Don Callis preparing for failure

[Vice honcho room temperature]

I mean c'mon dude why bother with the charade if you thought he was gonna say no.

[Dub H]

Because he is a pompous asshole.

[HMARK Center]

I kind of liked both of them acting that way only because they've known each other so long and a snake recognizes another snake: Callis was prepared for Jericho to say no, Jericho was probably prepared to be swerved, so they both tried to preempt one another.

[06vwgti]

I love all the paintings and hope we'll continue to see more of them

[Dr. Bolty, Disaster Enby]

It was a bit too meta, in that the way it played out is making me overthink both characters' motivations in the past while.

But it was also a friggin' hilarious deconstruction and exaggeration of obvious double crosses in wrestling. Like you could immediately imagine the version where Jericho said no, Callis said that's too bad, Osprey beats up Jericho and Callis smugly unveils the painting. And they still got all of those beats, and it still worked, just with a nice laugh at the in-universe logistics of dramatic heel turns.

[Cyno]

Callis is a carny piece of shit. Of course he was prepared for failure.

[YAKMAN is ICHIBAN]

I would have liked it if he had both paintings for either outcome.

[Kalmia]

I think Callis's plan was for Jericho to say no, Takeshita and Ospreay to beat Jericho down, and the painting to be revealed at the end as the closer.

Jericho saying yes was a surprise but could have been salvaged if Jericho hadn't seen the painting. That screwed everything up but Takeshita and Ospreay were on standby anyway so they went with the original plan.

[Bo Rida]

Better than when he spent months fueding with The Bucks only for them all to join forces anyway.

This was better, just a shame they had to wait for Ospreay to be available so had to drag it out a couple of weeks too long.

Basically if Callis is setting something up feel free to skip a few weeks.

[Dr. Bolty, Disaster Enby]

Aug 17, 2023 13:54:19 GMT -5 Bo Rida said:

Better than when he spent months fueding with The Bucks only for them all to join forces anyway.

...now I'm wondering if this was an unused idea for a Bucks feud, because this feels like a Young Bucks story move, now that you mention it.

[Non Banjoble Tokens]

He should have had Lance Storm come out and beat up Jericho.

[krozor]

It only works for these two characters, but it was the exact right balance for these two, who are by their nature limitless egomaniac creeps.

For Jericho, of course, it was a meta echo of the Festival of Friendship. And the whole thing fits into the idea of what if Jericho, as a character, has to start to accept that he's in the endgame of his career. That's where he should be going now if we're looking at a possible final face variation: he had a "family" but got caught up in playing "remember when" with Callis, who knew all of the ego buttons to hit for him, and he only agrees to join Callis because there's a part of him that acknowledges that he actually had a good thing going with JAS and he threw it away. There's a chance here for him to somehow do a serious version of that incredible, incredible "kissing his son Sammy on the forehead" promo ahead of his match against Cody in early AEW.

And man, I legitimately love heel Callis. The look is perfect for this aging, carny piece of shit, supreme scumbag heel. This Don Callis is 100% the kind of character who would think "Well, there's a 55% chance he may say no to me so..." and goes out and commissions a painting of himself triumphantly holding the decapitated head of the very same man he'd also be perfectly fine teaming up with. Just an all-or-nothing piece of garbage, the perfect heel manager character where the slightest possible hint of rejection means he shifts mentally to planning murder. It's sort of a parody of wrestling, but he knows how to play it straight and it just works as a heat magnet heel there to get everyone else over.

And of course, the very same man who knew how to play into Jericho's ego through Jericho's documented love of paintings is, of course, undone by his own hubris of forgetting that Jericho loves paintings sooooo much and that of course Jericho would want to see whatever new painting Don made of them and would want to carry it around all night while they partied together. Because that's who Jericho is at heart in all versions of himself.

I don't know, I love it when wrestlers thread the needle between silly and staying within the motivations of their characters. Depending on which side of the line you land on, that's where the real magic happens in what will always be an inherently melodramatic, over the top form of entertainment.

[Mr Mario Mario]

All I have to say is that painting was f*****g boss