WWE's Worst Person of the Week: Chris Jericho

The WWE Championship feud between Chris Jericho and CM Punk was supposed to be, pun intended, “the best in the world,” but it had fallen flat in the eyes of many fans.

That was until last week, when Jericho turned things up a few notches and officially became the WWE’s “Worst Person of the Week.” 

What the Jericho/Punk feud had lacked up until last Monday was realism, a feeling that the beef between these two was legitimate rather than part of a storyline. But Jericho found that realism on last week’s episode of Raw. 

Following Punk’s victory over The Miz, Jericho appeared on the Titantron, and instead of arguing about who was the “the best in the world,” he went straight for Punk’s throat with a gut-wrenching promo about the reasoning behind Punk’s Straight Edge lifestyle. 

In a true throwback to Punk’s Ring of Honor feud with Raven in 2003, Jericho laid into Punk about his father’s alcoholism, saying that his dad’s weakness was why Punk abstained from drinking alcohol himself.   

“That’s right—you’re father was an alcoholic, who let you down every step of the way when you were growing up, and it terrifies you. You don’t want to end up like him, but it’s inevitable that you will because alcohol is in your blood Punk. It’s in your genes,” Jericho said, one of many insults directed toward Punk. 

Jericho’s insensitive promo struck an emotional cord with many in the crowd, who couldn’t believe that he was bringing up a real-life issue that has indeed played a role in Punk’s legitimate Straight Edge lifestyle. The reaction to Y2J’s promo has been similar to the outrage that we saw last year during the feud between Jerry Lawler and Michael Cole. 

During a promo between the two, Cole took a shot at Lawler’s mother, who had legitimately just passed away, and he got a ton of heat for it. The same happened with Jericho, who many think crossed a line when he ripped Punk’s father and brought up a very emotional issue that has affected Punk’s entire life. 

This should be a non-issue, however, because what we’ve seen with both Punk/Jericho and Lawler/Cole is something that wouldn’t have happened without their approval. Had Punk not wanted to bring his father into this feud, I doubt it would have been, and the same goes for Lawler and his mother. 

But allowing real-life issues to be worked into storylines is something that we’ve seen work so well in the past, such as with Punk’s contract negotiations last year or even with the current feud between The Rock and John Cena. It gives us a reason to emotionally invest ourselves into a male’s soap opera. 

And that’s exactly what Jericho did on last week’s episode of Raw. 

He hit Punk with a low blow, he stooped to a new low, and fans have begun to absolutely loathe him for it. The WWE accomplished its goal here of getting mega heat on Jericho by making him seem like such an awful person. 

That doesn’t change the fact that it was all just a part of a storyline, but for hitting Punk where it hurts the most, that also doesn’t change the fact that Jericho is undoubtedly the WWE’s “Worst Person of the Week.”

Note: As part of the new WWE blog, I'll be asking all of the B/R wrestling readers for questions for a new mailbag that I will post on Fridays. It will be a slideshow featuring 10-20 questions and answers on a wide range of topics. You can submit questions either through Formspring orTwitter, and the best ones will be answered in the B/R mailbag.