Pro wrestling rarely surprises, anymore, but not because it became public knowledge many years ago that the competitions are choreographed.

No, as many professional wrestlers have astutely pointed out over the years, the advent of the internet eliminated much of the mystery behind the business. When spoilers for event results, contract signings, and backstage drama all litter wrestling forums and social media channels, it’s just about impossible to keep a secret in pro wrestling, nowadays.

That makes what Chris Jericho and Kenny Omega have done in the buildup to their Wrestle Kingdom 12 match all the more fascinating. What has long been the bane of pro wrestling writing, they managed to manipulate to create one of the greatest feuds of the modern era.

It all began back on October 20th, 2017, when Jericho took umbrage to a Twitter user claiming that Omega, not Jericho, was the “best in the world.” Jericho lashed out, stating that Omega “wasn’t even the best [wrestler] in Winnipeg,” adding the hashtag #overrated for good measure. Omega responded in turn by referring to Jericho as a “corporate stooge,” which prompted Jericho to flaunt his career success as having been in the “big leagues” while simultaneously implying that Omega’s body of work was only done on the ‘indies.’

Well jeez, what can I say? Never meet your heroes, folks, lest they be a corporate stooge. https://t.co/oGU6R9uCfZ — Kenny Omega (@KennyOmegamanX) October 21, 2017

The back and forth Twitter exchanges that unfolded over the next couple of weeks between the two absolutely riled pro wrestling fans. It challenged the preconceived notion that all disputes, whether inside or outside the ring, are manufactured by a team of writers and bookers. The interaction had been highly unlikely before it actually happened. Jericho has been one of the biggest stars in the WWE for the last 18 years, while Omega has made it abundantly clear that he wants no part of the WWE and prefers to continue his career with New Japan Pro Wrestling. There was no obvious reason for them to be lashing out at one another.

If not for the participants, this Twitter beef would have been obviously scripted to some nature. When a major star talks trash to another worker in the same promotion, we know it’s not legitimate. Everyone realizes that it’s merely part of a storyline.

But when one of the WWE’s most iconic performers turns his attention to a competitor who is adamant to never step foot in Vince McMahon’s squared circle, it rightfully had fans debating if the animosity was just for show. Jericho and Omega weren’t going to meet in WWE, so what purpose would a worked Twitter feud possibly serve?

They certainly didn’t embellish their online encounters. They were content to let their infrequent verbal sparring sessions speak for themselves, with no advertising or blatant promotion that made it apparent what their goal was. Whoever saw it, saw it. If it didn’t attract millions of eyes all at once, that didn’t seem to be a concern. New Japan English color commentator Don Callis, who is a close friend of both Omega and Jericho, merely made passing comments about the feud while on Lance Storm’s podcast.

“I don’t need to get in the middle of whatever this is,” Callis said. “I don’t know what’s going on here. Chris has very strong opinions, and we know that, and he’s entitled to them. He’s one of the greatest of all time. But I can tell you that there are no two people in this business who are more diametrically-opposed in terms of personalities than Jericho and Omega. They’re not friends. I’m sure they respect each other and all that, but I’m not sure exactly what’s going on. I’m not going to get into commenting on who’s better because I would never do that. I would never pick a side.”

The most credit goes to Jericho, however, who shrewdly kept it quiet that he had allowed his contract to run out with WWE. If it was public knowledge that Jericho was a free agent, then the cat’s out of the bag on this, and it’s obviously a work. But with that blissful ignorance, most fans just watched with intrigue as two stars from rival promotions tossed verbal jabs. At best, the wrestling world seemed fated to see these two on Jericho’s Rock ‘N’ Wrestling Rager at Sea show, a stage that would hardly be appropriate for wrestlers with their name value.

“Wrestling is chess,” Bully Ray [formerly Bubba Dudley] described. “You have to know when to move your pawn, your queen, your bishop, but what you need the most in chess, and in wrestling, is patience. You set up your board, and then you allow the game to play out. Chris did a phenomenal job setting up the board on social media. He set up his board so well that everybody thought he was trying to get the match for the Cruise. And just when you think you have it all figured out, he looks at you, and he goes ‘Checkmate.’ And you look down the board and you go ‘Holy crap, how did he do that?’”

November 5th, 2017 was that “Holy crap” moment for the world of pro wrestling. For the fans in attendance at Power Struggle in Osaka, Japan, or watching the event on New Japan World in the early morning hours, it was when Chris Jericho appeared on that jumbo screen and challenged Omega to a match at Wrestle Kingdom 12. For many others, it was when they awoke that morning and saw the headline on their favorite wrestling website, or social media page: ‘Chris Jericho appears at New Japan Power Struggle, Challenges Kenny Omega.’

To be accurate, most wrestling fans would have learned about the bombshell announcement through the latter method. They would have heard about it after the fact. New Japan is still only just beginning to expand to Western audiences. With somewhere in the ballpark of 10,000-15,000 New Japan World subscribers outside of Japan, it’s safe to say that most of New Japan’s potential audience in North America and Europe aren’t watching the product live (or even the next morning, time zone differences be damned). Word of mouth is how these fans learn about the happenings in New Japan, like when Kenny Omega and Kazuchika Okada’s match from Wrestle Kingdom 11 went viral.

New Japan does not have a weekly broadcast like a WWE Raw or Smackdown to progress its storylines and booking. There are positives and negatives to that, but ultimately, any negatives are largely inconsequential to their product when their writing does not demand such screen time. New Japan’s storylines rarely expand beyond anything more complex than a war or words, an in-ring attack, or a brawl backstage. Feuds are not out of a comic book; they’re closer to being out of a Rocky movie. Developments happen at press conferences that then hit the internet, where the vast majority of fans will see it for the first time.

It’s an approach that doesn’t guarantee the largest number of eyes on the product at the time of a live segment, but it creates an organic environment that presents it as if the product is a traditional sport, not scripted sports entertainment. New Japan, Jericho, and Omega aren’t choreographing this so it’s “perfect” or that they get it right while everyone is looking. Fans who eventually saw the headline on their social media pages of the violent encounter between Omega and Jericho at a Wrestle Kingdom 12 press conference would have been no less entertained by a replay than those who may have watched it live.

How many people witnessed Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis brawl on stage in real time? The same when Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier threw down at a press conference in August of 2014? People were no less emotionally-invested in those incidents because they first saw them on ESPN, MMAFighting.com, or a different news outlet.

Jericho and Omega knew all of this. They wouldn’t have an episodic platform to sow the seeds for this feud, so they took it to a platform where everyone would eventually see it―the internet. Their rumblings were not time sensitive, so whether you caught a look at them mere minutes after the tweets were posted, or days later, they provided the same impact, the very same emotion. Even if you don’t understand the Japanese language, even if you aren’t a subscriber to New Japan World, Jericho and Omega masterfully built anticipation for their January 4th showdown by connecting through a channel that wrestling fans of all levels of enthusiasm frequent. They bypassed language barriers and paywalls to reach the masses.

In doing so, Jericho and Omega did the impossible. They put together a match that fans and experts never believed could happen. It’s the dream matchup becoming a reality, the surreal feat of impassable boundaries being crossed.

“When McGregor and Mayweather was announced, right off the bat it became the biggest match in boxing history just because you’d never thought you’d see it,” Jericho explained. “I’m not saying this is the biggest match in wrestling, but I think at the time, right now, it is, because nobody thought they’d see it. If you’re a casual wrestling fan or know anything about any other company other than WWE, it is intriguing. I’ve never worked one match, I’ve never even stepped into a ring that wasn’t a WWE ring since 1999. I think if Kenny left New Japan tomorrow and I went to WWE and we had this match at WrestleMania, it wouldn’t have the same mystique about it. This is different.”

Together, Jericho and Omega finally brought some shock and some awe back to pro wrestling.

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