[1998-08-08-WCW-Road Wild] Chris Jericho vs Juventud Guerrera

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Last few minutes. Malenko is the referee. Outdoor shows are always fun, but Road Wild is the glaring exception to that. Juventud accidentally pokes Dean in the eye, which blindsides him long enough for Jericho to hit Juventud with a bat. He ends up kicking out though. Dean is a bad referee, counting way too slow. I hated that convoluted finish, but I do like that they blew off the Jericho-Malenko feud and Jericho as a cruiserweight effectively to move him into the heavyweight ranks. The goal was to get Malenko there too, as both guys were making waves about shedding the cruiser label at the time.

[Zenjo]

Terrible final few minutes but at least it killed off the feud so everyone can move on. A classic example of wrestler losing a title to enable them to move up the card. I always thought Jericho was too large for the Cruiserweight division.

[soup23]

Jericho had been too far removed from the Cruiserweight division for quite some time and I stand by the fact that June should have been the end of the Malenko feud. Here we are again with them back and forth. Road Wild seems cool in concept but terrible in execution.

[Childs]

This came off terribly cartoonish, with Jericho's hyper-exaggerated facials and Malenko's shitty ref hijinks. The Jericho-Malenko feud had been hot, but this sucked.

[PeteF3]

An underwhelming end to Jericho's terrific run as Cruiserweight champ. I liked the finishing spot itself but before that Malenko was way too overinvolved. I've been a huge fan of Jericho's work and booking in this program but generally I think cruiser matches themselves needed to be mostly devoid of gaga like this.