Let me say first, I love Chris Jericho. I don’t think you can have an honest conversation about the all time greats in the business without mentioning his name. I could sit here and list his titles won and honors achieved, but it would take too long. His contributions to the business are many – the “Jericho invented that” meme exists for a reason – and his in ring ability is close to the top for the Attitude Era headliners. As a performer, Jericho could be funny without becoming a comedy act or could work in angles where he was downright evil and still be believable. You also have to appreciate the success that Jericho achieved outside the ring. The man is a rockstar, television personality, podcaster and a writer. A pretty impressive list for a guy most people would call “a wrestler”. He might not have quite the Hollywood resume of The Rock or the star power of Hulk Hogan, but taken as a whole Jericho has had a successful pop culture career beyond the ring. Having said all that, it pains me to say the following sentence: I didn’t enjoy Jericho’s most recent run in WWE.
Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to like it. I tried to like it. I even tried to justify to myself why I didn’t like it as if it was my fault. I mean, it looked awesome on paper: a feud between Jericho and the super over Bray Wyatt. When the program started, I remember fans taking to twitter to talk about how great the promos were going to be between the two. I was optimistic for that, too, but somehow it never achieved the greatness I expected. Maybe my expectations were too high. All I know for sure is that when WWE finally blew the angle off it felt like it had been going on forever. It only got worse from there, with Jericho rehashing previous heat with Randy Orton and Kane. Played out, it was forgettable indeed.
Jericho is still a top notch performer. If he’s lost even half a step, I didn’t notice it. He’s still sharp in the ring and he’s still sharp on the mic. His recent matches were always solid enough, they just didn’t seem to gel the way you’d hope for and the live crowd always seemed disconnected. In short, what should have been a formula for easy money turned out to be a bust. Having realized all this, I got to wondering- what went wrong with this short term run? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it wasn’t a single factor, but rather a collection of circumstances that deflated Jericho’s run.
The first and perhaps most glaring problem was the opponent that Jericho had to work with. WWE planted Jericho into the Wyatt feud as soon as he emerged. A feud that would consume most of run. Like I said before, it looked great on paper but never came together the way it needed to. A large part of the blame for that can be laid at Wyatt’s feet. That’s not a knock against Bray’s work – he’s improved by leaps since the Husky Harris days and has done more to develop his character than just about anyone on the roster – but the pairing just didn’t seem to get over. The contrasting styles between the two never seemed to sync up. Things didn’t fare much better in the promo department, and exposed a pretty big hole in the Bray Wyatt gimmick. His promo style was too meta-physical and etherial to be the driving engine of a program. Sure, Wyatt wanted to destroy “heroes”, but his beef with Jericho over the title of “savior” was maybe a bit too far out of the box to be the hook. We’ve seen Wyatt’s more recent work in vignettes on Raw focus on more tangible thoughts which will help flesh out the character more in the future, but it was lacking in the Jericho program, bogging down the Jericho run in something more akin to a philosophy class than a wrestling storyline.
Unfortunately, the writers and the booking didn’t do any favors, either. Watching the Jericho/Wyatt feud play, it was difficult to determine what exactly creative was trying to achieve. At this stage, WWE should use Jericho to get younger full time talent over. That doesn’t mean that Y2J can’t win matches, but when a program has runs its course Jericho’s opponent should come out looking stronger for it. That didn’t happen here. Coming out of the program he ran with John Cena, Wyatt was at a crossroads push wise, and it felt like creative decided to take the foot off the gas and deescalate what they were doing with him. His matches with Jericho didn’t change that direction and after finishing the run Bray disappeared off TV. So theres no gain for Jericho because he’s a part timer and Wyatt comes out of the series looking weaker. What did this Jericho episode do? When the focus changed to the Jericho/Orton issue, the situation became even worse. WWE rushed the angle forward to get some matches out of the end of Jericho’s run without building any heat. Even if they could have infused more life into the Jericho-Orton matches, it was still odd booking because no one stood to gain anything. It also didn’t help matters that Orton’s entire schtick is getting pretty played out, but that’s another story for another day. What it comes down to is that Jericho’s feud this time around lacked real direction or purpose, and that made them hard to buy.
The most alarming problem for Jericho and WWE on a whole is that it seems like we’re starting to see “Part-Timer Fatigue” among the WWE Universe. That is, there is a general weariness of guys coming back for one-off performances and short runs, even if that guy is an all-time great like Jericho. Booking is to blame for this when part timers are getting pushes and achievements that fans want to see go to up and coming favorites. This was most evident when Batista won the Royal Rumble, but it was also shown when The Rock won the world title from CM Punk and when Brock Lesnar broke the Undertaker’s WrestleMania streak. Even if the fans don’t react to a part timer with outright hostility, WWE has to realize that nostalgia pops are going to wear out. Consider how often WWE dips into that bag of tricks with one off appearances from Bret Hart, Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan and countless other legends and Hall of Famers, and pair that with how many times guys like Jericho, Rob Van Dam, the New Age Outlaws, or Batista have come back on limited basis over the last few years. Fans know when Jericho comes back that its only for a limited time, and its hard to get invested in a guy when you know he’s leaving in a few months or a few weeks. I don’t expect WWE to cut back on using one off appearances to try and snag a ratings bump when they can, but we shouldn’t expect Jericho (or anyone for that matter) to live up to the hype when their runs have defined end dates.
At the end of the day, in spite of everything I’ve just said, I’ll always be happy to see Chris Jericho make appearances on WWE TV. He’s earned the right to come and go as he pleases, and he should be welcomed with open arms. The one caveat to this is that we all have to realize its not going to be like it was when he was a full-time active wrestler. Good booking and good programs will make his appearances better, but the fact of the matter is even with a guy like Jericho you can’t create full time interest in a part time performer. We’ll see Jericho in the ring again soon, and perhaps WWE will have a better use for him. With his skill set and experience, I know that Jericho still has plenty to offer the business and the fans. WWE just needs to come up with a better design to use skilled part timers in a way that gets fans invested in spite of the short term status.
