Welcome to another eWrestlingNews Question of the Day!
Last night on AEW Dynamite, Chris Jericho won the ROH World Championship from Mark Briscoe in a Ladder War. This is his ninth world title in his career, and his second time as the head honcho of Ring of Honor. Last time around, he held the belt for 80 days before dropping it back to the previous champion, Claudio Castagnoli, at Final Battle. There are 70 days left in 2024, with Final Battle not yet announced, but it is certainly possible Jericho just repeats himself, as he’s been doing a lot of that as of late.
My question for you today is “How would you book the entirety of Chris Jericho’s run with the ROH World Championship from start to finish (or, at least, who would you choose to have dethrone him and how/when/why)?”
Remember to answer with your response in the comments below.
As far as my answer…
Obviously, I don’t know what Tony Khan has up his sleeves for why this happened. I feel like it has to be one of two things, though. Either a) it is strategic in that he feels Jericho holding this title will help increase potential interest in a bid for ROH programming during negotiations, or b) They just have nothing at all in mind for Jericho to do anymore, nor do they really care about this title and ROH in general, so they figured “Why the hell not?” and that’s all there is to it.
If it is the former, then we’re going to look back on this and see that a trajectory was built around that time frame, and crowning a new champion had to at least last until Point X when that no longer was a factor. Without knowing that, I think I have to just make up my own timeline. If it is the latter, then I’m free to do whatever I want with this fantasy booking creative space, as it wouldn’t matter anyway.
With that being said, I do have to preface this with a reminder that I do not watch Ring of Honor television episodes. At all. I gave it a shot and it just isn’t for me, as it is too much of the pure match-match-match-match-match same style in-ring action on repeat, and after a while, it just becomes mind-numbing and I feel like I’ve been watching a loop visualizer of Winamp or Windows Media Player from the late 90s/early 2000s. Yikes, I’m dating myself here. Forgive me for being an old man; I’ll probably be dead soon given how 2024 has gone.
Okay, so where do I go from here if I’m given a role on AEW’s creative team today following this decision?
The first thing I would do is look at the roster and see a few options for who I would want to be the next champion and try to work backwards from that. Unfortunately, I wrote down a list of 12 names I would consider and realized that a good half of them would have to be thrown out immediately for one reason or another. When it comes to people like Orange Cassidy, Kyle O’Reilly, Mark Briscoe winning it back and HOOK, I just don’t want to see them feuding with Jericho again so soon after. Keith Lee just isn’t reliable anymore, sadly, and the more I thought about Dustin Rhodes, the less I liked the idea of a veteran passing the belt to another veteran who had been around even longer. Then, I ruled out Adam Cole, as he’s bigger than this title and I would hope that he could win at least a midcard belt in AEW instead.
That left me with just 5 other names worth bouncing around. Here are those ideas, in order of my least favorite option to my most favorite.
5) Ricochet
I don’t think we’re going to see proper world champion Ricochet in the sense of winning the AEW title, ever. That’s a cynical way to look at things, but given his track record of not reaching that level and staying there for too long, how he’s already been passed over for not winning the International Championship, and how there are just always bigger fish to fry, this may be his only opportunity to win a “world title” in any sense.
What puts me lower on him than others is that I think the right call is for Ricochet to join MVP’s Hurt Syndicate and become a heel, rather than to be the babyface who beats Jericho for this title. If Ricochet rejects that offer, though, then I would probably put the belt on him around Revolution, with Jericho getting in his face about how he turned down MVP’s offer for help, but he could still sit under The Learning Tree, to start that feud and end it with Ricochet proving he doesn’t need anyone’s guidance.
4) Powerhouse Hobbs
The big man’s TNT Championship reign wasn’t the star-launching performance that it could have been. When he returns, having him be in a position of “dominant monster” that Wardlow was at one point, but failed to capitalize on, could make for some entertaining stuff.
I’d have Hobbs go on a winning spree to build up steam, eventually toppling even Big Bill as a challenge of who is the big man on campus, so to speak, which would lead into a match against Jericho about 3-4 months after his return to action, to give him enough time to catch some hype.
3) Jay White
By and large, I don’t think Jay White has amounted to as much in AEW as his potential forecast built him up to be. It’s really starting to make me think that he would have been better off had he gone to NXT. In as much, since ROH is basically the NXT to AEW at this point, and he hasn’t won any other championship in All Elite Wrestling and Ring of Honor other than tag team gold, making him the guy to beat Jericho could be what propels him forward to greater success.
Once again, I’d likely have this happen around February or so. I don’t want Jericho holding this title forever, but I think Final Battle could be a little too soon to end the program between White and Hangman Adam Page and then start and finish something with Jericho. But I’d be perfectly fine with a simple transition from Page to Jericho without any hesitation. Basically, once White is done with Hangman, he’s ready for some gold, and I’d have him enter and win some sort of tournament to be declared the No. 1 contender, or possibly a single match if this is going on too close to the Continental Classic (as I don’t think there should be two tournaments running alongside each other).
2) Daniel Garcia
We never got the resolution from Garcia’s tutelage under Jericho that had been built up for SO LONG, and it is one of AEW’s most confusing booking situations to this date, in my mind. Since Jericho is doing so much rewind content as of late, revisiting old storylines and redoing some of his greatest hits, now is perhaps the only other time that they can just pick up where they left off.
This would have to happen after Garcia is slightly out of the scene revolving around Jon Moxley and the Blackpool Combat Club, though. At this particular moment, that takes priority. I had thought Garcia would be going for Jack Perry’s TNT Championship, but this takeover from The Elite isn’t exactly going anywhere it seems, as they’ve transitioned over to Mox and his crew as the other big bads instead.
For now, Garcia feuds with BCC. In a few months, Jericho can have a segment where he points out to Garcia that if he had continued to sit under The Learning Tree, he would have had all the tools necessary to get the job done and take care of Moxley. He’s failed so far because he stopped listening to Jericho.
Then, naturally, Jericho vs. Garcia ends up being booked, Garcia proves Jericho wrong, beats him for the title, and he’s the top dog in the wrestling roster’s even more wrestling focused program, as a sign that staying in AEW in the hopes of getting a push paid off.
1) Big Bill
The only person I could picture at this moment having a more satisfying win over Jericho than Garcia would be if Big Bill were to turn on his mentor to win the title instead.
The idea of the group splitting was already teased, and Bill was cognizant of the concept that staying with Jericho isn’t something that lasts forever.
I would have someone put out a seed of an idea that Jericho only won the belt in the first place because of Bill’s help, and that without him by his side, he wouldn’t be champion, after a few months of Bill helping Jericho retain in a few matches.
Then, Jericho can say something that alludes to The Redwood growing a little too big and starting to overshadow the real Learning Tree of Jericho himself, which sets Bill off to realize their time together is running out and it’s time for him to strike first.
Once he does, he gets a big babyface turn, beats Jericho, and gets a world title reign that he wouldn’t otherwise get. Realistically, he’s not winning the AEW world title, and I don’t even know if Tony Khan would put one of the 3 midcard belts on him, given how those have been booked in the past 2 years. Being the unstoppable giant of the D-show, though, is within Bill’s reach for sure, and it would allow Ring of Honor to have a different type of world champion from the normal wrestler archetype that traditionally holds titles on that brand.
What do you think? Drop your thoughts below!
