5 Ups And 9 Downs From WWE Fastlane 2017

4. Jericho Makes His Return

As awful as the ultra-brief WWE Universal Championship match was, the reason for its abrupt ending was appropriate.

Ever since being demolished by Kevin Owens a few weeks ago, Chris Jericho was in the back of everyone’s mind, drifting off in the background, waiting to make his return. And Y2J did just that at Fastlane, returning to cost his former best friend his prized title. It was the perfect kind of revenge for Jericho, who now will presumably challenge Owens in a WrestleMania match that would like be for Y2J’s United States title.

But even though this item is getting an “up,” it should be noted that WWE could have done something much smarter and less lazy besides using a musical distraction finish with Jericho’s theme costing Owens the title. KO was constantly bailing out of the ring and stalling on the outside before the bout could start.

Imagine Jericho coming out of the crowd after five minutes of stalling and either chasing or throwing Owens back into the ring. The ref immediately calls for the bell, and then we get spear, Jackhammer, new champion. But that apparently required too much thinking for the writers. So we’ll give a tacit thumbs-up here, but it could have been much better.