Chris Jericho: Possible Real Reason for His 30-Day Suspension

Chris Jericho's actions in Brazil, where he was seen kicking the national flag at a house show, attracted the ire of the local authorities. Jericho immediately apologized for his actions, admitting that "it was a bad move."

Whilst he escaped any criminal prosecution in Brazil, he was handed a 30-day suspension by the WWE. This was taken to be the company's best response to such a heated international incident.

The WWE is a publicly traded company and as such needs to maintain the best corporate image it can (hence the PG rating, lack of blood, abundance of Cena) in order to capitalize on their many lucrative merchandising deals.

However, many people have opined that this was a rather strict sentence.

I'm not going to comment on the Brazilian authorities' reactions to the incident, or debate the implications of it, but it appears that this suspension was exaggerated in order to allow Jericho time off to tour with Fozzy in England for four dates this June.

Specific time off for musical endeavors is probably written into Jericho's contract, as such extracurricular undertakings would be impossible under the usual full-time schedule.

That is not to say that the entire punishment is a "work."

What he did was not acceptable, and I seriously doubt that he would have walked away unscathed had he not had prior engagements. I believe that the WWE would have simply fined Jericho or given him a short suspension.

These dates would have been arranged quite some time in advance, so it's possible that the creative team intended on writing him off with a storyline injury, but when this happened, it was seen as an unfortunate action that was fortunately timed.