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Submitted by Stanman on Thursday, August 19, 2004 at 9:09 PM EST
Hello, and welcome back to the column that promises to soar to new heights when it comes to all topics of the wrestling genre of entertainment, Flight Of The Phoenix, with me, Julian Phoenix Once again we meet here on the coveted LOP main-page, this time, however, as a result of yours truly winning the July Column Of the Month Contest. I would like to thank everyone who voted for me, and I would like to send a special thanks once again to ValleyBoy for making it a cutthroat contest from start to finish. You are hands down one of the best we have to offer in the Forums, and a truly great writer my friend. I know I told you all to check out my work on the Forums the last time we got together here, but since then, I've only written a single column. I had planned to take the entire month of August off from writing if I won July COTM (save for my main-pager, of course), and that's exactly what happened. In fact, I only wrote the one column due to the the supportive prodding from my peers to keep me on my toes. I've since forsaken my original promise to abstain from writing, and I plan to get back into the swing of things directly after this column. In this edition of FOTP, I'm going to discuss a topic that I've been wanting to do since around my sixth edition, but wanted to save for a special occasion. Since I don't want to get married any time soon, don't want kids, and have already been circumcised, I feel that a main-page column will fit that "special" mold perfectly. You'll find out more in a sec, but first… --SummerSlam has come and gone, and RAW has a new World Champion. I thought the match was excellent, and am very happy for Randy Orton. As you might remember, I expressed my thoughts on a Randy Orton title run in my last main-page column: --Taker/JBL actually turned out to be a damn good match, in my opinion. The only problem I had was the disqualification ending, but I somewhat expected it seeing as I knew there would be know way in hell Undertaker could lose cleanly at this point. This sets up a rematch, most likely, so I guess it makes sense. --Despite what others might think, I was NOT amused at all by the Toronto crowd at SummerSlam. Doing The Wave in the middle of a match; a [I]World Title[/I] Match? What the fuck? I realize it's their money and they can do whatever they want, but really, you have to draw the line somewhere. That was a total lack of respect on their part and a slap in the face to both Undertaker and JBL. --WWE killed any bit of doubt that the Diva Search was a work when they had [I]every single girl[/I] vote for Carmella to get the boot, in my opinion. --I just got back from Atlanta last night, and I can't tell you how good it is to be back on the West Coast. Give me fog, cold mornings, and hills over humidity, scorching days, and a flat countryside any day. --I loved the handshake at the end of the Orton/Benoit match at SummerSlam. Benoit yelling "Be a Man!" was a nice touch as well. Now that that's done, onwards and upwards with the column. Chris Jericho: An Undisputed Failure As Champion Let me state right here and now that I AM a Chris Jericho fan. In fact, I don't know of anyone that is not a fan of Y2J, and for good reason. The man is the workhorse of the RAW brand; constantly and consistently having solid matches with everybody that gets thrown his way. Want to make Mark Henry look good? Put him in a match with Jericho. Want to make Christian into a solid mid-carder? Have him feud with Jericho. Want to turn dirt into gold? Make Jericho touch it. You get the idea. Naturally, such a great wrestler and all around great performer would make a stellar World Champion, right? One would think so, and nine times out of ten, they'd be right. Look at such examples like Kurt Angle or Shawn Michaels; two great all around wrestlers that went on to become great World Champions. However, quite sadly, this formula simply did not hold true for Y2J, as his title reign will undoubtedly go down as one of the worst in WWE history. It's sad to say, but judging from Jericho's first matches at as a main-eventer, his future title rein was doomed to fail. I believe that having him resort to outside interference and/or cheating in key matches such as his number one contenders match on SmackDown! against Rob Van Dam, as well as the title match at No Mercy 2001 against The Rock, hurt his credibility as a viable threat to the World Title. If Y2J had won these two matches, it would have made him look much stronger in time for Vengeance 2001, where he would win the Undisputed Championship. Instead of having outside interference and a barrage of low blows be the deciding factors in the matches, I would have had Jericho defeat both The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin cleanly on this night as well, just to give him an extra push going into the months where he would defend the title. Because of the heavy (and I mean heavy) interference by Vince McMahon, a Booker T run-in, as well as many low blows delivered by Jericho to Rock and Austin, it made Jericho look incapable of beating either of these men just on pure talent; something that seriously hurt his credibility as champion. Staying on the subject of Jericho's excessive cheating, I strongly doubt he won any of matches where he defended the Undisputed Title without some kind of outside interference or foreign object coming into play. I could understand if he used a few low blows here or a chair-shot or two there DURING the match - he was a heel champion after all, but don't make those things the final factor in putting his challengers away. In other words, use the chair to get some momentum back in your favor to weaken your opponent, don't use a chair-shot to get the actual three count. Name any one of Jericho's televised Title defenses, and I will tell you he cheated in some form in every one of them. His rematch from Vengeance with Stone Cold the following night on RAW? Booker T again interfered by slamming the cage door on Austin's head, letting Jericho crawl out and win. Against Big Show on RAW? Hit him with one of the belts and then pinned him for the three. His match with The Rock at the Royal Rumble 2002? Ran The Rock into the exposed turnbuckle AND used the ropes to get the pin. Again against Austin at No Way Out 2002? Heavy interference by the nWo that let Jericho get the easy pin; the list goes on and on. Jericho constantly looked like he just barley escaped with the title, and instances like the ones above stole more and more of Jericho's already meager credibility as the champion. I'm sure the anti-Triple H fans were DYING for me to get to this next point, so let me just say now wait no further. The Triple H/Stephanie Divorce Angle overshadowed Jericho's title match at WrestleMania 18 to the point where we didn't know what Jericho was fighting for: the Undisputed Title, or Stephanie's honor. This really made me sick, because as a Jericho fan, I really wanted to see him as the main focus of a WrestleMania as the main-event. I'll admit, I did like the touch of WWE paring Stephanie and Jericho together to take down the common enemy Triple H, but I think Stephanie had more interactions with Triple H then Jericho did, yet another thing that made me not take Jericho's title rein or his match at the big dance seriously. How does it look if your challenger has a bigger problem with your valet than he does you, and seemingly only going to try and take your title to stick it to her? Needless to say, not good if you're the champ. A great Champion is not only defined by what he does during his rein, but also, how his character appears AFTER he has lost the title. A few weeks later on the RAW of the Brand Extension, Jericho was scheduled in a Triple Threat for the Undisputed Championship between himself, Triple H and…. STEPHANIE McMAHON. In what is yet another clear example of Triple H/Stephanie overshadowing Triple H/Jericho, Steph was inserted in Chris Jericho's only rematch for the Undisputed Title, for reasons that are beyond my level of comprehension. By the time the next WWE Pay-Per-View Backlash rolled around, I would not even have even known Chris was a main-eventer, let alone a former champion, judging from the state of his character. Not only did he not get a one-on-one rematch for the Undisputed Title, but he wasn't even on the card. THAT was one of the saddest things I remember seeing at the time, and I was furious at WWE for completely steamrolling over Y2J in favor of Triple H vs. Hulk Hogan. 2002 went on to be a bad year for Jericho as far as winning matches, as he lost most of his Pay-Per-View bouts following Backlash. WWE didn't even throw him a bone by letting him win the Hell In A Cell grudge match between Triple H, which was his last as a true blue main-eventer in my opinion. Fortunately, just because he was no longer a top dawg, didn't mean he was no longer a good wrestler, however. The one thing that was always true about Chris Jericho was that he would be hard-pressed to have a bad match with anyone, and because of this, I feel his character didn't tank completely after his World Title rein was over. The Hell In the Cell match at Judgment Day 2002 was great, and CJ went on to have more great matches with the likes of Rob Van Dam and Ric Flair, among others, participated in the first ever Elimination Chamber match at the 2002 Survivor Series and was one of the last eliminated, forged a great tag-team with Christian that led to multiple Tag Team title reigns, as well as make Shawn Michaels look ten years younger during their spectacular, show-sealing match at WrestleMania 19. It's a shame that Chris Jericho's title rein wasn't particularly successful, and in actuality, did more harm to his career than good. However, because of his immense talent and charisma, both on the mic and in the ring, he remains one of the best overall wrestlers in WWE today. I believe if handled better a second time around, he could have a very memorable run as a World Champion. Whatever happens, though, he'll always be RAW's Most Valuable Player and one of the main reasons to tune in every Monday night. Flight In A Nutshell Chris Jericho's Undisputed title rein from December 2001 to March 2002 was a disappointing one that did more harm than good to his overall career in the eyes of Julian Phoenix. However, he has proven time and time again that even though his time as World Champion was not a success, he is still a great talent and vital part of World Wrestling Entertainment. --------- And thus, we reach the conclusion of FOTP Volume 17 and my second stint on the main-page. I feel it was a decent outing this go round, and I'm glad I chose to save this column until now. This time I mean it: be sure to check out some of my latest work on the forums, as I have a new column to be posted within the next few days. Also, while you're there, hit some of the other quality work we have to offer, authored by the likes of Randomguy#5, XanMan, ValleyBoy, and Steve (YourAyatollah), among others. Remember, I'm a feedback whore, so drop me a line at kngofyourworld@hotmail.com That's all for this week, and I'm sure we'll do this again here someday. Until then people, as always, thanks for flyin' with the Phoenix. Julian Phoenix kngofyourworld@hotmail.com *NEW GALLERY* Candice Michelle's Head Up Maria's Dress! WOW!
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