10 Wrestlers Who Left You Hanging On Every Word

A little list of the bubbly.

Chris Jericho
AEW

This is the ability that separates the great - and the crazy - from the good.

Triple H was a good promo man. Witty and authoritative - he really could convince fans that he was the 'Game' - he nonetheless had a tendency to drone on by making the same point every other sentence. You see, he liked to say "You see" a lot, to explain something he had already explained. Much like his laborious silent epics, Triple H was always one for overstatement.

"I'm going to bury CM Punk for having a big and soft ass. You see, his ass is so soft that he doesn't look enough like a bodybuilder. You see, his ass is too soft and too big to get over in WWE, because in WWE, hardened, aerobicised asses that look like they belong to a bodybuilder are best for business-uh."

That sort of thing.

Stephanie McMahon suffers the same problem. Her delivery is impeccable - godd*mn is she good at putting herself over as unbearable - but, condensed, she didn't really say anything but "Mick Foley/Kurt Angle/Seth Rollins/Daniel Bryan you are a worthless piece of sh*t, get out of my ring!"

Between them, they have probably gobbled up around 1,560 hours of Monday Night RAW. This might account for that programme's steep decline in ratings.

10. Chris Jericho

The Rock
James Musselwhite/AEW

After All Out, Chris Jericho, drunk on himself, cut a walking backstage promo in which he created meme after meme after meme.

It was captivating. Piss funny. The perfect illustration of why AEW selected him as its inaugural World Champion: this version of Jericho, the Painmaker, is an incessant headache to AEW management. The Executive Vice Presidents thought they had secured a legendary household name; instead, they have signed a threat to the company's very philosophy. Jericho claims this whole enterprise is driven by his star, which you can well imagine is a measure of disrespect to the 'Revolution' narrative. It's a very interesting pretext for a top-level programme(s), and Jericho's rant supported his point. Hilariously.

Burying everybody around him, calling them idiots, "giant idiots", and telling them to shut up immediately after posing a question, this was such an expressive way of conveying the idea that Jericho is above it all. Jericho treated himself to a "a bit of the bubbly!" with an hilarious British accent because he was so amused and impressed by himself. Great, totally belligerent stuff.

This promo was so good because Jericho has dedicated a career to talking the talk in various cadences - whacky, sinister, overbearing - all of which boasted permanent entries into wrestling's lexicon.

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Chris Jericho
 
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Contributor
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Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and surefire Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!