Thursday, March 10, 2016

The Chris Jericho vs. AJ Styles Feud #WWE

By Brandon Albright, @B_Rock1978

What's up wrestling fans, welcome back to another one of my blog/rants about current wrestling storylines in the wrestling world. For my fourth blog of 2016, I'm going to talk about a current feud that has been going on the past few months. I'm talking about the Ayatollah Of Rock N Rolla, the man of 1,004 holds, Y2J, Chris Jericho and his feud with former TNA Triple Crown winner and current huge fan favorite in the WWE, AJ Styles.

Now unless you've been living under a rock the past couple months, AJ Styles, made his WWE debut entering at #3 back at the WWE Royal Rumble. What was amazing was as soon as Styles revealed himself and slowly walked to the ring, the WWE Universe found their new poster boy and immediately let their voices be heard by the higher ups, as they reigned down "AJ Styles" chants. Styles made his mark on the Rumble, but was eliminated by Kevin Owens, surviving almost 30 minutes.

Chris Jericho, who also just returned to the WWE, immediately took notice of Styles and was actually offended that this "new guy" was such a WWE Universe darling already and claimed himself to be phenomenal. Jericho challenged Styles to a match on RAW to see exactly what all the hype was about.

Styles goes on to defeat Jericho, reversing a Jericho sunset flip pin into one of his own, but Jericho still wasn't satisfied. Judging by the hesitant hand shake and smack talk Jericho gave Styles after the match, Jericho felt he wasn't proved wrong yet about Styles. Jericho wanted another shot at Styles and Styles gladly accepted the challenge and Jericho/Styles 2 was set for Smackdown.

Jericho takes the second match, scoring the pinfall after a Code Breaker on Styles and the series was all tied up at one win apiece. It appeared that Jericho proved his point and wanted nothing else to do with Styles as he consistently turned down Styles' rematch requests. After finally getting into Jericho's head and attacking him, Jericho finally agreed to the rubber match between the two at WWE Fastlane.

A well fought match between Jericho and Styles took place at Fastlane. Styles was able to survive the Code Breaker, the Walls of Jericho and even the Liontamer on the floor. Jericho survived the Styles Clash, but fell victim to Styles' Calf Crusher submission and eventually tapped out. 

Moving forward it appeared that Chris Jericho finally accepted AJ Styles as a future WWE World Heavyweight Champion in the company and labeled Styles as in fact "Phenomenal". Jericho now had so much respect for Styles that the two formed a nice tag team together, calling themselves Y2AJ. Y2AJ went on to defeat the WWE World Tag Team Champions, The New Day, in a non-title match and earned themselves a title match on the following edition of RAW.

That night on RAW, what could have been a great tag team was already quickly derailed by Chris Jericho himself. Jericho ended up losing the match, allowing The New Day to retain the WWE World Tag Team Championship and then revealed his true colors by attacking Styles after the match.

Now after this Jericho heel turn it has already been rumored that we'll be seeing Jericho/Styles 4 at Wrestlemania 32.

So now my questions for this blog is
A.) Has WWE already jumped the shark on this feud?
B.) Should WWE have built the Y2AJ tag team up a little bit more before the Jericho heel turn?

Judging from internet talk, the fan's reaction to this is 50/50. Some are saying they feel seeing Jericho/Styles again for the fourth time at Wrestlemania is way too much overkill. Some are saying what exactly more can they do with this feud because it has already run its course. The other half are excited because they feel Styles defeating Jericho at Wrestlemania will cement his future spot in the main event position. And I've seen a lot of people make the joke that this match may be their fourth meeting, but it's already better then Jericho vs. Fandango at Wrestlemania 29.

If I was a WWE Booker, this is how I would have booked this feud.

1. Styles arrives at Royal Rumble, goes exactly as far as he did up to elimination, but I would have had Jericho eliminate Styles instead of Kevin Owens. Why? Because WWE has yet to build anything off of that Owens elimination like we all expected. Jericho eliminating Styles at least would have been a great start to the feud.

2. I would've kept the whole Jericho promo about Styles coming in, not proving himself yet in WWE and yet he calls himself phenomenal. This would've worked into their match on RAW. I would have kept the Styles beating Jericho ending, but eliminate matches two and three.

3. I would've given Styles and Jericho a good 20 minute match on RAW. Styles wins and Jericho is proved wrong. They shake hands and Jericho now respects Styles.

4. Now I would have started Y2AJ and build them up as a tag team. Y2AJ, I would've had face The New Day for the WWE World Tag Team Championship at WWE Fastlane. I would've kept The New Day retaining because honestly I really hate when company's put the tag team titles on two big name stars to build a feud, I think that really hurts the tag team division.

5. Y2AJ accepts their loss as a minor set back and immediately gets back into the WWE World Tag Team Championship title hunt. I would've had a four team elimination match on RAW with the winners getting a shot at The New Day. Y2AJ wins the match and goes on to face The New Day for the WWE World Tag Team Championship.

6. Instead of RAW, I would've made The New Day vs. Y2AJ for WWE Roadblock. This is where what we seen on RAW with Jericho turning takes place. Jericho loses the match which now would've been their second straight loss to The New Day. Jericho would then blame Styles and say he's the reason they can't win the titles and then turn on Styles after the match.

This now built up Jericho and Styles' respect for each other, built up the Y2AJ tag team storyline a little bit more and then ends with us getting a fresher Jericho vs. Styles match at Wrestlemania 32.



So there you have it, this is my blog on the current Jericho vs. Styles feud and how I would've booked it myself. Thanks for reading, stay tuned for more future blogs. Please follow me @B_Rock1978 and also please follow @TripleThreatCLE.

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