High Road/Low Road 11.23.07: The Return of Chris Jericho

The Results for the Mystery Partner At Genesis:

High Road: 37%
Low Road: 48%
Both Roads: 15%

E-Mails:

These are all of the e-mails that we received this week. We do not respond to the actual e-mail, but the reply to your e-mail will be below.

Bill Bumgarner Writes:

Sat: Looks like TNA is now hoping that the Outsiders reunion will also get them more buys. I will say that TNA’s women division is way better than the WWE’s right now.

Uncle Trunx: It could, but all evidence suggests that it won’t. An Outsiders reunion didn’t set the world on fire in WWE years ago, it’s most unlikely to now. TNA need to focus on their own, home built stars otherwise their main event roster will be gone within 3 years and the guys they’re now burying will be in no position to pick up the pieces; they’ll be utterly devalued. Still, perhaps TNA will pick up Snitsky when WWE let him go, and push him to the moon…

Stephen Straka Writes:

Sat: Your idea makes sense, but this is TNA. They are under the assumption that intrigue will sell the pay per view. I think their reasoning for this is that they have seen that the WWE guys have not gotten them any increase in buys, so they probably thought they would throw the mystery guy in there. Then, people might start to assume that it could be Booker T, Chris Jericho, RVD, or Brock Lesnar.

Personally, I like your idea because really all TNA had to do was have Sting mention Booker T’s name at the end of Impact and it probably would have had gotten TNA more buys.

Uncle Trunx: Absolutely. If you’ve got a key player coming in, it makes sense to advertise that. Had they made the big Booker T debut on Impact, it might encourage more people to watch impact in future as something shocking / exciting could happen, and it might encourage people to buy a PPV with Booker T on it.

The Return of Chris Jericho

High Road:
The Save Us Promos that we have seen for the past few months have worked because it has the fans talking about who it could be. Sure, we were able to decipher the code pretty quickly, but the important thing is that we have been talking for the past few months.

Low Road:
Indeed, we’ve been talking; we’ve been talking about how obvious it is that it’s Jericho coming back. I’m all for having a bit of intrigue but this, sadly, provided us with none whatsoever. The talking point has been when Jericho is going to come back, not if. The idea of a surprise return is that the entire world doesn’t know about it weeks in advance; in this, WWE utterly failed to keep the element of surprise going and thus spoiled the return of Chris Jericho.

High Road:
The Save Us Promos would have been worthless if Chris Jericho had come back and not feuded for the WWE Title. The WWE has spent months with the Save Us Promos and it would have made no sense for Jericho to come back and feud with Snitsky. Now, whenever we see a cryptic promo, we will have to treat it has a big deal because of what happened with the Save Us Promos.

Low Road:
It might be a big deal or it might not; it depends who it is that they’re bringing back. I hope they don’t overuse this type of thing and I hope that next time they make it a little more punchy rather than drawn out, and they make it just a little less obvious who it is that they’re bringing back / in. As for Jericho himself, his initial push will probably be big. Where he goes from there though is anyone’s guess; in the past, even as champion, he was far from “the main attraction”. When Cena and Lashley come back, or when Jericho goes up against someone like HHH or Undertaker, will he still come out strongly? My betting is that he won’t.

High Road:
This isn’t necessarily a High Road on Chris Jericho, but it deserves a High Road. The WWE deserves a ton of props because the Save Us Promos were something that we have never seen before and that is what made them interested. Kudos to the WWE for trying something new and trying it on somebody has important as Jericho because it could have easily backfired on them.

Low Road:
They have done something similar before; before Taz(z) made his debut, they would periodically put the lights out in the arena and have an orange “13” appear on screen. It was apparent then that it was Taz(z) but not quite as obvious as this time. Had there been a little more intrigue involved, and had Jericho come back earlier while there was still some discussion about who Saveus.222 would be, it might’ve meant more. As it is, it feels like they waited too long, and the payoff was somehow slightly disappointing. This is doubly dissappointing given that TNA have just done a shock debut angle, and Edge also came back at Survivor Series. Shock returns and debuts are almost normal at the moment, whereas a month ago it would’ve been a much bigger deal and still had significant intrigue and surprise value.

High Road:
Chris Jericho returning to the WWE is a good idea because there are a ton of new matchups that he can have. First, he can face Randy Orton, Ken Kennedy, MVP, Rey Mysterio, and The Undertaker for the first time in the main event scene. Plus, it has also been a few years since he faced Triple H and Shawn Michaels. Most likely, I have forgotten to name a few more of his opponents, but the thing to note is that Chris Jericho has a ton of opponents that he can face.

Low Road:
There are many things that WWE could do with Jericho, but his return alone isn’t going to restore the “good old days”. It’s an exciting development for sure, but he’s going to need good booking if he’s going to keep the momentum from this admittedly explosive re-debut. WWE creative has quite a task on; I hope they manage to keep him hot and interesting but one man alone won’t turn around the flagging fortunes of WWE. All of a sudden, “Saveus.222” seems somehow ironic.

High Road:
I have not watched an episode of RAW live for a long time because I feel that RAW has gotten very boring over the past few months. But, this past Monday on RAW, I watched RAW live for the first time in a long time and the reason for that is that tonight was the return of Chris Jericho. The return of Chris Jericho is bound to make the RAW that much more interesting and it should help to make RAW interesting again.

Low Road:
There will be an initial spike caused by the Jericho return, and after what I said about Booker T in response to the emails, it actually makes a lot of sense to handle Jericho’s return in this way. However as I mentioned above, they’ll have to do something pretty spectacular with him to keep the interest high. I can’t think of anything creative would do which would force the ratings up permanently.

High Road:
When Hulk Hogan came back after a long break the fans were interested. When we saw the promo by the Rock in March, the fans and the viewers went crazy because it was something that we had not seen in a few years. Whenever a wrestler returns from a long break, the fans are always interested. The same should be true for Chris Jericho.

Low Road:
Hulk Hogan was always presented as a main event guy. When the Rock came back, he was a huge name and a Hollywood star. While Jericho is certainly main event quality, I don’t see him on the same level as Hogan or the Rock; if you asked the man in the street who Hogan and rock are, there’s a good chance he’d know. Ask any non wrestling (or Heavy Metal) fan who Jericho is, and chances are they’ll not have a clue. It’s a great thing to see Jericho back, but I don’t think it’s going to set the world on fire in the way that a Hogan or Rock return would.

High Road:
Chris Jericho’s return should be much better than most returns because he has done something that I have never seen another wrestler do and that is something that he mentioned in his interviews. In his interviews, he said that he has a bunch of new things ready and a new finishing move. This should help keep the fans interested because they will want to see all of these new things from him.

Low Road:
I have to ask what these new things are and why he has them? Is it that he can no longer do the Lionsault, so he’s got a new finish?
While I agree that these things will keep him interesting for a bit longer, he will still need the creative powers in WWE to make sure that he remains so, and I just can’t see one man being able to pull WWE out of its current slump. I couldn’t see it happening even if the returnee was Hogan or Rock; Jericho, exciting as he is, is even more unlikely to do so.

Are you taking the High Road or the Low Road?

Sat: So, this week a decision was made by Ashish saying that there should be no polls in any of the columns. Now, I am sure that they have a good reason for this, but this puts us in a very difficult position because the poll was what made our column special. Come on, every week, in the teaser, we put, “You decide in this week’s High Road/Low Road”. So, I am opening it up to you the readers. Do you guys have an idea on what we could do besides a poll? The poll idea came from Uncle Trunx (back when he was reader and an e-mailer) and it worked out great. I have faith that the readers will be able to come with a good idea. But for now, here is the best thing that I could come with. I basically got this idea from JP Prag’s In Defense Of.

Uncle Trunx: Indeed; suggestions on how we can replace the poll are extremely welcome. Someone out there must have a suggestion!