|
There's this thing about Jericho re-inventing himself, and I just want to touch on it for a minute. And, for the record, I LOVE Chris Jericho:
What does Jericho really do to re-invent himself? I absolutely praise 2008 Chris Jericho -- that is one of my favorite runs of all-time. The Nick Bockwinkel-inspired Jericho was a huge risk, as he shed everything that was Y2J about him. I saw it as a huge risk. But let's be honest -- this happened because the Y2J shtick was running low on gas. When he returned in 2007, I marked out, because I love Jericho, but he was an upper mid-carder playing main eventer and people rejected it.
Going through his career, there are really only a few variants of Jericho. There's babyface Jericho (with the volume turned right up in 2000, which was awesome), and there's heel Jericho (with the volume turned right down in 2008, which was awesome). What is unique about goofy "List Jericho" in 2016? It's the same shtick as his buddy-buddy stuff with Edge only goofier.
This whole "re-invention" stuff is a bit of a myth, is what I'm saying. In addition to that, the times when he has adjusted himself have been because he's needed to.
|