Bigger Career Resurgence in 2016: Chris Jericho or "Broken"

Now, I was listening to the podcast in the video above last week and there was interesting question posed that I thought I would share. In 2016 we have witnessed two career resurgences in two separate companies.

In WWE, we had Chris Jericho. He returned in January as a babyface and……..the results were mixed. He was still entertaining but as a face he seemed like he was spinning his wheels and the corny humor didn’t help. But then, during the AJ feud, he turned back to his villainous ways and it first was more of a serious heel.

But then shortly after the AJ feud, Jericho shifted into more of a chickencrapheel character. And it has been amazing to see this new character he created for himself. Let us count the nuances he has created for himself.

1. The List of Jericho
2. The Gift of Jericho
3. The word “It”
4. Stupid Idiot
5. Etc.

The guy created this list, which has become the most over thing on Raw. The Gift of Jericho is funny as hell. People chant Stupid Idiot. And the SOB even got the word “it” over. The guy went from a returning veteran to the best part of Raw week to week.

And then you have “Broken” Matt Hardy in TNA. Now, I don’t watch TNA week to week but I do make an attempt to watch his stuff. He started the years as the #1 heel with his own heel faction. He was fine but not anything we hadn’t seen before.

But then, as a result of being “injured” during a match with his brother Jeff, Matt’s mind became warped and Broken Matt Hardy was born. He died part of his hair blond, he began speaking with a strange accent, and all of a sudden began act like this strange, eccentric character.

And at first, I thought it was a joke. I mean, just look at this.

 But, then we had The Final Deletion:

 And it was instantly the most intriguing thing in wrestling in quite a while. It was campy, it was weird but God damn it was entertaining. And all of a sudden, Matt Freaking Hardy was the most talked about character in wrestling. He, like Jericho, has created many nuances to his character, including:

1. Brother Nero
2. His wife Rebecca
3. King Maxel
4. Senor Benjamin
5. Vanguard 1
6. “DELTE, DELETE, DELETE”
7. His Premonitions
8. And much more

Many people will laugh this off because of “LOL, TNA.” But, Matt Hardy of all people in 2016 has actually taken a company with zero buzz at one point and actually gotten people talking about the product which deserves praise.

Now for my answer, who has had the bigger resurgence?

Well, my opinions are practically identical to the video above. Look, Jericho has been great. But, he’s always had this ability in him. And he is a guy who is a multi time World Champion. Even now, if he challenged for the World Title, people would accept it. That’s how big of a star he is.

Matt Hardy on the other hand has never been been looked at as a true star in wrestling. I mean, he had one hot singles run in WWE that went nowhere and main evented in TNA but still wasn’t looked at as a star. But now in 2016, not only has Matt Hardy become one of the most talked about wrestlers of the year, regardless of company. But he’s been able to surpass his brother Jeff in popularity, which is something I never thought would happen. Jeff was looked at as a star. He’s been over for years now. And Matt since about 2008 has been looked at as the lesser Hardy.

But now, you have Matt taking this gimmick all over indies and even hear Delete chants in WWE. And it is a big testament to Matt to come up with all of these ideas and present them in such a unique way.

So my pick would be Matt Hardy. Don’t know how this will go considering there is much more WWE discussion here than TNA, but I’m interested to see what people think.