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WrestleMania XXVIII Countdown: CM Punk vs. Chris Jericho
By: TH | Posted: 04/01/12


WWE Championship Match
CM Punk (c) vs. Chris Jericho


How: Jericho won a battle royale on RAW to earn the right to face Punk at WrestleMania.

Heat Check: It all really started in earnest before the Royal Rumble, when CM Punk and Daniel Bryan were wrestling in the first of a series of Champion vs. Champion matches that would dot the televised landscape in January and February. Jericho came out towards the end and attacked both men, making his intentions known that he came back for gold. While he failed in his quest to win the Rumble, he was still afforded the opportunity to chase a title when he won a battle royale for the right to face Punk after Sheamus had chosen Bryan.

Jericho's problems with Punk weren't just that the Second City Saint held gold and he didn't. Y2J had accused Punk of being a lying plagiarist, stealing his shtick and calling himself "Best in the World" when that mantel clearly belonged to Jericho. This led to an epic face-to-face promo segment where the two aired their grievances.

Then, the feud took a direction for the personal when Jericho started throwing out nuggets of information about Punk's family, first that his father was an alcoholic, then that his sister was a junkie and that he was conceived out of wedlock, making him the "textbook definition of a bastard". Although Punk would shake all these accusations off eventually, they seemed to affect him deeply when Jericho would levy them.

Analysis: I think most people are excited for this match, and with good reason. It's one that features two old pros who are favorites of the non-casual fan. It would be an upset if this match wasn't at least decent. There are caveats here, as Jericho went into another really hyped up Mania match in 2000 against two other Internet darlings that fell flat. Then again, that was a heavily gimmicked double three way match. This is a straight up singles match.

AS for the action itself, what can we expect? Well, I'm not entirely sure, outside of the two working their spots into the match. We haven't really seen a whole lot of Jericho in the ring outside of in battle royales, tag matches and the Elimination Chamber. I guess he'll work as close to how he did before he left as possible, which I think can work in Punk's favor. Both men lean towards some high flying stuff but are grounded enough in mat wrestling that there could be something for everyone here.

The wild card for me is whether anyone runs in for this match. It seemed to me like Jericho was seriously hinting at bringing in Punk's sister for this match, although that could seriously just be me reading too much into things. Either way, though, I'm not entirely positive that this feud will end here, nor should it.

Who Should Win: Chris Jericho should win by disqualification. Why? Because I wrote a big long thing about it, and I want to see it come to fruition, dammit.

Who Will Win: This is the toughest match on the card to pick for me. Will they give Punk, their next franchise superstar, his first signature Mania win as "the guy", or is Jericho going to win to keep the feud interesting? I'll flip a coin and go with Punk here. I think they don't want to have to go with importing guests for Mania every year, so they need to get started on building up guys who can make great main events in house.




Check out new blogs on WWE, TNA, Chikara and more every day over at the home of TH, The Wrestling Blog @ http://wallsofjerichoholic.blogspot.com/


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- TH
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