If looking for a match, feud and overall performance that creates a summation of everything that made Christian a top-tier WWE performer, it may have to be the execution of the tag-team to love triangle to Wrestlemania match between Christian and Chris Jericho leading into and at Wrestlemania XX. Christian and Chris Jericho were a makeshift tag team from an era where tag wrestling was an afterthought in WWE. The duo wrestled Lita and Trish Stratus in a "Battle of the Sexes" tag match, which began a storyline wherein Christian was dating Trish and Jericho was with Lita, the idea being that Jericho and Christian were in a race to see who could sleep with their respective diva-girlfriend first, one Canadian loonie (dollar) being up for grabs. When Christian saw that Jericho was moving closer to Lita (and possibly about to win), he spilled the beans about the bet to Lita, causing Jericho to lose. Of course, when Stratus found out, she dumped Christian and sided with Jericho, leading to a showdown at Wrestlemania XX. At Wrestlemania, Stratus then turned again on Jericho and went back with Christian, leading to Christian's defeat of the then former Unified Champion. It was a surprising a huge moment, one that for those who were long-time Christian fans felt like a dream come true, while for those not-so-sold on Christian, the entire storyline was so well executed that it gave him a significant boost in the eyes of fans, that when not paid off with a WWE Championship push presented Christian as being in the same "could be should be champion" position that a talent like Dolph Ziggler is in today. A series of show stealing moments when you least expect them? Christian's career in a nutshell.
Besides having been an independent professional wrestling manager for a decade, Marcus Dowling is a Washington, DC-based writer who has contributed to a plethora of online and print magazines and newspapers writing about music and popular culture over the past 15 years.
