Post by glacierlives on Aug 7, 2012 12:23:05 GMT -5
This is the first wrestling related post / article I've written. Good? Bad? Unreadable? Let me know. Constructive criticism is appreciated.
It's been a little over 9 months since the cryptic videos that stated that "a familiar force shall arrive to claim what is his and it will be the end of the world as you know it." Flash forward to January 2nd, 2012. The arena goes dark. The fans reach a fever pitch. Chants of "Y2J" fill the otherwise silent arena. A silhouette appears on stage. A figure wearing an incredibly tacky, but still fantastically awesome light-up jacket. The figure has it's arm out in a Jesus Christ style pose. Fireworks. "Break the walls down!" The fans erupt as Jericho makes his way down to the ring. Jericho would make a statement that night by saying... Absolutely nothing at all.
That's what I call a fantastic debut. Jericho returns to massive fanfare. Toys with the audience for about 10 minutes, lifts the mic to his mouth, and leaves. We were left to wonder what he had to say, and I found myself tuning in week after week to find out what Jericho would do next, and when he would finally break his silence. Jericho would say nothing, up until the last Raw before the Royal Rumble. Jericho kept it short and sweet. "This Sunday at the Royal Rumble, it is going to be the end of the world as you know it." Jericho sold me that Pay-Per-View using 20 words. Phenomenal.
So 6 days later, the Royal Rumble rolls around. The match itself was, well it was okay. Not amazing, but not the worst I've seen. The time comes for Jericho to enter the match. The final four are: Show, Jericho, former winner Randy Orton, and the red hot Sheamus. Orton eliminates Show, Jericho eliminates Orton, and then we're left with our final two, Sheamus and Jericho. What happens next is a fantastic end sequence, one of my all time favourites, right up there with the Davey Boy Smith / HBK ending from Royal Rumble 95. A fast paced, dramatic end sequence that, much to my surprise and chagrin, saw Jericho eliminated, and Sheamus crowned Royal Rumble winner.
Flash forward two months. Jericho meets up with CM Punk in the 3rd main event at Wrestlemania 28. Jericho has been badgering Punk with months about his father's alcoholism and his sister's drug problem (among other things). Jericho and Punk engage in a technical master class, which was greatly overshadowed by the "End of an Era" and some guy's named Dwayne and John. Punk is victorious, but the feud is far from over. Jericho assaults Punk two weeks later, which leads to a match being made for Extreme Rules. Another fantastic match, but another loss for Jericho, who at this point is 0-4 in PPV contests.
An incident in Brazil involving the country's flag would see Jericho suspended for 30 days. In that time, Dolph Ziggler moved up the card and snagged a World title match after a bit of bad luck befalls the Mexican Aristocrat, Alberto Del Rio. Jericho's stock falls, Ziggler's rises. Jericho would make his return, interrupting a pretty brutal Cena promo, acting a bit different. Jericho's entirely serious demeanor that he sported for the entirety of his last heel run had faded a bit, giving way to a more sarcastic, and dare I say, goofy Jericho? (He even went as far as to make an incredibly ridiculous face that served as his twitter display picture for a while.)
Jericho would eventually announce his intentions to compete in the WWE Title Money in the Bank match.
What would happen at Money in the Bank? The show started with Ziggler finally taking the big step to becoming a main eventer, and the show ended with Jericho losing again, now 0-6 on PPV (after losing in a fatal four-way at Over the Limit a month back.)
The very next night on Raw, we had a triumphant Ziggler boasting about his victory the night before. Out comes Chris Jericho. Before Jericho can even utter a word, Ziggler begins dressing him down. Calling Jericho out on every loss he's had. Every chance he's missed to win the big one. Ziggler began to wonder if Jericho had lost his touch? Jericho would respond with a codebreaker, knocking Ziggler senseless. Thus the feud of strikingly similar adversaries began.
The past couple of weeks have seen Jericho playing head games with Ziggler, while Ziggler takes a more direct, physical path to get the upper hand on Y2J. Although match has been announced as of yet, there's little doubt that the two will tangle at Summerslam. This is fantastic news from a wrestling perspective, but more importantly, at least in my opinion, this feud signifies the return of the Chris Jericho that made me such a die-hard fan in the first place.
We are slowly seeing the return of one of the most charismatic wrestlers of all time. The natural born performer that is Chris Jericho.
Don't get me wrong, Jericho's heel run in 2009-2010 was quite good. We were given some excellent matches and promo's, but after a while, the heel bit began to get old. There's only so many ways you can say that you're the saviour of the WWE. So when Jericho returned, for a brief second I thought he was going to be the babyface I loved him as. Gone would be the monotone and mono-topic promo's. We would get to see that passion that made Jericho so magnetic. I was wrong. Once Jericho began speaking regularly, he basically had two topics for promos:
a) That he was the best in the world at what he does
Or
b) CM Punk's family is bad, and soon Punk will be nothing but a paint-huffing whino.
Besides the fact that Jericho was starting to run low on heel schtick, the fans don't want to boo a man who has given so much for the company for over a decade. Fans don't want to boo a living legend. Unless that living legend is Larry Zybyszko.
So how happy am I that Jericho is unofficially turning face?
Manly tears of joy.
I'm just hoping that the WWE will continue to allow Jericho to show his more goofy brand of charisma.
So those are my thoughts on the events as of late, and Jericho's run as a whole. What are your thoughts?
It's been a little over 9 months since the cryptic videos that stated that "a familiar force shall arrive to claim what is his and it will be the end of the world as you know it." Flash forward to January 2nd, 2012. The arena goes dark. The fans reach a fever pitch. Chants of "Y2J" fill the otherwise silent arena. A silhouette appears on stage. A figure wearing an incredibly tacky, but still fantastically awesome light-up jacket. The figure has it's arm out in a Jesus Christ style pose. Fireworks. "Break the walls down!" The fans erupt as Jericho makes his way down to the ring. Jericho would make a statement that night by saying... Absolutely nothing at all.
That's what I call a fantastic debut. Jericho returns to massive fanfare. Toys with the audience for about 10 minutes, lifts the mic to his mouth, and leaves. We were left to wonder what he had to say, and I found myself tuning in week after week to find out what Jericho would do next, and when he would finally break his silence. Jericho would say nothing, up until the last Raw before the Royal Rumble. Jericho kept it short and sweet. "This Sunday at the Royal Rumble, it is going to be the end of the world as you know it." Jericho sold me that Pay-Per-View using 20 words. Phenomenal.
So 6 days later, the Royal Rumble rolls around. The match itself was, well it was okay. Not amazing, but not the worst I've seen. The time comes for Jericho to enter the match. The final four are: Show, Jericho, former winner Randy Orton, and the red hot Sheamus. Orton eliminates Show, Jericho eliminates Orton, and then we're left with our final two, Sheamus and Jericho. What happens next is a fantastic end sequence, one of my all time favourites, right up there with the Davey Boy Smith / HBK ending from Royal Rumble 95. A fast paced, dramatic end sequence that, much to my surprise and chagrin, saw Jericho eliminated, and Sheamus crowned Royal Rumble winner.
Flash forward two months. Jericho meets up with CM Punk in the 3rd main event at Wrestlemania 28. Jericho has been badgering Punk with months about his father's alcoholism and his sister's drug problem (among other things). Jericho and Punk engage in a technical master class, which was greatly overshadowed by the "End of an Era" and some guy's named Dwayne and John. Punk is victorious, but the feud is far from over. Jericho assaults Punk two weeks later, which leads to a match being made for Extreme Rules. Another fantastic match, but another loss for Jericho, who at this point is 0-4 in PPV contests.
An incident in Brazil involving the country's flag would see Jericho suspended for 30 days. In that time, Dolph Ziggler moved up the card and snagged a World title match after a bit of bad luck befalls the Mexican Aristocrat, Alberto Del Rio. Jericho's stock falls, Ziggler's rises. Jericho would make his return, interrupting a pretty brutal Cena promo, acting a bit different. Jericho's entirely serious demeanor that he sported for the entirety of his last heel run had faded a bit, giving way to a more sarcastic, and dare I say, goofy Jericho? (He even went as far as to make an incredibly ridiculous face that served as his twitter display picture for a while.)
Jericho would eventually announce his intentions to compete in the WWE Title Money in the Bank match.
What would happen at Money in the Bank? The show started with Ziggler finally taking the big step to becoming a main eventer, and the show ended with Jericho losing again, now 0-6 on PPV (after losing in a fatal four-way at Over the Limit a month back.)
The very next night on Raw, we had a triumphant Ziggler boasting about his victory the night before. Out comes Chris Jericho. Before Jericho can even utter a word, Ziggler begins dressing him down. Calling Jericho out on every loss he's had. Every chance he's missed to win the big one. Ziggler began to wonder if Jericho had lost his touch? Jericho would respond with a codebreaker, knocking Ziggler senseless. Thus the feud of strikingly similar adversaries began.
The past couple of weeks have seen Jericho playing head games with Ziggler, while Ziggler takes a more direct, physical path to get the upper hand on Y2J. Although match has been announced as of yet, there's little doubt that the two will tangle at Summerslam. This is fantastic news from a wrestling perspective, but more importantly, at least in my opinion, this feud signifies the return of the Chris Jericho that made me such a die-hard fan in the first place.
We are slowly seeing the return of one of the most charismatic wrestlers of all time. The natural born performer that is Chris Jericho.
Don't get me wrong, Jericho's heel run in 2009-2010 was quite good. We were given some excellent matches and promo's, but after a while, the heel bit began to get old. There's only so many ways you can say that you're the saviour of the WWE. So when Jericho returned, for a brief second I thought he was going to be the babyface I loved him as. Gone would be the monotone and mono-topic promo's. We would get to see that passion that made Jericho so magnetic. I was wrong. Once Jericho began speaking regularly, he basically had two topics for promos:
a) That he was the best in the world at what he does
Or
b) CM Punk's family is bad, and soon Punk will be nothing but a paint-huffing whino.
Besides the fact that Jericho was starting to run low on heel schtick, the fans don't want to boo a man who has given so much for the company for over a decade. Fans don't want to boo a living legend. Unless that living legend is Larry Zybyszko.
So how happy am I that Jericho is unofficially turning face?
Manly tears of joy.
I'm just hoping that the WWE will continue to allow Jericho to show his more goofy brand of charisma.
So those are my thoughts on the events as of late, and Jericho's run as a whole. What are your thoughts?
