Forget CM Punk, Chris Jericho is the Best Wrestler in the World

CM Punk is the latest wrestler to claim that he is "The Best in the World" at his craft, but Chris Jericho is the rightful owner of that title.

Before leaving the WWE a little over a year ago, Jericho was telling anyone who would listen that he was the best in the world at what he did. While this was a gimmick as part of his heel persona, it's still very much the truth, even today.

Unlike many wrestlers today, who are recruited out of body builder magazines or weight lifting competitions, Jericho spent years tuning his craft training in Canada with the Hart family as well as the Mexican and Japanese wrestling territories.

This allowed the New York-born wrestler to blend together many different styles into his own to use inside the squared circle.

While CM Punk has done this to a degree himself, with a background in MMA and working with ROH as well as TNA he hasn't progressed to the level of Jericho in the ring and on the mic just yet.

Punk is one of the best WWE can have with a microphone in his hand, but the former Undisputed Champion is one of the best in the company's history. From his time in WCW where he wowed fans with segments like his "Man of 1,004 Holds" bit to his arrival in WWE with his millennium countdown gimmick, Jericho has given fans countless unforgettable moments by just simply talking.

Punk does have the shoot promo to point to as well as a few other moments with Jeff Hardy that come to mind as entertaining on the mic, but if you were to put the two athletes in the ring and have a verbal showdown, Jericho would come out on top.

Though it would be one of the most wildly entertaining moments of a Monday Night Raw broadcast if that happened, Jericho's track record and history as both a radio host and rock band frontman that has made him a natural when talking to a public audience.

The in-ring ability for both competitors is close as well, but Jericho has the edge due to his ladder match specialties, as well as his ability to command a match.

Y2J has been in multiple ladder matches, with legends such as Shawn Michaels, Christian, and Chris Benoit. All three specific matches arguably stole their respective pay-per-views, in some part due to Jericho's ability to sell the action to the audience as well as he does.

Punk started out in WWE on the now defunct ECW brand and he's been in some of his own specialty matches, but he has yet to find one specific type of match and make it his own.

Jericho has held the tag-team titles on seven occasions with five different wrestlers, showing off his ability to pair up with people as big as the Big Show and still have enough chemistry for WWE Creative to believe Y2J's team deserved to hold the gold.

While Punk did lead Nexus shortly before they disbanded and held the tag-team titles with Kofi Kingston once before, he had been strictly a singles wrestler most of his career, making him less dynamic than his co-worker.

This article isn't meant to trash CM Punk in any way, and there are plenty of similarities between the two, but Punk still has a few more steps to take before he can be considered better than Chris Jericho.