Chris Jericho was not a fan of Southpaw Regional Wrestling’s second season

Sequels often do have a difficult time living up to the original, especially when those originals are highly praised and beloved by fans.

It wasn’t a problem I personally had with the “second tape” WWE released of Southpaw Regional Wrestling, their homage to and parody of a struggling 1980s regional promotion. But I’m not shocked some people didn’t think it lived up to the build to Lethal Leap Year.

Kind of surprised that one of the people who found it lacking is Chris Jericho, though.

As the man who played Clint Bobski told Ring Rust Radio:

“I think a lot of times the initial one is always the best because it’s such a surprise and nobody really knew what they were getting into. Where with the second one everybody wanted to get involved and some of the characters weren’t as strong.

I think Miz’s guy was terrible in it, whatever he was called ['Astonishing' Adam Düng]... I just thought that was terrible, it wasn’t funny. I thought the Butcher guys [Rhyno and Seth Rollin’s Butcher Boys] weren’t funny, whereas the first one was really funny because no one was really trying. They were just being whatever they wanted to be.

It’s like a sequel to a movie where you stumble onto something and it’s never as good as the original.”

I was not the biggest fan of Dry Rub Doug and Frantic Frank, but I didn’t think the SRW tag champs were bad. And I thought the Düng bit was pretty great.

Honestly - and I’ll say it even though it will probably land me on The List - Jericho’s Bobski was one of my least favorite things about both seasons.

Oh well, art is subjective and all that. Really, the worst thing about Jericho’s discussion of Southpaw with Ring Rust is when he says he doesn’t think the series “took off virally like they [WWE] thought it would”, so he’s not sure if they’ll be making more.

But while I don’t agree with Y2J’s review here, he is right about there being a time to call it a day on concepts like this. Maybe they should pull the plug on Southpaw before it jumps the shark?

Thoughts on that, or Jericho panning Miz, Rollins and Rhyno?