10 Wrestlers Who Became Amazing After Heavy Criticism
3. Chris Jericho
It's totally bonkers to reconcile now, but people were writing Chris Jericho off in 2019, the year in which, in becoming a true World Champion, tippy-top guy and undefeated ratings draw, he made his most entertaining and effective transformation yet.
They buried his very well-worked, albeit not at all in-house NJPW match with Kazuchika Okada at Dominion, perhaps because the flash pin deprived them of Okada's trademark, seminal finish. They took his other, very well-worked Double Or Nothing main event as further evidence of his decline because it wasn't quite as great as his original triumph opposite Kenny Omega at Wrestle Kingdom 12.
He roared back into form - he hadn't lost it - upon the launch of AEW Dynamite.
There is no TV wrestler alive as entertaining as Chris Jericho, and that's the important distinction. Pulsating, state-of-the-art TV battles don't draw - sublime, hilarious storytelling does - and Jericho has also delivered huge, across AEW and New Japan, in spellbinding matches the likes of which only true masters are capable.
Old tropes deployed at the precise, dramatic thrust; between-the-moves dark arts magic; dusting off the old athleticism when the fans clamour most for it: Le Champion had to prove himself again, to too many in the insta-take swamp, and did so with panache.