LARIAT Magazine.

Is Chris Jericho Harming His Professional Wrestling Legacy?

Chris Jericho is an industry legend within his own right when it comes to professional wrestling with a multitude of championships, accolades, and history behind the name ‘Chris Jericho’. Jericho’s career highlights speak for themselves including defeating Stone Cold and The Rock in the same night at Vengeance 2001 becoming the first WWE Undisputed Champion.

 A first ballot hall of famer in any wrestling based hall of fame, however is his latest stint harming that illustrious legacy?

During his 30+ year career, Jericho has been halted as one of the greatest when it comes to reinventing his character, coming back refreshed and updated to the audiences of that timeline. Everything from ‘Lionheart’ Chris Jericho, ‘The Man of 1004 Holds’, ‘The Y2J’ era right through the ‘list’ to ‘The Festival of Friendship, ‘The Ocho and ‘The Inner Circle.’, even Stepping foot in NJPW as ‘The Painmaker’, revitalised his career some more gaining a foe in Kenny Omega and becoming the IWGP Intercontinental Champion during this run added a little bit of edge and prestige to Jericho’s incredible career. When it comes to new characters arcs Jericho is one of the best, however in the present day, Jericho’s gimmick is that of a teacher taking professional wrestlers with potential under his wing, whilst somewhat stealing the spotlight from the likes of Hook, Shibata and Big Bill.

The gimmick itself isn’t necessarily the problem, but how Jericho is going about it is what’s causing the disconnect between the performers and the fans. On a weekly basis, Jericho is met with boisterous chants of ‘please retire.’ And cries for less television time for Chris Jericho as the story continues onward.  

The elderly mentor gimmick works we have seen it time and time again, most recently with Sting and Darby Allin having a belter time during Sting’s final years in the ring, but the people aren’t buying this Jericho act anymore.  

The start of his AEW run was nice, decent and quality. At the time, he was the main attraction of the company being the companies first major signing outside of the EVPs, became the inaugural AEW champion at the AEW All Out PPV, signing off one of the most popular catchphrases with a ‘lil bit of the bubbly’, but companies must move forward to progress in all industries, including professional wrestling.

Since the departing of his Inner Circle, Jericho has felt stale, aside from ‘The Ocho’ gimmick where he  won the ROH World’s Championship gold, not much about Jericho has got me particularly excited about Mr. Y2J in the past few years, and as time goes on it feels as though he has become a parody of his former self, a tad like Ricky Gervais, acceptable in the 00’s, tolerable in the 2010’s with the odd stroke of genius, but have both quickly became unbearable in the 2020’s.        

 Jericho’s attempts at making stars for the future of AEW also seems rather misguided with elongated and drawn-out storylines with Jericho taking a good portion of the limelight from the likes of Ricky Starks, Eddie Kingston, Orange Cassidy and MJF and seemingly Hook is next in this pipeline of ongoing feuds that only really do bits for Jericho’s career. Whilst I understand the fault doesn’t solely fall at Jericho’s feet, I would like less of the ‘long term story telling’ and more said for his rival after the feud. Where has Ricky Starks gone?  It does feel like in the year of our Lord, 2024, Chris Jericho is a bit of a momentum vacuum taking the shine of AEW’s next top guys. It’s just tiring and played out.

In conclusion, whilst I admire a solid portion of Chris Jericho’s professional wrestling curriculum vitae and I understand, much like many athletes reminds us that the adrenaline of the crowd and fans of (insert sport here) never truly goes away, no amount of AEW ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ can convince me that Chris Jericho in 2024 is good. Chris Jericho cannot regenerate like he used to. Time’s time, cop.