If I can be serious for a moment, Canada produces some of the finest pure wrestling talents in the world. Credit that mainly to the influence of the Hart family. Aside from the Harts, the dungeon, or any ties to the family name a wrestler may have, we have seen some fine fresh faces from North the US border. The Winnipeg battle of the best of the world, however, is coming by surprise January 4 at the Tokyo Dome. Alpha vs Omega. Kenny Omega vs Chris Jericho.
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| Source @IAmJericho tweet |
At first I thought this was a great troll image as there has been some twitter words going back and forth between the two about how good Omega really is with his 6-star matches not even being seen and how Jericho holds legitimate claims with his 27 year carrier in "the big leagues" holding nearly any title you can think of for WWE/WWF including a record 9 time Intercontinental, 6 time world, 2 time US, European, Hardcore, and multiple tag team titles. Add on to that the belts he held in various promotions like WCW and ECW between 1995-1998 when the Lion Heart began to surface as the entertainer he is, and a list of other achievements longer that the List of Jericho, but shorter than his list of 1,004 wrestling holds. Oh wow, that really took up a paragraph to which I forgot where I was even going with, but bringing it back..... Jericho does have all the evidence that he is indeed the best in the world at what he does. Not to mention he's sorta a rock star too. But, the match coming on NJPW turf is probably the biggest surprise of the year. Did anyone really see Jericho going to New Japan being a thing? I mean, we know he is bringing in talent for his upcoming cruise, to which he opened an invite for the match between the two on the boat, but Wrestle Kingdom... I can't say I would have thought of such a thing. But the way they promoted the match up was great, using twitter to bash at each other, mock the level of the organization to which they work for, state no one sees these 6 star matches because they are not in the big leagues, and Jericho calling in his ties with Omega's boss claiming a phone call will end his NJPW push. Apparently that call was made, and the dream match comes.
To note on the surprise factor, Jericho is a free agent and really can do whatever he wants. That's not a surprise. We knew we wouldn't see him on WWE tv for a bit while he toured with Fozzy and took time to promote his book. The shock comes in when you think just recently Jericho got the call to fill in at TLC for the infected wrestlers before Kurt Angle was given the go. Add on to that remembering Jericho's last match on WWE TV was a surprise SmackDown Live appearance getting his rematch for the US title in a triple threat match between him, AJ Styles, and Kevin Owens. He wasn't scheduled to compete, but was there filming Southpaw Regional Wrestling and was given the offer for the spot, and took it. So, not long after, we see him on a screen calling out Omega at WK. Crazy.
The bantering going on between the two and being the best got me thinking about where was Jericho at this same period in his career? The two started wrestling about the same age, and Omega is about 16 years into his career. With Jericho starting his career in 1990, 2006 would put him in the same time frame. Disclaimer, it may not even be fair to compare the two mens careers this way, as both are incredibly talented and took different paths, but I'm going to do it anyways since this is going to big a big time match. I don't want to dig out a whole lot of Omega's history in comparison just yet, maybe will do more on that later, but wanted to show Y2J comparable to Omega and what he was accomplishing "in the big leagues" at his age. Also to give some insight since Jericho is no longer in his prime, approaching his 50's... But he's still the best in the world, ok?
2006 was a year during a time when Jericho took a hiatus from wrestling, his WWE contract expiring August 25, 2005, and not making a return until November 19, 2007. So, it's going to cut a little short to about 15 years for Chris. This is the portion of me writing a blog where I question why I'm even writing a blog and if I should keep going...
Eh screw it
