How to Embrace The Stupid Idiot (And Revive a Career)
- Admin
- Mar 9, 2016
- 6 min read
Over the past several years my father-in-law has made some interesting life choices. He traded in his GMC pick-up truck for a brand new, bright blue, fully loaded Dodge Charger. He began running a ridiculous amount of miles every morning and lost a bunch of weight. He started taking multiple trips to Las Vegas every year with his wife, and he started wearing non-Dad jeans with an expensive leather jacket. This sequence of events is known to most as a midlife crisis, and it has been absolutely amazing to witness. Slightly comical, somehow badass at times, and completely deserved. Watching his newfound confidence unfold makes me like everything about it that much more, and knowing that he has literally spent decades “paying his dues” as a hardworking father completely justifies him doing whatever the hell he wants at this point. He’s completely selling it.
In so many words this is exactly what Chris Jericho is experiencing. Basically a mid-career crisis. And it has been nothing short of glorious to watch as well.
For over 20 years Chris Jericho has been cementing himself in professional wrestling history. His entire career has been a continuous cycle of him one upping himself, and working his ass off while doing so. He has held 32 championships over his long run through ECW, WCW and of course WWE. Not only was he the final holder of the coveted WCW World Championship, he then unified that title with the (at that time) WWF Championship in a win against both The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin to be the first ever WWE Undisputed Champion. And presumably his most well known accomplishment, he is a record 9-time Intercontinental Champion and arguably the greatest IC champ that professional wrestling has ever seen. Quite a resume.
An advantage that Jericho has had throughout his career that is completely unique to him, is that he suffers from PADD, or professional attention deficit disorder. Yes, I made that up. It’s the same disorder that The Rock now suffers from. Film, theatre, writing, Dancing with the Stars and of course his most notable non-wrestling pursuit as the lead singer of his band Fozzy, are some of the reasons that he is periodically pulled away from wrestling. And with every planned hiatus, wrestling fans have come to savor the eventual return that it always brings. It’s like that feeling you get after a season finale episode of The Walking Dead. Or when Christmas is over. You know it has to go, but also know it will be that much sweeter when it comes back.
This formula worked for Jericho throughout most of his career, until he made a surprise return as a heel in 2012 after a year-long sabbatical. WWE Creative made a bold move by having a newly 40 year-old Jericho feud with the reigning WWE Champion and conceivably the most “over” wrestler in the business at that time, CM Punk. (Aside from Cena who is obviously always “over” till the end of time) The cards were completely stacked against Jericho and for the first time in his career, his return to wrestling was less than welcomed even by the truest of wrestling fans. He had plateaued. Jericho had finally reached that awkward stage late in his career where he had somewhat become stale. The mere fact that he was “back”, didn’t have the same effect that it did in years past. His in ring performance was still good obviously, but when your name is Chris freaking Jericho, even the slightest hint of athletic decline stands out like Braun Strowman in a beauty pageant. Or Braun Strowman anywhere for that matter. His physique was saying less “professional wrestler”, and more “middle-aged uncle that goes to the YMCA everyday”. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it was different. Different for us as wrestling enthusiasts and different for Jericho himself. He had reached a point in his career where he could no longer ride the Y2J wave, and he needed to adapt. He needed to accept. He needed to embrace where he was at in his wrestling career.
He spent several years gliding through low to mid-card storylines and matches, having small feuds with Dolph Ziggler, The Miz and Wade Barrett, while highlighting his main event decline with clean losses to Ryback at Money in the Bank and Fandango at WrestleMania 29. It wasn’t until January of 2016 that Jericho (and WWE Creative), either accidentally or intentional, came across a new formula that was going to help put Jericho “over” more than he had been an almost a decade. With a fresh and surprising debut from AJ Styles at Royal Rumble, WWE needed a way to ease him into the spotlight and more importantly the hearts of WWE fans that weren’t familiar with Styles’ already legendary non-WWE wrestling career. It was a win-win and a no-brainer for WWE to feud Styles and Jericho. It was a pairing that hardcore wrestling fans would drool over, it helped build Styles’ momentum by pairing him with a future WWE hall of famer, and most importantly it would boost Jericho almost immediately as AJ Styles literally makes anyone that steps into the squared circle with him look phenomenal. Pun intended. After splitting a pair of excellent matches on Raw and SmackDown, Styles took the best of 3 by defeating Jericho at Fastlane.
What followed that loss for Jericho was a turning point.
Jericho could have easily went in for a post-match handshake only to pull away last minute, land a spiteful Code Breaker and disappear backstage to a crowd full of boos. Typical unlikeable heel move that would have put Jericho right back to where he was before his Styles feud. Instead, they embraced each other’s physical banter and started a tag-team which was quickly and cleverly dubbed as Y2AJ. This was a genius move. Styles was surely going to continue his climb to the top of WWE, and this gave Jericho a chance to share some of Styles’ momentum for a while longer without overextending a feud that would eventually become mundane.
But most importantly, this was Jericho’s opportunity to embrace his role. Instead of trying to forcefully sell himself as the Jericho of the past, he came to terms with being Jericho of the present; a middle aged professional wrestling legend that has been paying his dues for so long that he now gives zero fucks and is willing to do whatever is necessary to further better his career and by happy. He is basically my father-in-law, except he looks like Bon Jovi. He is the equivalent of Tim Duncan choosing to come off the bench during his last season with the San Antonio Spurs simply because it was best for the team.
From the moment that Y2AJ was created, so was its eventual demise, perfectly setting up one last climactic match on the greatest stage of them all, WrestleMania, where Jericho’s newfound momentum would continue with a clean win over AJ Styles. Almost a year later, that exact same formula was replicated. This time with a fellow Canadian and WWE Universal Champion, Kevin Owens.
If Y2AJ was the dress rehearsal, then “Team Kevin & Chris” was the big show. This time Jericho was paired with a current WWE champ, which allowed him to fully embrace his new role as a pompous little sidekick and embrace the absurdness of his new character that much more. Jericho understood that he was not being laughed at for being silly, rather he was commanding people to laugh at him for his silliness. It’s likeable and refreshing. Think Christopher Walken in Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice”. An Oscar winning actor known for serious and dramatic roles decides he has reached a point in his career where he is completely open to dancing and flying around an empty mall in a music video to some early 2000’s electronic music. He knew it was a little uncharacteristic of himself but decided to try and adapt and take a risk, and it paid off. Now, Christopher Walken is on this Bill Murray like godly level where he can just do anything he wants and it’s always awesome to everyone no matter what simply because he is Christopher Walken. This is the path Jericho is beginning to walk down. Just throw in a weak mustache, girly scarf, cocky strut, a clipboard (List of Jericho), sprinkle with some entitlement, and there you have it. A new level of Jericho that not many saw coming.
Longtime fans love the renaissance of Jericho, while younger fans think he’s funny because he looks like a dad and calls people stupid idiots. In the words of Mugatu from Zoolander, “That Chris Jericho is hot right now”. So hot that he is the current reigning WWE U.S. Champion, and much like a year ago when he wrestled former ally AJ Styles, it seems that he will be doing the same when he goes to WrestleMania 33 for what should be a classic match against former best friend Kevin Owens. Even with a loss to Owens in Orlando on April 2nd, it would be hard to take the wind out of Jericho’s sails at this point. Whether he forms another tag team alliance after Mania, holds onto the U.S. title or perhaps makes a run at his sentimental Intercontinental Championship, no matter what direction he goes at this point, nothing can take away from the absolute fire last year that Chris Jericho has had.
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