WCW Starrcade, Washington, DC
Konnan is defending the WCW Television title here, but Jericho has the belt. Jericho doesn’t like Konnan’s sagging pants. Having WCW Jericho entrances set to his WWE music is still criminal, WCW Jericho was really good but he didn’t have the attitude or presence to carry that music yet. It looks horrible.
I have long liked everything about Konnan except his wrestling matches. Dude had the intangibles, great character presence on screen, talked really well, controlled crowds. Got the whitest people in the world like, “YA LIBA LARASA!”
But in the ring? Oh, brother. At least by this point. Konnan threw clotheslines like he was scared to get cooties. As popular as Konnan genuinely was, there is a vocal portion of this crowd rooting for Jericho, not even so much against Konnan, just truly enjoying Jericho. If you’ve never watched this era of WCW, that’s not one of those things people or the wrestler themselves over state. Jericho should have gotten the rocket in WCW, but there was just nowhere for him to go. They weren’t going to push him, and honestly with the way the top guys’ contracts were structured, I don’t know if they even could push him. The fault lies first and foremost with the WCW brass either way, because they’d have been the ones giving the top names that much control as they got older, lazier, and shittier, but Jericho really was emerging as a possible major star entirely on his own organic work. But it wasn’t going to happen in WCW.
At this point he’s pretty checked out and WCW are doing their best to bury him (legitimately, not the way people say it now whenever their favorite wrestler loses a match) because it’s clear he’s not going to re-sign and that he’ll be bouncing to the WWF in ’99. The best segment of that run comes in early ’99 when Jericho feuds with Perry Saturn and Saturn goes against orders and loses a match so that he can wear a dress and have something more to his character.
Jericho does his best to get a good match out of Konnan. It’s hard to call it good because Konnan is not going to hold up his end other than grabbing his penis and balls area and keeping the crowd hot, but it’s definitely better than the average Konnan effort of the time.
Jericho gets the TV title belt and whacks Konnan somewhere near the head when the referee is half-out for a moment, but Konnan kicks at two, pretty much killing Jericho, which again was the point. Konnan pretty much immediately hits the faceslam and locks on the Tequila Sunrise for the submission.
Jericho gives this everything he’s got, Konnan gasses in three minutes like usual, although “gassing” might not be the term for it. It’s watchable because of Jericho.
Tape Machines Are Rolling 
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