Jericho brought back the Wizard™ to get revenge on Action Andretti

Back in April, Chris Jericho took out Eddie Kingston with something straight out of the old Memphis rasslin’ playbook. He hit the Mad King with a fireball, putting him on the kayfabe shelf for a few weeks. Jericho gave himself a new nickname (and filed a trademark on it, natch) and quickly wrapped up his feud with Eddie (lol not really... it went until July’s not-good Barbed Wire Deathmatch and spun of into the just-concluded — we think — Blackpool Combat Club program).

Why are we bringing this up? Because on the Dec. 21 Holiday Bash edition of Dynamite, The Wizard™ was back, baby!

Already reeling from his upset loss to “jobber” Action Andretti last week, Jericho and most of his Appreciation Society made a membership pitch to Ricky Starks. This was a good way to transition the red-hot Starks into something meaningful quickly after his loss to World champ Maxwell Jacob Friedman. The veteran played his role perfectly, letting Absolute cook him on the mic before the “JASsholes” (or maybe you liked “Jobber Appreciation Society” better?) jumped Ricky for turning down the offer. That set-up a Jericho/Starks match for Jan. 4’s big Dynamite in Seattle, and an Andretti save.

The JAS licked their wounds, then like good heels, they jumped Action when he was by himself backstage. And to take him out of the equation with Jericho deals with Starks? It was fireball time again! This one came with bonus 2point0 narration... can’t decide if I like the “you’re on fire” set-up or the “IN THE FACE” post-burn burn better...

That one did look pretty cool... er, we mean, get well soon, AA!

You can see all of what led up the return of The Wizard™ in the below playlist of YouTube videos AEW has released as of this morning. They don’t release all those at the same time, so we’ve got Twitter clips of the other big moments and matches below that.

• Chris Jericho Thinks Ricky Starks Would be an Absolute Star in the JAS
• Did The Elite Stave Off Elimination to Force a Match 6?
• Jamie Hayter Outlasts Shida to Retain the AEW Women’s World Title

For complete results and the live blog for Dynamite click here. To read a complete recap & review of all the night’s events click here.