Chris Jericho believes match quality is overemphasized in today's wrestling.
The former AEW World Champion recently spoke to GamesHub for a new interview. He talked about things such as his underrated rivalry with the Rock, pitching Vince McMahon an angle involving The Wyatt Family and Shawn Michaels that went nowhere and more.
During the talk, Chris Jericho was also asked how he defines success in wrestling at this stage of his career. In response, Y2J discussed how match quality has become a big topic of discussion among fans in recent years while wrestling is not about that:
Match quality has become so overemphasised. Wrestling isn’t about match quality — wrestling is about connecting with the crowd, capturing the imagination and the interest of the people watching.
How Is The Crowd Reacting: Chris Jericho
Chris Jericho explained that matches with exceptional quality of in-ring work used to be rarer back in the day, giving the example of his WrestleMania 18 match with HBK. Nowadays, however, a single show could feature multiple five-star matches, which makes things like character work and storytelling even more important:
Now you can go to a show and see five-star matches back-to-back, if we’re going by the definition of lots of innovative physical moves. Which is great. But how is the crowd reacting? A five-star match should mean the crowd is going crazy in a sold-out stadium.
You can also have a five-star match in a community centre in front of 50 people, so the rating in isolation is irrelevant. It’s character, it’s storyline, it’s charisma. That’s what wrestling is about — it was in the 1930s and it is now.
The wrestling veteran said that the biggest stars are those who connect with the crowd at the highest level, and anyone who can do that will always have a career.
He mentioned how Ultimate Warrior did not have many great matches but people still paid to see him just running in the ring. Jericho said that he would love to be able to do something like that and save the wear and tear on his body.
