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Jericho should have been the "bridge-gap" guy between the Attitude Era and the John Cena era:
Jericho should have been the "bridge-gap" guy between the Attitude Era and the John Cena era:
When I responded to this post about a half a year ago, I was behind Angle or RVD being "the guy" to lead the WWE post Wrestlemania 18. In 2004, I was even on the Randy Orton wagon.
However - given Angle's drug problems, RVD's flakiness and character issues (i.e. being pulled over by the cops for weed shortly after his ECW one-night-stand World title victory), and Orton's severe immaturity backstage back then, none of those guys were truly worthy of being the flag bearer.
Enter Chris Jericho. I think Jericho should have been the guy.
However - Jericho should have been properly built since 2000, and unfortunately, he was not:
1) Back in 2000 when Austin was injured, Jericho was a close 2nd to The Rock in terms of popularity. However - instead of grooming Jericho to be a legit future heir apparent to The Rock and Austin by giving Jericho some key victories, they used Jericho's steam to get Benoit over. As great a wrestler as Benoit was, he was never going to be as big as Jericho. There's no way the WWE should have had Benoit go over Jericho so many times in convincing fashion. Jericho should have been ultimately made to look significantly superior to Benoit.
2) Jericho's phantom World title victory over Triple H should have actually happened.
3) In 2001 during the latter stages of the Alliance angle, and during Jericho's rivalry with The Rock, Jericho should never have turned heel. There was one match that Rocky and Jericho had before their rivalry really took steam, where both guys were face..........and guess who got more cheers? Good ol' Y2J. Jericho was made to look like The Rock's equal in that match and the WWE should have just kept Jericho face.
4) Face Jericho winning in the main-event at Wrestlemania 18 over a heel Steve Austin.
The WWE made a mistake by turning Austin heel at Wrestlemania 17, but they should have kept Austin heel until Wrestlemania 18 where he'd ultimately do the job. Why? Because - it would have been a true passing of the torch. Austin should have stayed heel after Survivor Series 2001, and should have retained the title instead of having Jericho defeat Austin here.
Jericho chasing Austin and going over Austin, would have kept the crowd interested as well (as opposed to the crowd being completely dead for a poorly built up Jericho vs. awkward face Triple H).
Ultimately, I think the WWE's misuse of Chris Jericho and over-reliance and favoritism towards Triple H was what cost them between 2002-2005.
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