Chris Jericho

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[Grimmas]

I recently watched some matches of Jericho for The Wrestler Snapshot. He's good, especially later in his career. Early on he seemed more like a good that would just try random cool moves for the hell of it. I need some arguments to put him on my list.

[moazzam23]

The last four years really hurt his case and I'm not sure if his 2000-03 and 2008-09 were that great that he warrants serious top 100 all-time consideration.

[dawho5]

I'd have to watch a lot of his later WWE stuff, because his WCW and Japan juniors stuff does not age well for me. As a character he was great, but his in-ring work was not at the right level for me.

[DR Ackermann]

No way in hell. One of the most overrated wrestlers of all time. You always hear how certain guys "got it" and i would say Jericho was the exact opposite. The anti-Barry Windham.

[tim]

Yep, doesn't even get a consideration from me. One of the most entertaining guys of all time as a character outside the ring. Average wrestler.

[Timbo Slice]

He's been in some great matches, but he's the definition of someone who's a good hand and that's about it. Will fall outside my Top 100.

[goodhelmet]

I think he has a shot at my 100 but it would be tough. Loved his Observer WOTY runs. His Attitude era WWE stuff holds up and his 1998 run in WCW still rules. Too many great wrestlers to make him a lock but he could sneak in.

[DR Ackermann]

Knowing your limitations is very important to being a good wrestler. Jericho is the best example of someone who didn't know his. He didn't even understand his own physical and athletic limitations. Loss has talked about Shawn Michaels trying to emulate Flair without understanding what actually made him great. Well Jericho is someone who emulated Michaels without understanding what made him good.

[BillThompson]

I've been watching a lot of 2001 Jericho lately, this is the period where i generally thought he was awesome. Boy, at this point I'm thinking Jericho may fall off of my list. I'm not enjoying anything he's doing, with a few exceptions. Everything he does is so light and it's hard to believe that he's ever hurting his opponent or controlling a match.

[Matt D]

Knowing your limitations is very important to being a good wrestler. Jericho is the best example of someone who didn't know his. He didn't even understand his own physical and athletic limitations. Loss has talked about Shawn Michaels trying to emulate Flair without understanding what actually made him great. Well Jericho is someone who emulated Michaels without understanding what made him good.

It's partially my fault we don't have likes enabled here but if we did, this post would get one.

[Gregor]

How is Jericho similar to Michaels? Jericho was a guy who was all about offense. He strikes me as more of a poor man's Benoit or Guerrero.

 

I think Jericho's being a bit underrated here (I'd definitely have him as better than average) but agree with the general idea. I'm not sure if he was ever a great wrestler at any point in time, let alone on average throughout his career.

[BillThompson]

How is Jericho similar to Michaels? Jericho was a guy who was all about offense. He strikes me as more of a poor man's Benoit or Guerrero.

 

Michaels is the guy he keeps reminding me of during my rewatching of his career. Same lightness, same skipping of selling to get to the next move, and so on and so forth.

[Gregor]

Okay, but the idea was that Jericho emulated Michaels, and I was wondering in what ways that comes across. I doubt Jericho watched Michaels wrestle and said, "Yeah, I wanna work light just like him!"

[BillThompson]

I don't know, not sure I can really answer that. I see feint traces of Michaels, but not enough that I would say Jericho wants to be Michaels or emulated him (unless of course Jericho has said differently himself). I think in the end it's just the way Jericho wrestled, which also happens to be similar to the way Michaels wrestled. Kind of a loose breeze in the wind style where the emphasis is more on being graceful (which is odd since Jericho is often very clumsy) as opposed to hard hitting.

[El-P]

The idea that Jericho worked light is pretty funny considering his rep. That he was sloppy and thus didn't always hit, yeah, but Jericho worked pretty stiff, and it showed too. And I really don't see any Shawn Michaels in Jericho either. Jericho was a guy who "watched too much Japanese shit", dixit Jim Cornette. Early Jericho is a sloppy version of Benoit * Ultimo Dragon. He's one of the WCW guys that actually got better in the WWF (as opposed to most of them), but maybe he was also working much lighter in 2001 once HHH and such complained about his stiffness, but I haven't watched that stuff in ages.

[Dylan Waco]

I'm not sure light is the right word. Maybe unconvincing.

[BillThompson]

I'm not sure light is the right word. Maybe unconvincing.

 

You're probably right on this, unconvincing works better than light. I just finished watching him win the WCW title from Rock, and the entire match I kept thinking, "There's no way that move hurt the Rock, or that one, or that one, etc."

[NintendoLogic]

Jericho mentions in his books that Shawn was one of his main inspirations. Not to mention the fact that he worked two separate feuds with Shawn built around that idea.

[El-P]

Jericho mentions in his books that Shawn was one of his main inspirations. Not to mention the fact that he worked two separate feuds with Shawn built around that idea.

 

Blame me for not following 00's WWE closely. Doesn't change the fact I don't see much if at all of Michaels in his early work. The hair, maybe.

[Stiva]

JR used to make the Michaels comparison on commentary a lot too. Along with Jeff Hardy, John Morrison and any other thin guy with long hair who liked to jump off things.

[DR Ackermann]

He emulated Michaels in the sense that Shawn was the 'showstopper' and the idea was to go out and give an over-the-top show stealing performance every night. To Jericho that meant doing as much 'cool' and flashy stuff as possible. He was more influenced by Michaels in spirit than in his actual in-ring style, which was my whole point in the first place.

 

"Loss has talked about Shawn Michaels trying to emulate Flair without understanding what actually made him great. Well Jericho is someone who emulated Michaels without understanding what made him good."

[Gregor]

Ah, OK, I can see that. I guess I thought it was more of a stylistic comparison because of the Michaels-Flair example, as Michaels actually did feel like a poor man's Flair at times in his early heel run.

[DR Ackermann]

Yeah, sorry for the confusion. As far as a poor man's Flair goes, I think Austin was wayyy better at it than Michaels during the same time period. And he had a lot less experience too. But that's a conversation for another thread.

[GOTNW]

Jericho was my favourite wrestler when I started watching WWE. I liked pretty much everything he did whether it came from WWE, WAR or CMLL. Favouritism wise he isn't even someone I particularly like now and his last two WWE runs have completely killed my desire to watch him produce any new stuff. I'll probably come up with 100 guys I like more but I won't completely write him off. I also think he's a very underrated Cena opponent as they managed to have really good workrate matches in 2005 and completely different, psychology-heavy matches in 2008 as well as some fun TV matches.