Chris Jericho vs. Matt Hardy

[Bierschwale]

I definitely like the Booker/Goldust RAW match more than the Austin/HHH match, and Jericho's very good in it. That Christian/Jericho team against the Hardys in their second run would have been a great feud.

[Mad Dog]

I voted for Jericho. Jericho managed to make Dean Malenko interesting and to me that makes him a miracle worker. Go back and watch when Dean Malenko unmasked and then beat Jericho. The crowd went absolutely crazy for him. I don't think Jericho is a top flight inring guy but I don't think Matt Hardy could get an opponent over to that degree.

[MoS]

Who would have thought five years back that these two would headline a War Games match against each other in 2020. I really hope AEW pushes Blood and Guts until the pandemic is over, both because I think it's the healthy thing to do and because the match deserves to be in front of a sold out crowd going nuts. 

[FMKK]

It's also funny to look back on people being so down on Jericho for being diminishing returns or even not 'getting it', all of which may have been appropriate to some degree or another (certainly him trying to keep up with AJ Styles in workrate matches in 2016 was not a high point). With his latest reinvention and his absolute home run of a stint in AEW, he's really elevated his case as an all-time performer and is one of the best examples in contemporary wrestling of someone just 'getting it'. 

[MoS]

He has said that he truly felt like he was ready to be a top guy and carry a company at the 2018 WK Omega match. That feud and match was really where he put it together. He's still never had a top face run but he will at some point - the fans love him as it is, although he is good enough to get them to boo him in the ring or on the mic. It will be interesting to see how that run would turn out. He has definitely enhanced his case significantly for the (presumably) 2026 rankings. Although arguably so has Matt Hardy in his own way. 

[Mad Dog]

I agree the Omega match is where he put it all together. It's where he stopped trying to be cute and funny and just embraced being a total dickbag heel. I think a lot of that is getting out of WWE and not having to exist within their restraints.

[Big Pete]

I felt for Chris during his 2012-16 run.

The WWE had an all-time legend on their roster and they never did anything to make him feel special. They bring him back for the Royal Rumble and instead of bringing him in hot and having him go over to set up a dream match with Punk, they have him lose to Sheamus. They still ran the Punk-Jericho match anyways, but instead of it being a significant match, it paled in comparison to Cena-Rock and HHH-Taker III. What makes it worse is that Jericho and Punk actually came up with ideas to sell their rivalry but they fell on deaf ears so you just ended up with this blah match.

Then Jericho puts over Ziggler and goes away only to come back and find himself in a program with Fandango. It was a prepostoruous match up and not surprisingly it stunk the joint out. They kept him around for a match with CM Punk who was returning from a break who clearly didn't want to be there just so Jericho could put him over and put his lackluster year behind him.

That was how it went for the remaining years. Jericho would return, do his greatest hits and put over whoever they needed to. The only exception was when they had him go over AJ Styles at Wrestlemania. However, in typical fashion, it backfired on Jericho and the planned Jericho-Reigns feud that had been building since Night of Champions 2015 was put on the shelf for Styles-Roman which would save Styles' run.

None of these events helped Jericho in any shape or form and while he had his share of mistakes they would have been easily avoided if he was treated like a Shawn Michaels calibre star. Instead he's the proto-Ziggler - the guy who built a great reputation with the fans, only to get the ball yanked away from it time after time after time only for the fans to lose interest. Leaving the WWE was one of the best decisions he's made in the last decade or so.