On Rewind-A-Wai #89, it’s a unique edition of the show as we will be reviewing a specific feud rather than an individual show.
Espresso Executive Producer @Jacob_Simpson has chosen the 2008 program involving Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho and isolated the following matches/segments as a guide for our review along with time codes (all segments available on the WWE Network)
This was peak Chris Jericho. I remember this springing out of a feud with Bautista. I know in interviews Jericho has said the powers that be wanted the feud to end quickly but the performers pushed to extend it.
The best part of the feud wad the segment with Michael’s wife. A great blurring of reality and fiction. Love how the feud simmered down a bit allowing Jericho to go win the belt and then climax in the best match of 2008, the ladder match at No Mercy.
I think when you have two pros invested in their story gold can happen. If these two did what they were told or settled then we would have had one to two matches and wouldn’t be talking about this today.
The Jericho/HBK feud came at a pivotal time during Chris Jericho’s comeback as the Y2J persona was running out of gas and the story made him hit the reset button on the character as he took everything that made Y2J and erases it and that heel run spawned a bunch of me too’s in its wake (the suits, the slow, reserved cadence in promos, etc) and it reinvigorated the performer in the late 2000s and it’s a testament to Chris’ ability to reinvent himself.
The matches were superb and got progressively more personal. A tremendous program with two pros operating on a high level and it made the world title feel secondary.