NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 12: What If Chris Jericho Wins?

At NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 12, Chris Jericho will take on Kenny Omega for the IWGP United States Championship. Everyone assumes Jericho will lose to the full-time NJPW star, but what happens if he wins?

NJPW’s Wrestle Kingdom is their biggest show of the year, so it’s always a huge deal. However, the stakes feel higher this year because WWE icon Chris Jericho is in a marquee matchup for the United States Championship against Kenny Omega, who is the inaugural US Champ.

Basically everyone has Jericho losing to Omega, and why wouldn’t they? Omega is arguably the best wrestler in the world, and he’s one of the biggest names in the world. He’s extremely charismatic, he can have a great match with anyone, and he’s one of the centerpieces of the promotion. Furthermore, Jericho isn’t signed to NJPW, and he’s a 47-year-old who isn’t in his prime athletically.

But let me ask you something, what is Jericho known for? Being a visionary who is ahead of the curve and sees things that others don’t. Jericho has a reputation for putting over younger talent, but as he explained back in 2013, “But if I had my way I would be winning every match. It’s not like I’m going in there and choosing, ‘I must be the guy who puts guys over’. Screw that, I want to win.”

Jericho likes to get people talking, and his match with Omega at Wrestle Kingdom 12 has already achieved that. I mean, who on earth expected Y2J to wrestle in NJPW after everything he’s done in WWE? When Jericho showed up to accept Omega’s open challenge for the US Championship, all anyone could do was ask, “Did Vince McMahon know? Was Vince OK with this?”

I bet Jericho sees something special with what NJPW is doing, and he knew how hot this feud could be. We’ve all heard about how much merch the Young Bucks and the rest of the Bullet Club are selling on Hot Topic, yet Jericho’s “Alpha Club” T-Shirt, which was made specifically for his rivalry with Omega, is Hot Topic’s best-selling shirt right now.

Remember when Jericho won the United States Championship from Kevin Owens at Payback when everyone automatically thought he would lose the match to go on tour with Fozzy? Sure, Jericho dropped the title days later in a match with Owens, but the point is that we should always expect the unexpected when the Ayatollah of Rock’N’Rolla is involved.

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This match against Omega will be a No Disqualification match, which means that Jericho can do all sorts of stuff to try to score a win. And by “all sorts of stuff”, I’m also including interference, which is always a threat in No DQ matches.

That stipulation ostensibly seems like the best way to get blood and other crazy spots involved, and this match should have plenty of that as a major attraction on a stacked Wrestle Kingdom 12 card.

But that No DQ stip also leaves open the possibility of Jericho picking up a shock victory via outside help, which keeps Omega strong and leaves the door open for even more craziness.

Most people don’t expect Jericho to appear at WrestleMania 34 due to a Fozzy tour, and there has been no indication that he will be returning to WWE shortly. So that also means that it’s possible for Jericho to work more than one date with NJPW. It isn’t impossible for this program with Omega to be more than a one-off thing, and it does indeed feel too big to just happen at WK12 without any sort of follow-up or story. After all, this is Chris Jericho and Kenny Omega we’re talking about, and they are two of the best story-tellers in the history of this sport.

Jericho was totally correct when he stated that this match with Omega carries much more weight in NJPW than it would if it took place in WWE. And that’s because Jericho’s presence on the NJPW card as a mainstream WWE star will bring more eyeballs to the product.

It also means that the shockwaves we felt when the match was first announced will pale in comparison to the shockwaves that would happen if Jericho were to win. As unlikely as that seems on paper, it would be a much bigger story if Y2J won. And Jericho’s career has been all about shrewd business sense, unpredictability, telling the best stories, and making headlines.

I don’t have enough balls to outright predict a Jericho victory over Omega at Wrestle Kingdom 12, but I will say that we should prepare ourselves for the possibility. There are so many times that we’ve felt we could predict Jericho’s next match or next move, so I wouldn’t say that he’s guaranteed to lose in a one-off, barn-burner of a match with Omega.

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He might win, and he might truly shock everyone. Because a Jericho win isn’t just a Jericho win at Wrestle Kingdom 12; it’s the implication that he will work more dates with the company and potentially make the world of professional wrestling just a little bit more interesting for everyone complaining that WWE runs the table as far as mainstream interest is concerned.