Yesterday Tony Khan announced for AEW Dynamite tonight that there would be an 8 Man All Star Tag in which The Learning Tree Chris Jericho, Big Bill, and Bryan Keith with Undisputed Kingdom’s Roderick Strong would face The Conglomeration’s Mark Briscoe, Kyle O’Reilly, Orange Cassidy, and Hook.
The reaction online was essentially that Michael Scott GIF. You know the one. Oh alright I’ll post it.
For a lot of people this is a misunderstanding on the stipulation of the match between Hook and Chris Jericho. The stipulation was if Hook lost the match he’d be out of the “Jericho Vortex” which was essentially meaning he would not be able to get another shot at the FTW Championship. It wasn’t that if Hook won they would never feud again.
There are a lot of people who just want the feud to end, and my impression is that it will be ending and this is just the aftermath to clean things up. Happens all of the time in pro wrestling and is nothing new. You get a little bit more mileage out of an ending feud by booking some sort of multi-man match both are a part of to just close the casket on the feud entirely and show both men are ready to move onto something else.
It was pretty interesting that Tony Khan felt the need to defend the match instead of let the people just shout into the wind as per usual:
This could mean there’s something planned for the match that’s going to be an essential end of the Hook and Jericho affair, or even be something to quell the complaints about Chris Jericho. Or maybe Tony is just confident this will be a really good wrestling match.
If it is about Jericho? This would be a great time for him to maybe take a break. I wrote back in March about Chris Jericho needing to take a break and eventually create a new era for himself. I think he did a great job re-creating his gimmick with The Learning Tree. I have also said this proved me wrong that Jericho needed to take a break.
The reaction to just doing an eight man tag match has me second guessing.
The internet is only a portion of your fanbase and based on the quarter ratings I’ve seen for AEW television it’s not like people are changing the channel in droves when The Learning Tree or Chris Jericho appears. It’s probably likely that a lot of the complaints comes from the “Baked Live” crowd of AEW watchers who find online streams to follow the show and react on social media.
There have been live reactions negative to Jericho and him turning heel helped turn the tides on those but it’s pretty clear that there’s a growing sentiment of AEW fans very vocal online and some at the live events who want nothing to do with him and are tired of him. The company can either continue to ignore them (which probably won’t hurt the company one bit) or they can do something about it.
If this match ends up a way to cool down Jericho, maybe let him take a vacation, or have The Learning Tree start centering around Big Bill who was getting huge reactions in Wales? I would be all for that.
I don’t have an issue with AEW fighting this and fighting for Chris Jericho since he’s an important asset to the company and has no problem taking a bullet for things that are not his fault. The blame he’s received stems mostly from Nick Hausman attacking Chris Jericho on Twitter, accusing him of making people sign NDAs without ever naming who he was talking about, and then saying he has a lot of skeletons in his closet and using Harvey Weinstein as a comparable.
This led to people without any evidence trying to asssume what Nick Hausman was claiming with Hausman, only months after launching his website’s paywall feature, would take a hiatus from pro wrestling in April of this year and stating mental health reasons.
Part of the reason I defend Chris Jericho on a lot of this is because he was clearly the target of a nasty and personal campaign to wreck his name and reputation without ever saying something that could get Hausman legally in trouble. Nothing was ever specifically said, with only ideas planted in people’s minds with emoji’s and told to run with it. If legitimate information comes out on Jericho from reputable sources I’ll be happy to support it. So far, nobody is able to come up with anything concrete in words with evidence about a 30 year wrestling veteran?
So when people complain about everything Jericho does regardless of the quality I am always putting a side eye to it because it always feels like these are people who fell for Hausman’s online campaign and continue to run with it. They can’t say it’s about Hausman and they can’t come up with unverified information so it’s easier to just hate on anything Chris Jericho does and wrap it up as being tired of him. Because if this was a problem for all AEW fans? The ratings would reflect that.
So my trust in people being honest about their feelings on Chris Jericho online is very low, but online there’s a lot of people who are rejecting anything he’s involved in. And that hurts the other talents involved in the match.
It must be hard for the members of Conglomeration to see people rejecting this match over one man being in it and on the other side. If they don’t like Jericho they should be looking forward to Kyle O’Reilly kick the crap out of him. They should be happy to see Mark Briscoe mess him up. Instead they just see people outright rejecting the match they plan to work.
My hope is that Tony Khan is looking for a way to have Chris Jericho take a bit of a break for the rest of the year so he can eventually repair his reputation with All Elite Wrestling fans both on television and on social media. Absence should make the heart grow fonder, even if it feels like taking a knee to people who have been trying to drive a smear campaign without evidence. Just look at the way Jeff Jarrett is basically taking the Sting role as the beloved veteran doing good in 2024.
Here’s to hoping this match is an absolute banger, and gives the AEW fans a sense of what Tony Khan wants them to trust. If nothing else comes out of it but an exciting matchup? The vocal minority is just going to get a lot more irritating. If they can’t pay attention to the actual stipulation of the match? They certainly won’t pay attention to much else.
