It Could Be Said #16 MJF Beating Jericho Is Best For Business
A look at why it's time for Chris Jericho to leave AEW and return to WWE
In a few hours, Chris Jericho will have his third and presumably final match against Maxwell Jacob Friedman. It will be the culmination of a feud the seeds of which were sown nearly two years ago when both warily basked in their mutual admiration for each other in the aftermath of MJF helping Jericho retain his title against Cody Rhodes at Full Gear 2019.
That hint at an alliance was placed on hold as both men feuded elsewhere, but it was renewed latter in 2020, culminating with MJF winning his place in Jericho’s Inner Circle at Full Gear 2020 by defeating him. There then began a slow build to the newcomer turning on the veteran, which exploded after both men failed to win the tag team titles at Revolution 2021, where Friedman’s new Pinnacle stable surprise attacked an Inner Circle that had resolved to reject his attempts to replace Jericho as their leader.
After many twists and turns over the summer, Jericho would finally get to face MJF in another one-on-one match, this time on Dynamite. He would again lose. A second rematch has been justified in storyline by Jericho promising to never wrestle in AEW should he lose, a stipulation made more credible by him recently debuting as an announcer on Rampage.
Whilst the quality of his commentary gives me pause, I would argue he should again lose to MJF, and for a while at least, make that move into commentary.
Time Waits For No Man
There can be no doubt that both Chris Jericho and AEW have greatly benefited from him deciding to join AEW. It was a somewhat surprising development, as even whilst enjoying a late-career resurgence with New Japan Pro Wrestling Jericho had made sure to keep his affiliation with WWE active, making several appearances throughout 2018. But in AEW he got to be the type of headliner that he and his fans knew he had the talent to be, becoming the promotion’s first world champion and headlining their first five pay per views. Jericho deserves a lot of praise for having the guts and sense to make a move that others, including CM Punk, wouldn’t until AEW had proved themselves.
It was just as good a deal for the promotion. Signing Jericho was the first sign that this was something more than a new rival to second-tier promotions such as Impact Wrestling or Ring of Honor. He has proven to be an excellent ratings draw, someone who along with Jon Moxley, appealed to mainstream WWE fans in a way that the rest of their roster didn’t at first. Not for nothing were his segments often the most watched on Dynamite.
But over the past year, a major problem has emerged; Jericho is slowing down at an alarming rate. After fifty years of heavy living he’s no longer the athlete who had an entertaining and relatively clean wrestling match against Tetsuya Naito at Wrestle Kingdom 13, let alone the one that frequently held his own against some of the best in-ring workers the sport has ever seen in the 1990s or 2000s. And that’s a real problem in a promotion that is built around younger wrestlers having better matches than you see in WWE.
The series of matches he undertook to earn his first rematch with MJF exposed this, with Jericho often looking stiff, winded and uncoordinated when asked to actually wrestle. Compare the match that Sammy Guevara got out of Shawn Spears, with the plodding affair the latter had with Guevara’s supposed stable leader. Ironically the only match Jericho truly looked comfortable was against Nick Gage, with both men using the painful and bloody shortcuts that have always helped the old or the limited somehow pull a match out of their ass that entertains the crowd.
But you can’t do that sort of match every time, and someone like Jericho arguably shouldn’t be doing it at all when there’s several younger and better brawlers in the promotion. And remember he’s being exposed whilst working with people who are far from the peak of AEW’s in-ring workers; how slow and clunky would he look if asked to have a match against Rey Fenix or PAC? Time is running out for Jericho, and there is a real danger he will start to embarrass himself and undermine the legacy he has built in the company.
Jericho Has Options
Of course, the retort to that would be that you cannot eat a legacy, and plenty of us would happily embarrass ourselves for the type of money Jericho is being paid. But he does have options. There is of course the possibility that he could genuinely retire, entertain himself by doing the odd match on his cruise or in New Japan whilst focusing on being a commentator, rock star, podcaster, television presenter, and wine merchant. It would hardly be a life spent in seclusion or poverty. Indeed this seems suspiciously like what he’s planning to spend the months after his match tonight, with a rock tour and cruise planned for the rest of the year.
But I don’t think anyone really believes that Jericho is planning to end his career now. At fifty years old he’s still significantly younger than the likes of Ric Flair or Hulk Hogan when they retired, and he has lived a remarkably charmed life when it comes to injuries. But if his AEW career ends there is always another place he could go, a place he long talked about having considered home.
Think about it. In WWE he would feel less pressure to match the pace set by younger, better wrestlers because that promotion is clearly built around older, worse ones. The limited match layouts and obsession with pre-rehearsed dramatic moments would hide his limitations just as well as light tubes and steel chairs, and be a lot less painful to take. It would be his final chance to be treated by the WWE as a major star, with things like a belated Royal Rumble victory, a second Wrestlemania main event and a Hall of Fame induction being reasonable things to demand upon re-signing. And having not been regularly featured on WWE television since 2017, he actually has a surprisingly fresh set of matchups. He’s never had a major programme with Roman Reigns, Brock Lesnar or Bobby Lashley, and enough time has passed that rematches with Edge, Seth Rollins or John Cena would feel fresh. Well, as fresh as anything can feel in WWE.
As for WWE, after enduring a rotten two years with shock firing after shock firing, they get to present a good news story for a change. The return of a wrestling legend, the first big “steal” from AEW. And it’s the closest to a major superstar returning that they can present for next year’s Wrestlemania season with Bill Goldberg and Brock Lesnar both being used at the forthcoming Saudi show, and the likes of Undertaker and Triple-H seemingly retired. Indeed, if The Rock really isn’t available to face Roman Reigns until 2023, then Reigns vs Jericho may be the biggest men’s match they can do at Wrestlemania 38.
Timing Is Everything
The reason it’s possible to imagine that Chris Jericho leaves AEW at the end of this year is that is when his contract expires. Well, kind of expires, because there is a year option that the promotion could exercise. So what I’m arguing is not just that Chris Jericho should want to leave, but that AEW should let him.
The rationale for this is simple. First and foremost, as outlined above, he just cannot go at the same level that he did when they built the promotion around him in that first year. Secondly, they just don’t need him as much. The indie wrestling veterans and prospects that Jericho and Moxley’s presence helped promote to WWE fans, have had two years on international television to build a fanbase. They should, and increasingly do, hold their own in the quarter hours and minute-by-minutes. Thirdly, if they do need support, AEW has reinforcements coming in both CM Punk and Bryan Danielson. In my mind both men were bigger stars in WWE than Chris Jericho, and promise to move numbers more than he could. Any hole left by Jericho’s departure should be more than covered by those two.
Fourthly, it would protect Jericho’s legacy in AEW. The alternative would be him struggling to headline, only to ultimately move down the ranks, devaluing his status as the first champion. If he goes to WWE (after a brief interval on commentary) he leaves on top, before undoubtedly being brought back for one final run before retirement. That run is where he can more easily be positioned like Sting is currently, because there would be a break between him being presented as a champion or a contender, and him being showcased as a living legend.
Decisions, Decisions
Being a promoter is hard. You have to make tough decisions about when to cut loose from someone who has served you well. If you cut them too early, you leave money on the table like Vince McMahon did when he let Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage and other 80s veterans leave because they were too old. But if you go too late you become Eric Bischoff, where you’re so blinded by people’s reputations and recent business that you don’t see that their bodies are approaching the point of no return, and reactions/business are starting to slacken.
Whilst I’d rather party with Eric, I’d rather be Vince. Because beyond the monetary costs involved, there’s a opportunity cost. Even if you can make money off the veterans, they’re taking up time that could be dedicated to the stars of the future. MJF is a case in point. It’s easy to forget that he nor his stable has yet to score a non-controversial win over Chris Jericho;
He used his diamond ring to cheapshot Jericho and get the win at Full Gear 2020
He guilt tripped Sammy Guevara to quit by threatening to throw Jericho off the cage at Blood ‘N’ Guts rather than trap someone in a legitimate submission hold
The Pinnacle lost at Double or Nothing 2021
·He only managed to take Jericho down and apply the armbar because Jericho had to stop mid-move because he remembered his normal spinning-back-elbow finisher had been banned as a cheap heal tactic
If Jericho wins that match he will have been feuding with MJF for over a year, repeatedly losing due to heel tactics, only to win the one legitimate match; the one that’s for the highest stakes at that. It would be a clear statement that AEW consider the veteran a surer bet than a prospect who hopefully will be wrestling on their television decades after the former has retired.
WCW faced this exact quandary in 1998. Hollywood Hogan’s contract up shortly after Goldberg won the title from him. They took the huge crowd and audience that viewed the match as proof that Hogan was an irreplaceable superstar, and so re-signed him. They then spent the summer promoting the veteran rather than their new champion. Goldberg never fulfilled his potential as a superstar and Hogan was a spent force commercially by the end of 1999. But Hogan also suffered from his machinations. If he had gone to WWF in 1998 he would undoubtedly have made more money than what his base assured him in a failing WCW, and would have got to take part in some of the biggest matches of all time.
Chris Jericho and Tony Khan need to be brave. They need to take a leap of faith. They need to have Maxwell Jacob Friedman beat the first AEW Champion, and set in train a sequence of events that leads to Jericho spending 2022 in WWE.
That’s what’s best for everyone’s business.