Just over a year ago, I wrote about 5 Things that should happen to re-GOAT Chris Jericho. A year later, with two title reigns, a new faction, and various controversies, Chris Jericho has become more divisive.
At its core, it’s because Jericho has abandoned the method that helped keep the man and character’s reputation GOATED. The prior formula of taking time off, rejuvenating, and changing character has gone. Chris Jericho has essentially persisted as a variation of the same character, just with a different nickname.
A superficial change but not a character swift. That is until recently.
Leaning into the online perception of Jericho as a “clout vampire” was dangerously meta. The double-edged sword with this, like The Elite found out earlier this year by going corporate, is that it gives critics and disenfranchised fans confirmation. That they are/were right. It changes nothing in the short term.
The other issue has been in-ring the overreliance on the same smoke, mirrors and wires that have for AEW’s core audience become so noticeable that it’s hard to ignore.
Credit Where Credit is Due
Some on social media defend the nuance of The Learning Tree’s meta-heel actions. However, it’s hard to deny that some fans literally change channels or tune out.
See tweets on X, including videos where fans change the channel when the words “I am the Learning Tree” blast through the PA. When I attended All In this year, the only time there were queues for the bathroom was during Jericho vs. Hook.
Your tolerance of Chris Jericho will depend upon how much credit you give The Nueve for his various successes in AEW. I’m still a Chris Jericho fan. I love and have attended Fozzy gigs.
I even wrote a wrestling screenplay with Chris Jericho as the title character/antagonist. But I’m no stan for Jericho.
Not just because I didn’t hear back from Jericho’s people about my script. Dear Chris, I’ve written but you still ain’t callin’…
I can’t overlook the detrimental impact of the Jericho Vortex. TV is taken from other wrestlers with promise who, to quote Michael Hamflett of WhatCulture, are left to “die on the vine”.
What curries Jericho’s favor and keeps me respecting the man and wrestler is that ultimately Jericho helped make AEW successful. Beyond being one of the best performers on Dynamite. As a wrestler and storyteller.
More than being a former WWE star who helped get the company attention and credibility. Not for putting other wrestlers over (which I’ll discuss that next week).
As a vehicle, Jericho’s legitimacy as a former WWE world champion allowed the man to help establish AEW’s core principles. Chris Jericho got three core aspects of AEW over.
1) The Idealized AEW Factor Structure
The Inner Circle was a strange concept that, in hindsight, should not have worked. Compared to great factions in wrestling history, they had little common ground. Strikingly different personalities and athletes, and yet the group made perfect sense.
Yet the common goal of supporting Chris Jericho and taking power for themselves as a collective worked. One of their t-shirt designs parodied Guns N Roses, which encapsulates for a short time both the sense of unity and each member’s distinctiveness. It refreshed the blueprint for what factions, a concept WWE had bastardized and diminished for years, could/should be.
Jericho was the leader, the main eventer with name value and promo skills. Jack Hager, the heater who early on felt fresh and unique after his undefeated MMA victories. Add the future stars.
Sammy Guevara who, in many ways, felt like he could be the next Chris Jericho. His high-flying abilities and utilization of his vlog and cue cards during the break maximized his minutes.
Santana and Ortiz felt like they could run a rough shot over the tag team division. On several occasions, the trigger was almost pulled.
Individually potential killers and thrillers. Still, collectively, they could be goofballs without losing that sense of dominance. Their skits, celebrations, meetings, and Las Vegas trip added humor and sprinkled sports entertainment done well into AEW (more on this later).
The group had everything a faction should have with layers. Challenging babyfaces, like Jericho’s successor to the AEW World Championship, Jon Moxley, had obstacles and tiers to overcome on their way to Jericho. It set the standard that over time, would be diminished through repetition and careless thought (an aspect of AEW creative I’ve analyzed here).
2) Extreme Violence
Chris Jericho’s star power, in some ways, has impacted the perception of extreme stipulation matches and violence in AEW. This is beyond the more recent use of gimmick matches as a crutch during his “For The World” title run.
Jericho was by no means the first AEW wrestler to compete in hardcore stipulation matches. However, Jericho’s no-rules match on Dynamite against Nick Gage was a watershed moment.
Seeing such a stipulation match on free TV helped the acceptance and normalisation that as an alternative, AEW could be extreme. More than that, Chris Jericho is a multi-time world champion with experience in WWE.
Watching Jericho compete in a match using weaponry like light tubes and pizza cutters, weapons associated with “garbage wrestling” crossed the line of what WWE had always said and implied had no place in mainstream wrestling. Jericho even brought a barbwire match to mainstream TV against Eddie Kingston.
Chris Jericho helped break this taboo. Although controversial, such violence has not killed or hampered AEW as many have repeatedly sworn it would (which I’ve written about here). These bouts helped arguably bridge a gap between worlds.
Showing fans and wrestlers that such weapons can be used to tell stories in the ring. Jericho’s presence in other extreme matches, comical or serious, like Stadium Stampede, Anarchy in the Arena, and Blood and Guts – for better and worse – are part of the AEW’s history of violence. Jericho’s legitimacy has broken down the walls of what is considered acceptable in terms of how far violence can create stories in wrestling.
3) AEW’s Identity
Undoubtedly, Chris Jericho’s greatest achievement in AEW is in helping to make the company the alternative. Although rightfully, AEW would not exist without the EVPs, when the promotion started and the creative gears turned, it was Jericho who became the public face of the promotion. Jericho was the man who defined what AEW would be.
Ironically, Jericho’s reinvention and beginnings as Le Champion was not really a reinvention. More of a lean-in to a sports-entertainment gaijin persona.
Like now, it was playing into fans’ expectations/perceptions of Jericho’s real-life reputation. Specifically, his WWE-association. It worked because Vince McMahon still reigned in WWE (as I’ve discussed here).
In being the first AEW World Champion, Jericho was the big bad for AEW. The threat from within. From the get-go, the thing AEW needed saving from to be the true alternative.
His early title defenses and victories over future AEW stalwarts like Jack Perry and Darby Allin helped to cement these men as future stars. The biggest exception would be Jon Moxley. While Moxley was already an established name, his victory and succession of Jericho as the AEW World champion made Moxley the true alternative world champion.
And like with AEW’s overreliance on factions, this story arc structure of AEW needing saving from some internal threat persists to today. Again, to diminishing returns.
AEW is Jericho
In conclusion, for many AEW fans, Jericho’s actions in these three answers and in making us care about how wrestling can be done differently have given The Learning Tree credit. But, as stated already, your lenience and tolerance determine if that credit still exists or is now debt.
Whilst the good doesn’t negate the bad for me or others, Jericho helped make AEW the imperfect company it is. Jericho cannot be ignored as a contributing factor in making AEW successful.
In many ways, AEW is Jericho. All three core elements of AEW that Jericho has helped establish: factions, extreme violence, and AEW’s inner battle for its heart and soul have become detrimental. Blaming Jericho would be too easy and wrong.
The faults in creative and the booking infrastructure of AEW rest elsewhere. It’s easy to say also those who dislike Jericho and AEW want the company to fail.
I would love to fall back in love with Jericho as a wrestler again. He still has a lot to offer AEW.
I’ve argued elsewhere about how he could, as a brand ambassador. Traveling to AEW’s international partnerships and perhaps representing AEW on the indies across the world, could benefit AEW immensely. Especially now that WWE ID extends the company’s reach to the indies.
Speaking for myself, I want a change and something new from the man with a thousand nicknames. And from AEW, in general, besides repetition of what’s been done before.
More From LWOS Pro Wrestling
Header photo – AEW – Stay tuned to the Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world. As well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can catch AEW Dynamite on Wednesday nights at 8 PM ET on TBS. AEW Rampage airs on TNT at 10 PM EST every Friday night. AEW Collision airs Saturday at 8pm Eastern on TNT. More AEW content available on their YouTube.
