Chris Jericho Has The Whole Wrestling World in His Hands

Welcome back to column time with Larry. Today’s column is all about Chris Jericho and the power and hold he currently has on the wrestling business. Thanks for reading! Remember, it’s wrestling, we love it and will disagree. The only rules are “have a take, be respectful, and don’t be a dick.”

Many times we as fans & writers joke about “so and so” being the smartest man in wrestling. Throughout the years it’s been Hogan, Nash, Triple H, Shawn Michaels, and even Jeff Jarrett. Jeff Jarrett has made a hell of a run at the crown; losing TNA, starting Global Force, talking his way into Anthem when they bought the company, taking control and almost selling Global Force (which is nothing) to them before getting canned and having to go to rehab (paid for by WWE) due to his alcohol issues. He then got out, got into the WWE Hall of fame, and not only talked his way back into AAA but won their grand, mega, universal, whatever the fuck championship of the galaxy upon his return to the promotion…

AIN’T HE GREAT?

But while Jarrett’s accomplishments are impressive, in 2018, it appears that Chris Jericho has taken over as the latest smartest man in wrestling, and in my opinion, there’s really no disputing it…

Alpha vs. Omega: It all starts with the genius of Jericho, and the blockbuster announcement that Chris Jericho would challenge Kenny Omega on January 4th, 2018 at WrestleKingdom 12. Love him or hate him, you have to respect the drive and business acumen of Chris Jericho. He busted his ass for years, made it to WCW and then got signed by WWE. He overcame the odds (and WWE size bias) and became a true superstar when many said he couldn’t do it. The man then started a band, which so many people said would fail, but his love, drive and hard work took a vanity project and turned it into a pretty successful group. Jericho became such a big star that he was able to leave WWE on his own terms and pursue outside projects, and keep his star power in the business. You have to give Jericho a ton of credit, he’s always been a troll, teasing about various things on social media to rile up fans, but always claiming he’d never work anywhere but WWE. He’s always had his outside projects, but no one saw this one coming. Trolling Omega on Twitter and appearing to set up a match on the Cruise of Jericho was a great way to get attention, to piss off the Omega fans and divert people from the real objective, WrestleKingdom 12. They delivered an excellent match, one of the best of Jericho’s career, and he showed that at age 47 that he had a lot more to offer than the Chris Jericho we knew in WWE.

His WWE Status: More importantly and a big thing that Jericho has and most will never see is the fact that he earned the respect of Vince McMahon. So much to the point that he has been able to come and go to WWE as he pleases, keeping a position as a top star, and enjoying a lot of creative freedom and doing things on his own terms. Chris Jericho kills it at WrestleKingdom 12, and weeks later appears at Raw 25 doing a segment he wanted to do with Elias, just to have fun and just because he could. He then lays low, teasing not coming back to NJPW to finish the angle with Naito he started the day after WrestleKingdom 12. Jericho then gets booked for and appears at the Greatest Royal Rumble event, and like in the build to WrestleKingdom 12, gets a monstrous amount of media coverage while working on Fozzy’s growth, planning his cruise, and also his return to NJPW. Chris Jericho does nothing without a plan.

The Cruise of Jericho, Sail Away Man: But Jericho wasn’t done yet, he had an idea, and that idea led to the creation of Chris Jericho’s Rock ‘N’ Wrestling Rager at Sea. Jericho wanted to do a Rock ‘N’ Wrestling cruise, improving upon the old WCW bruise Cruise after being part of the KISS cruise, and originally wanted WWE’s NXT brand to be involved…

“Here’s the thing. I did my due diligence. Obviously, I was working for WWE at the time. I took it to Triple H. I wanted to see if NXT would do it and to see if they’d be interested in doing that. We had some conversations, and, basically, typically WWE, after three months of talking about it, I had a 35-minute conversation with three executives that I’ve never heard of before just to tell us that they’re passing.

Jericho didn’t get WWE involved, but more importantly realized that while he loves wrestling, that he doesn’t need it, and even more importantly than that fact, and again realized that he didn’t need WWE. Jericho started booking independent talents, and then made a deal with ROH to put on the Sea of Honor Tournament, which will feature over a dozen wrestlers competing on an outdoor wrestling ring. Hell, he’s now even getting Impart Wrestling involved; Once again, it’s Jericho’s way or the highway, and he was dead set on doing things his way and continuing to establish his independence. He absolutely gives no fuck about what others think and is dominating the game.

Becoming the IWGP IC Champion: Jericho would go on to face Omega at Wrestlekingdom in early 2018, putting in an excellent performance in a losing effort. The next day at New Year’s Dash, Jericho wasn’t done with NJPW, as he attacked Tetsuya Naito and laid him out. Jericho then went dark in terms of NJPW, appearing at RAW 25 and then the Greatest Royal Rumble event, selling his free agent status, and causing doubt of a NJPW return. But at the NJPW Wrestling Dontaku event, Jericho returned to NJPW. Hiromu Takahashi, BUSHI, EVIL, SANADA, & Tetsuya Naito defeated Desperado, Kanemaru, Lance Archer, Davey Boy Smith Jr, & Minoru Suzuki in tag team action. Following the match, as Tetsuya Naito was exiting the arena, Chris Jericho (dressed as a masked fan of Los Ingobernables de Japon), attacked Naito and hit Naito with the code breaker and then busted him open by hitting him with the ring bell. It was a tremendous follow up angle. At the NJPW BOTSJ Night Four event, Chris Jericho appeared via video package, cutting a promo on Naito, to further set the stage for the match at Dominion. Jericho silenced a lot of critics and doubters at WrestleKingdom, and while the match had a lot of smoke and mirrors involved, he still delivered a completely great performance at age 47. Jericho continued to be a completely different performer outside of WWE, wild, scraggly looking, giving no fucks and more than willing to call you a fuck face at the drop of a dime. The Dominion match was great, which was set up by the violent pre-match brawl that set the tone well. They had the advantage of some smoke and mirrors (not a bad thing) and worked a completely different match than anything else on the show, which was to their advantage. It was a success, Jericho and Naito delivered, and Jericho won the title, but more importantly, Jericho delivered once again and this time won gold, the IWGP IC title, making him a 10-time IC champion, and in the eyes of many, the greatest “IC” champion of all time. Your unhinged father that plays by no rules is now the smartest man in wrestling…and he’s coming to all of your college parties whether you like it or not because he has the entire wrestling world in his hands.

– End Scene.

– Thanks for reading.

” And don’t you wish you were me?
The king of all you see
Don’t you wish you were me?
It ain’t that easy
Don’t think you’ll ever be
Everything a man should be
Cause Don’t you wish you were me?
Keep dreamin’ about being me…

FUCK FACE!”