Best: The Highlight Reel, Now With T-Shirt Guns

I don’t know if I can even analyze what Jericho’s doing anymore.

say-words-jerichoAll I can say is that his segments on these shows the last few weeks have made me happy. I watch them with a smile on my face from beginning to end, trying to guess what’ll happen next, trying to figure out where everything is going before the next step has even happened. When they announced he’d be hosting the Highlight Reel, I thought he was just gonna stand out there, not say anything, leave. Maybe be interrupted by someone before he could talk. When he told the audience to shush, I thought he was illustrating how impossible it is to get a wrestling audience to agree to do a simple thing that doesn’t involve them being a “part of the universe” (i.e. f**king shutting up). When he brought out the t-shirt gun and didn’t shoot it (or when he picked up the camera and filmed people for no reason) I thought he was showing how no matter what people expect, they’ll go nutso primal over a free thing or the chance to be on screen for a heartbeat. When he showed the Jericho career highlight video, I thought he was gonna get choked up again and bail. Or break The Obscenely Expensive Jeritron 5000 and bail. Do something and bail.

Then, he talked. He brought it back around to the cryptic videos that advertised his arrival, promising that at the Royal Rumble, it’ll be the end of the world as we know it. That’s when I realized what he was doing: he wasn’t trolling us, he was just showing us our world. Figuratively, through acting out pro wrestling ropes like the t-shirt gun, and literally, by picking up the camera and showing us cheering. No more Y2J, no more big entrances, no more Highlight Reel, no more Chris Jericho’s Career. The end of that, at least as we know it.

It’s brilliant, whether it goes where I want it to or not. One sentence in a month and he’s the most interesting part of the show. Now that’s a pro wrestler.

Worst: Bro Out Of It, Bro, Broriously, Bro Will Broin Everything

If you’re looking for the opposite of Jericho’s Highlight Reel, please consult the backstage segment wherein Zack Ryder, Eve and John Cena hack the constructive pieces of last week’s narrative to bits with some of the most amazingly bad acting ever. Nobody makes sense. Think about it:

Eve: Why is Eve acting like this? She spent a month going “ehhh, I don’t know, sure I guess we can have one date”, then Kane beats him up once and now she’s suddenly standing alongside Mary of Clopas and Mary Magdalene at Zack Ryder’s crucifixion. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that given WWE’s Madonna-whore complex Eve would have to go straight from whore to Madonna, but Jesus, give us a week of two of something deeper than fistsplosions before she’s clutching his dead body and screaming “no” to the heavens.

John Cena: I had a brief discussion about this with David Shoemaker about this earlier today. One of the weirdest aspects of Cena is that he gets focused on one dude at a time and cannot let it go. He did it with Punk over the Summer. When Punk wasn’t around, Cena stomped around the ring yelling about how CM PUNK WON THE TITLE FAIR AND SQUARE AND DESERVES TO BE THE CHAMPION even though it was like 5% his business and Punk himself didn’t really care that much. He’s doing that with Ryder now. There is no reason why grown adult WWE Superstar Zack Ryder needs John Cena (playing a role loosely based on the I Learned It By Watching You dad) lords over him and spot-checks his decisions. Cena’s “okay well let’s forget about John Laurinaitis saying he’ll ban you from title shots forever, I’m just gonna run out and help you win” was extra weird and stupid and hilarious.

Zack Ryder: I’ve ragged on him for this before, but sometimes you have to stop saying your catchphrases. I think it has a lot to do with Zack Ryder’s “TV voice”. He never sounds like he’s talking, he sounds like he’s recording lines for a video game. “Don’t interfere, bro! Stay out of it, bro!” I seriously expected him to tack a “woo woo woo” onto the end of it. If you have been assaulted to the point of hospitalization and were literally almost pulled living into the physical reality of a Christian Hell it’s time to put less emphasis on your headbands and that thing on your balls that sends me to your website when I take a picture of it.

Worst: Babyfaces Are Handling Falls Count Anywhere Matches All Wrong

And to continue on the paragraph about Zack Ryder doing it wrong, I’ve never understood why underdogs get put into Falls Count Anywhere matches and spend the whole time walking around punching and getting thrown into things. The stipulation is that falls can count anywhere … that means that falls can happen in the ring, so when Kane drags you to the top of the stage and glovemouths you and you break free with a kick to the stomach and a punch, RUN THE F**K BACK TO THE RING. Am I stupid for thinking this? Just go to the ring. Stay in the ring as much as possible. I would pay cold hard Internet cash money to support a guy who said, “sh*t, I’m not gonna follow you out there, out there is pipes”.