Just a quick note I'd like to put to your readers about the booking of the Jericho / Michaels storyline.

I thought the Michaels vs. Jericho program was by far the best thing in North America this year until Unforgiven. However, that show not only blew off all the tension when they were clearly planning to build to a third match, but it retroactively hurt the feud as a whole.

Leading up to the Unforgiven match, I believe you guys felt how I did; that it would have been better to have taken more time after the fantastic Summerslam angle, so that Jericho could slow-build the tension to where people were really red-hot for Michaels to come back to Raw and fight him.

With that in mind, I was excited to see Lance Cade run down to the ring during their Unforgiven match. It was immediately obvious to me that what needed to happen was for Michaels to be in control, though not to the extent that he’d just hit his finisher. Cade would then interfere, make the difference, and Jericho and Cade would destroy Michaels in horrendous fashion until referees and security had to break it up. It wouldn’t have hurt Shawn, but it would maintain Jericho’s momentum and, as a bonus, give Cade his first semblance of credibility in his new role. Jericho would then spend the next month digging in how he destroyed Shawn’s legacy and took his position in the sport, while Shawn sits out selling his “reinjuried tricep.” The idea is to make fans mad, thinking that Michaels would have beaten him, but they wouldn’t know for sure, which is key to building the third match.

There’s a ton of things Jericho can do, if given the time, to dig in his accomplishment, such as calling himself the “Show-stealer” and the “Arm-break kid.” Commentators would ask if Jericho is the guy with Shawn’s number, and if Shawn will return. Once we’ve built Jericho’s credibility with a run as the unstoppable champion, Michaels returns to TV to start the build to the third match.

Off the top of my head, Michaels would destroy Cade in his surprise return to TV, using whatever device on Cade that the heels had used on Shawn to injury him at Unforgiven. Thus Cade is taken out of the picture. Following that, Shawn would give Jericho the chance to retire him for real, saying that if he can beat him one-on-one, no weapons, no friends, he’ll hang up his boots. It would play off the Flair storyline, in that Michaels needs to fight Jericho not only for the honor of his family, but that he needs to know if he can beat Jericho in a fair match. After Shawn’s Summerslam and Wrestlemania retirement-themed angles, it’d be a credible vow, and get some real tension. Michaels, of course, would win the big blow-off at Rumble or Mania, by which point Jericho would be viewed as a legit top guy. All of this is just off the top of my head, there are a ton of great things they could have done.

Instead, Unforgiven went a very different direction.

Seeing Michaels totally destroy not only Jericho, but Cade, who has a good fifty or sixty pounds on Shawn alone, hurt everyone involved. Jericho, on the cusp of being a really credible money-drawing heel, lost every bit of his new aura. Cade, who would have been elevated perfectly by simply being the difference maker in the match, was a total non-entity. Not a tragedy, but a lost opportunity.

The booking of Unforgiven also hurt Shawn himself. He totally exposed Jericho as a punk, which is what any two guys who lose a handicap scenario against one smaller, injured, older guy are. Thus, in retrospect, Shawn looks weak for having been beaten into a ref stoppage and almost having his career ended at Jericho’s hands just months earlier. It’s the kind of mistake Hunter makes on a weekly basis; you only have as much credibility as your opponent, so when you beat them, never make it look easy. Michaels beat both guys at the same time and, by the end, made it look easy.

Furthermore, I realize the WWE's booking philosophy is that you can beat a guy right before putting the belt on him, because he's instantly rehabbed. The problem is, this only works with guys whose spots are 100% etched in stone, like Hunter, Taker and Michaels, who ironically don’t even need to “get their heat back” anyway. Trying to apply this philosophy to Edge or anyone else fans perceive as being further down the totem pole (e.g. Shawn beating Benoit on Raw before Wrestlemania XX) almost always devalues the belt rather than elevating the guy who beat the soon-to-be champ.

In storyline, why wasn’t Shawn the guy chosen for Punk’s scramble match spot at Unforgiven? Why didn’t we even see Adamle at least ASK him? The answer, of course, is that the match should have been booked where Shawn was unconscious and/or gravely injured after his bout with Jericho turned into a handicap match. Heck, he went in with a torn tricep. Even if we say that Jericho had indeed lost to Shawn, but it was at least kept one-on-one with Shawn re-injuring his tricep in the process, it would have come across a hundred times better than it did. If he was just going to get destroyed, why was Cade there? What was the point? Why didn’t they just write him out in a backstage angle before the match, rather than hurt everyone involved by including him?

I firmly believe a big reason the Shawn vs. Jericho III match announcement fell so flat on Monday is because that feud was blown off completely and then some by the Unforgiven booking. I love Shawn’s work, and don't for a second consider him to be selfish in how he works with guys; but this upcoming title match feels empty. He already got his revenge, thus the feud has no steam, and Shawn hasn’t shown any interest in the belt itself in years. If they’d booked Unforgiven differently, this upcoming match would have been huge.

As a closing note, I heard you guys talking about the possibility of WWE doing Big Dave vs. Shawn for the belt at the PPV after next. Based on what they’ve done, I’m certain that the plan is for Jericho to keep the belt against Shawn at this coming show, because it would fit into WWE’s traditional flawed, retrospective booking logic. Knowing this match was coming up I’d bet is the reason Jericho was booked to be destroyed at the last show. “We’ll have three matches, Chris will lose one but win two, thus he’s elevated.” But effective booking isn’t nearly that simplistic. The guy getting elevated needs to win and win and win again until he emphatically reaches a level where he’s truly considered a top guy, which is how Foley made Hunter, Flair made Sting and so on.

The ironic part, of course, is that Shawn vs. Dave for the belt at the PPV after next could easily be a money match, not that I expect to see it booked, if they played up how badly Dave beat Shawn in their match at One Night Stand earlier this year. It’s exactly the same thought process used in booking this Shawn vs. Jericho match, but the key difference is that when Dave killed Shawn, he was killing a guy who had reached that plateau where you can do that and the fans won’t question their spot. It put Dave over, yet Shawn Michaels, no matter what, is still Shawn Michaels. Thus, the idea of seeing Dave fight Shawn for the belt, when he’s not only so much bigger but killed him in their match six months ago, is exciting. But, as stated, that same booking logic doesn't work for a guy in Jericho’s position.

It's a real shame, because Shawn was right on the cusp of making Jericho a top-tier guy. The success of your career in the long run, perhaps, is most accurately gauged, not by what you made, but who you made, during your time in the business. Consciously or not, I think that’s a major reason so many people consider Flair to be the best ever.

My bet is Shawn will put Jericho over at this coming PPV, and that that was the plan all along leading into Unforgiven. Shawn is trying to make Jericho, and he’s done a huge amount for him. Unfortunately, for a few small but key mistakes, I’m not sure it will all stick. It’s unlikely that this coming match will have nearly the same effect it would have had under slightly different circumstances.

He’s still a hot heel, but Jericho lost a lot of credibility at Unforgiven, and it’s tough to get that back at this stage in his elevation. Having Jericho fluke his way to a victory against C.M. Punk on Monday, when Punk is booked as a fluke to begin with, has all but assured me that Jericho is destined to forever be a shadow figure to the “real” main eventers. That’s really sad, because Chris Jericho has learned so much in the past few years away from the business that for the first time I think he’d be ready for a top spot.

Shawn came damn close to putting Jericho on that plateau, but unless he pulls a rabbit out leading up to and at the next PPV, he’ll come up short.

Thanks,

Blake Norton

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