Chris Jericho

[goc]

There goes my plan to get BIGLAV vanity license plates for my car.

[JerryvonKramer]

It's actually quite surprising how few guys score solidly in all 6 categories.

[Jimmy Redman]

I guess there's a point to be made there about how being that talented and versatile in an overall sense, plus marrying input and output isn't easy.

 

It's sort of the inverse of the high peak argument, just being really, really good for your whole career, but I think both are equally impressive in their own way.

[JerryvonKramer]

The most charitable thing I can say about Jericho is that in many ways he's the Ted DiBiase of his generation. Which is basically massive praise coming from me.

 

But, as the kids say, I feel "meh" about most of the era he worked in, and accordingly lukewarm on him in general. Also, back in the late 1990s, Jericho was never one of "my guys" really. I liked Angle and the Radicalz around that time.

 

If Jericho had been around in the 1980s, he would have probably had a much more memorable career. As it is, he spent most of it coasting along having perfectly fine matches in bland environments to polite pops. I did not let my personal foibles affect my rankings. He is one of the best of the workers who worked in the New Boredom.

[ohtani's jacket]

Hase was a better wrestler than Jericho in basically every conceivable sense. I don't give Jericho a single thing he was better at.

 

Is this the same JerryvonKramer who became rather impassioned when I suggested Jericho wasn't a great worker?

[DR Ackermann]

I honestly think that Jericho is dog shit and I haven't even watched any of his stuff from this year. I could be underrating him just a bit.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Jericho is currently playing the role of "Old school guy who is full of himself and wants to bury young talent" , basically what he went through in WCW. He's taking that and using it as the character he's playing, mixed with what smart marks are complaining about him being an old guy wearing clothes like he does and all that shit. He's using his status to exclusively work with the people he wants to get over.

 

And if you don't listen to his podcast, that;'s why this obvious thing isn't as obvious to most.

[DR Ackermann]

Yeah you dummies. Having weak matches is his gimmick. He's sucking on purpose. Gosh, what a bunch of marks.

[Jimmy Redman]

Having the gimmick of ageing, delusional rock star who wears hideous outfits and thinks he's cool in order to put over younger guys is fine.

 

Being so old and slow in the ring that you're blowing spots left and right to the point where you're making AJ Styles look sloppy (how the fuck do you make fucking AJ look sloppy?) and persisting with flawed match layouts is not fine.

 

Nor are they the same thing.

 

I'm fine with Jericho's current character, in fact it's the perfect role for him right now, and to be honest I don't think anyone here is really being taken in by the gimmick like a buncha marks. The character and the angles are fine. It's just that he can't deliver in the ring anymore. He can't keep up, he's blowing all kinds of shit which makes the other guy look bad too, and he has a funny way of "putting over" people that involves countering all of their moves and kicking out of their finishers.

 

I believe that he's trying to put people over. I just don't think he's particularly good at it right now.

[Woof]

Jericho is such a weird beast to me. I remember getting way into him during early '98 when he was at his Jerichoholic peak, because he was such a tremendous character that stood out on WCW TV. Plus he was having decent matches with the cruiserweights. I marked huge when he headed to the WWF because it was clear which way the war was headed by that point and I wanted him to be on the winning side. I also thought they'd "get" his character better and position him well. Which they ulitmately did.

 

But his first WWE run, while having plenty of high points, was oddly empty to me when it ended. I remember at the time thinking, "I really love following this guy, but his matches keep coming up short." He'd put together brief runs (the Benoit feud, the series with the Rock), but I ultimately came to the realization that he was never really a great worker to begin with, but had got that reputation (at least in mhy head) by nature of the names he was associated with and the fact that he was such a charismatic performer.

 

His '07-'10 run was very different in terms of character and was probably the only time he felt like a main eventer, but again he didn't come back as any ring genius. I just think that stretch is where he got much more creative in his ring work in terms of storytelling. He felt different even though he was essentially still using the same moveset.

 

Everything from the 2012 return onward has been a series of interesting ideas that either didn't quite pan out like he planned (near as I can tell) or has been done for a quick surprise/nostalgia pop. He just doesn't seem to quite fit in the modern WWE world to me, even though... there he is.

 

He's had a long and successful career. He overcame size limitations to be a guy that company seemed to have a lot of faith in and was willing to put in big spots. He's had his share of great matches, but he'll probably always be more known for his characterizations and mic work than his ring work. In some ways, he's the ultimate WWE guy. All of which makes him really difficult to evaluate, because his career is clearly way more sports entertainment than wrestling, but it didn't completely sidestep the wrestling part the way say, Hogan or The Rock did. I think he genuinely aspires to be great in the ring (indeed to be great all around), but just never quite got there, whereas the other two knew where their bread was buttered and stuck to it.

[Loss]

As I said in the reactions thread, Jericho was the ultimate jack-of-all-trades, master of none. He was just competent enough at every aspect of wrestling to be dangerous.

[Woof]

As I said in the reactions thread, Jericho was the ultimate jack-of-all-trades, master of none. He was just competent enough at every aspect of wrestling to be dangerous.

 

Yeah, your description of him on your GWE podcast as the ultimate WWE utility guy really struck a chord with me. Not only is he good-not-great at pretty much everything, but his approach to the business seemed ideally suited for WWE's style.

[Grimmas]

Jericho is currently playing the role of "Old school guy who is full of himself and wants to bury young talent" , basically what he went through in WCW. He's taking that and using it as the character he's playing, mixed with what smart marks are complaining about him being an old guy wearing clothes like he does and all that shit. He's using his status to exclusively work with the people he wants to get over.

 

And if you don't listen to his podcast, that;'s why this obvious thing isn't as obvious to most.

That is all well and good, but AJ is less over now then he was before the Jericho matches.

[goodhelmet]

I am not blaming Jericho for that. I blame Vince McMahon and shitty creative for AJ being less over.

[MoS]

Well, this guy has probably changed a lot of our minds since last time. He did a 180 degree for me within like two years 

[El-P]

Between the NJPW stuff and the first year of AEW, this guy has added quite some heavy artillery to his case. Interestingly enough, he had already progressed from 2006 to 2016 so it's not like he got that much backlash either. He's one I'll have fun revisiting some of his WWE stuff I haven't seen in a while (or at all).

[strobogo]

42 minutes ago, El-P said:

Between the NJPW stuff and the first year of AEW, this guy has added quite some heavy artillery to his case. Interestingly enough, he had already progressed from 2006 to 2016 so it's not like he got that much backlash either. He's one I'll have fun revisiting some of his WWE stuff I haven't seen in a while (or at all).

Really? I think it's the complete opposite. NJ and AEW runs have been embarrassing legacy ruining type shit where he's just an old fat drunk gassing out in 5 minutes and literally audibly wheezing in most matches. The first Kenny match was okay only because there was still the WWE association with Jericho and it was on the weakest WK in years. The unbelievably corny shit of just stealing whatever his opponent's look or name was and pretending like he was doing some great reinvention of himself. The hilarious rationalization of his boozed up weight gain as being he was being a powerlifter to be a brawler lmao. 

Then his AEW run is just the same. He's had bad matches with everyone, his entire shtick is WE'RE NOT WWE BABY AND I CAN SAY SHIT ON TV, he's constantly embarrassing himself being defensive against any criticism like he's an insecure 25 year old instead of 50 year old with 30 years of experience. He's regularly on TV bragging about demos of a show that rarely tops 800,00 viewers, he'll go on promos about how he did 15 week programs to make Orange Cassidy a star (and OC hasn't done shit since that feud, those wins did nothing for him) or how much he's evaluated everyone in the Inner Circle despite the entire group also having been doing nothing for a year and are in the same positions or lower than what they were at the start of Dynamite and the Inner Circle forming. 

Dude has been Ziggler tier of sighing when his music hits since at least 2005, and going back earlier I now find his 2000-2001 run to be unbelievably grating and uncool even if I liked it at the time as a kid. But you know, kids often have terrible taste. 

 

Love his 1998 WCW run, though.

[NotJayTabb]

I like Jericho, but I couldn't find a spot for him in 2016, and given that I already know of 5-10 wrestlers who I'll be adding in 2026 and I've not been impressed with his past few years, he's not making the cut.

[Ed.]

I think the Omega dome show match does add something to his case, and perhaps the NJPW run in general because it's him succeeding in a new environment and I was blown away by how good he was in the Omega match.  I'm not so sure the AEW run does because the stuff he's excelled at are things we know he was good at from his peak (great talker, tweaking his character to stay relevant, working with younger guys and help establish them on a national TV level, getting the silliest things over with crowds).  I think it would be kind to say he's been inconsistent in the ring for AEW, and especially his title run he was over-reaching what he was capable of in his late 40s in trying to have a 25-30 minute main events with Hangman Page and Cody.  Once Moxley takes the belt off him there's a jump in quality in how good title matches became in AEW.

 

[EnviousStupid]

Just curious, how do people factor in Jericho's reinventions to his case here? I've been ruminating over it for a while and although I do think he deserves flowers for the marketing ploys and tactics he's used over the course of his career, I don't think it holds much weight. Does he really have that great a list of character changes and evolutions when compared to a Matt Hardy, who has been an active wrestler for longer with more stints in different places? How about Christian, who is arguably still adding to his case as one of the better wrestlers in AEW right now.

[strobogo]

On 3/13/2022 at 10:00 PM, EnviousStupid said:

Just curious, how do people factor in Jericho's reinventions to his case here? I've been ruminating over it for a while and although I do think he deserves flowers for the marketing ploys and tactics he's used over the course of his career, I don't think it holds much weight. Does he really have that great a list of character changes and evolutions when compared to a Matt Hardy, who has been an active wrestler for longer with more stints in different places? How about Christian, who is arguably still adding to his case as one of the better wrestlers in AEW right now.

I think Jericho's reinvention factor is wildly, wildly overstated. Outside of the slow talking suit character change in 2009, he's been the same corny buttrock guy since 1999 with the only tweaks being hair and smarminess/lameness of insults depending on if he was heel or face. His "reinventions" post WWE run have literally just been taking his opponents' nicknames/looks and using them for himself or leaching off of younger guys' looks/gimmicks. 

[El-P]

The forms of his "reinventions" matters less than the fact he has managed to keep himself relevant into his late 40's (and early 50's) after leaving WWE, including drawing big in NJPW during its hottest period (post 90's) and being a key player in the formation and early success (in term of "mainstream" validation) of AEW.

[Matt D]

I'd have to look more at his actual matches to weigh in. I don't remember him working tremendously differently in his short hair, Bockwinkel-talking run. I can appreciate reinventions in general, but for the sake of GWE, I'd have to see if he reinvented himself in-ring as much, past the introduction of new finishers over the years. I still get the sense that he does what he's always done and tries to reach for physical spots that are slightly beyond his ability to hit, which was always noticeable but might even be more so as he's gotten older and put on more mass and what he can do has been more and more limited.

[Ma Stump Puller]

I think my personal issue is that Jericho never really does anything particularly interesting in-ring as a heel. He really doesn't wrestle any differently beyond applying more long winded rest holds and trash talk and mostly just does the exact same things he normally does in matches: there's nothing really there in terms of variation or whatnot. Maybe he'll add in something new in a blue moon (a la his Mysterio finish at Extreme Rules) but it's mostly just the same material. I mean it works, sure, but it's not very exciting. I suppose I'd rather have that than see him do whatever the "Painmaker" was supposed to be, which was just embarrassing the longer it went on.

 

 

 

[KawadaSmile]

From 2016 to 2022 Jericho was a legit channel changer for me. He looked super fucking lame, Judas is a terrible song, I had zero interest in whatever the dude was doing and it took him staying off the booze and losing weight to actually have a great straight singles match again.

God bless that Kingston feud.