used to sacrifice a goat to the devil, 'please forgive us for our sins. Here is a goat.' I thought it was cool because I was thinking I was the goat, and now I’m sacrificed to pay for the sins of other people. I put the word and imagery and made it this thing. It says the main archetype of the goat is Jesus, and I thought it was cool. People thought I was trying to be Raven. I was trying to be Jesus. I think a lot of that is what Raven was doing as well. 'Let me be Jesus in this form of wrestling with this dark thing around.' I really got into this thing I was creating. This allowed me to be me, but also get into this thematic stuff that was going on that felt like it could relate to my real life. I got to go to Japan and they don’t say anything, you come back from the match and there is a camera rolling. I watched Gabe Kidd, who is one of my favorite promo guys, he’d come back and be going insane. 'You can do that?' It allowed me to come back and not be so in my head about what I was going to say. I just said what I felt. That started the whole thing of 'What do I want to do?'"

How the Scapegoat changed Jack Perry's AEW role

Perry's comments make the biggest takeaway pretty clear, the reaction to All In did not just give him a new nickname, it pushed him into a version of himself that fit far more naturally as an AEW heel. That matters because his return alongside The Young Bucks and Okada worked best once he stopped chasing approval and leaned fully into the character.

His NJPW stretch also stands out here. Perry directly tied that run, and the freedom he felt watching Gabe Kidd's style, to becoming less scripted in his own head. For AEW, that helps explain why the Scapegoat era felt like more than a cosmetic rebrand when he came back in 2024.

Sources

Jack Perry while speaking on Talk Is Jericho