Better feud: Jericho/HBK or Punk/Hardy?

[The Scarred One]

In the past couple of years, two feuds come to my mind as being so well done that it made me want to tune in to both RAW and SmackDown every week. These were the Shawn Michaels/Chris Jericho feud back in 2008 and CM Punk/Jeff Hardy back in 2009.

In the past, many rivalries and storylines revolved around the whole arguement of "I'm better than you and I deserve to be champion." Aside from that, there was not much substance to really get you emotionally involved. But with these two rivalries, they added said substance.

I'm not going to go into the details beind each feud, because many of you are probably already familiar with them. But I'm going to go into some background behind both of them.

In both cases, it started out innocently, with Jericho calling out Michaels on his deceptive tactics to win matches and Punk cashing in his Money in the Bank briefcase on Hardy. Eventually, Jericho and Punk turned heel and attacked the beloved Michaels and Hardy. As the feuds continued, personal issues were brought into the mix, with Jericho feeling justified for punching Michaels' wife and Punk calling Hardy out on his drug issues.

Both feuds involved a reverse polarity as you might call it. The one who committed questionable actions and decisions was the good guy while the one who portrayed himself as being honest and noble was the bad guy. Also, to borrow from the movie "Unbreakable," both feuds follow the comic book logic when it comes to heroes and villains. What this means is that the villian is the hero's exact opposite, with Punk's straight-edge lifestyle to Hardy's daredevil lifestyle and Jericho's serious attitude to Michael's flamboyancy.

So with all that said, which rivalry was the better one?

 

[WJDwjdWJDwjd]

Are you serious, bro?

HBK/Jericho 100%.

Their feud got extremely personal and had an EXCELLENT match at Wrestlemania. Just about anything involving Jericho or Michaels was/is gold. They are two crafty in ring workers and either one beating each other was believable. Two legends.

Jeff Hardy is just terrible and should never be in the same forum posting with either Jericho or Michaels. Punk carried Hardy through the feud.

 

[AttitudeChild]

While the Jericho/HBK fued was great, I'm gonna have to give it to Hardy/Punk on this one. Everything about this feud was great. The promos, the matches, everything. The whole "Straight-Edged guy vs the Junkie guy was a great story. Especially since the guy with the drug problems was the good guy and the clean sober guy was the bad one. Nice little twist.

 

[radec]

jericho/punk Great promos, matches, story lines etc. IT had everything! It had wrestler of the year, fued of the year and match of the year that came out of that fued!! Jericho broke in his trademark character the best in the world and spwaned kick ass promos. Their fued also carried 1 of the most memoral ladder matches which is was just fantastic. Their fued takes the cake but hardy and punk wasent far behind.

 

[RkoMachine]

Wow man really great question!

And to answer you.......... um i have no fucking clue!

Both feuds were absolute gold but for different reasons!

Both feuds had MOTY candidate matches!

I am 50/50 on this one

 

[ted sheckler]

I'm gonna have to say HBK vs Jericho. This was two absolute masters of their craft having fun and telling a compelling story from start to finish ending with a MOTY winning ladder match. From Jericho accusing Shawn of faking an injury and the twist that Jericho was actually right!.. Shawn going through the Jeritron 5000.. Retiring.. Jericho Punching Shawns wife in the face and giving her a real black eye.. It was one of the best feuds in recent history...

Punk vs Hardy was very well done. But lets face it this was Punk carrying Hardy.. Jeff Hardy has never been any good on the stick. Never built any feud worth watching.. I hate to do what everyone else does and label him a spot monkey but I honestly think it's 100% accurate label. Punk on the other hand is a great promo and great performer.

 

[Brahma Bull]

Id say hardy vs punk was only as big because hardy was getting huge reactions at this time. It was a great feud, but would be around where punk vs morrison in terms of history if not for hardy's big push.

Shawn/ Jericho on the other hand was gold on all sides. It seemed so personal and real. Not only that, both men were awesome on the mic, and we all know they are some of the best in the ring of all time. One of the best feuds I have ever seen.

 

[Rcole83]

Great question! Hardy/Punk was great, despite my disdain for Mr. Hardy. It actually gave Punk a little more edge, and the way they held off turning Punk full-blown heel was great. That was a highlight feud on a year that Smackdown was on a roll.

But I've gotta give the nod to HBK/Y2J. Everything about it was seamless, and it was two of the all-time greats doing what they do best. The mic work was nothing short of phenomenal, as were the matches (specifically the street fight - the welts that Jericho had after that match were unbelievable) - then he went on to win the WWE Title the same night. It has been my favorite feud of the past 10 years. As great as Hardy/Punk was...this was the best.

 

[Scorpion Eye]

Y2J vs HBK no question. this feud had everything. It all started with HBK "retiring" the Nature Boy, the match vs Batista w/Jericho as special ref when HBK "fakes" a knee injury to plant the Sweet Chin Music, Jericho calling HBK out on his tactis only to reverse course and believe he was indeed hurt after tagging with him, only to be told that he was right all along about HBK and recieves a Sweet Chin Music in the process. And that was just the beginning of it and at the time I'm sure most people thought HBK was on his way to becomming the HBK of old, ths shady son of a bitch we all loved.

Throw in the classic Highlight reel, Jericho reminding fans the shady side of HBK, HBK's wife, and even Lance Cade, and you have the most personal and exciting feud that we have seen probably since Flair-Savage (the whole Liz cheated angel).

I've mentioned this in another forum. Another aspect that made this feud legendary was Y2J/HBK's interaction leading up to their match at WrestleMania a few yrs earlier. During that time Y2J said that he looked up to HBK and he was the reason why Jericho became a wrestler. Throw that part into the mix and you have the all to common real life situation of people watching their role models turn out to be the complete opposite of what they really are. This concept had been down in wrestling before but nothing close to being as good as this feud. Pure Gold!!!!

 

[drummerboy144]

Hardy/Punk for me in this one, man was this feud awesome i really loved that cm punk turned heel during this period cause i totally hated face punk, when this happened punk became my favorite wrestler, the feud was so personal and something different from what we see in other feuds i really hoped hardy would've stayed in wwe because he was getting over cena in popularity and would've had many other great feuds, but this feud was awesome it not only made hardy better but it made cm punk 1000 times better than he was and at the time of that feud smackdown was better than raw

 

[x24hrs2livex]

Y2J/HBK. Ever since their WM match a few years ago(which was an instant classic) I thought these two complemented each other very well. And their last feud really showcased each one's talents. Y2J was already a star but I feel this feud really catapaulted him to another level.

I think what really sets the 2 rivalries apart is the fact Chris punched Shawns wife. She is a real trooper for going through with it

 

[Shafer757]

Based on the sole fact that Punk retired Hardy, I vote for that feud. It was just as riveting as the Michaels and Jericho, but it ended Jeff Hardy's career on 'live' television, if I remember correctly. Michaels was retired by the Undertaker, a man Jeff Hardy took to the limits as a rookie. Jeff Hardy carries more experience in his career than we tend to give him credit for. This, in my eyes, was the feud that opened Punk's doors to become a main event staple. Punk worked his way up the ladder through ECW, Smackdown, and now Raw. He's the last of his kind. While the Michaels and Y2J feud was perfect, what did it actually do for the two? It was a great filler storyline. Punk and Hardy created a spark that is still being fed gasoline.

 

[Ruthless-RKO]

Some posters picking HBK/Jericho feud are mentioning their match at WrestleMania XIX, 8 years ago.. The feud you're supposed to be talking about is the one they had in 2008..

Either way, I have to pick HBK/Jericho.. It didn't involve a title, because these 2 are soo good at everything else, they didn't need a title in between them, it was just personal! Better than their feud in 2003.. It was a near year long feud that started because of Flairs retirement.. First including Batista, who was also mad at HBK for retiring Flair, great match at Backlash which had Jericho as referee. Then at Judgement Day we finally say the first match between the 2.. It was a good match IMO.. Then at ONS we saw HBK go back to Batista losing to him in a stretcher match, at Night of Champions, HBK cost Jericho his IC title..

The next match IMO, was one of the best of the year, at The Great American Bash, great match! Had everything, one thing that stood out was HBK's busted eye which Jericho kept targeting.. Jericho came out on top in this match to finally get even..

At SummerSlam, we saw a great in-ring segment with HBK coming out with his wife and telling everyone he had to retire, Jericho made it yet more personal by nailing Rebecca giving her a black eye.. This pissed HBK off more than anything, the 2 put on a match of the year candidate at Unforgiven in their unsanctioned match.. A f*cking great match! How Jericho went on to win the World title that night? I don't know! At No Mercy, I believe the feud came to an end in a ladder match for the World title, Jerico retaining the title..

I pick this feud, solely due to that fact that it entertained me every second!

 

[AGameTime411]

For me, it's defo got to be HBK/Jericho. If there's one feud that i have been completely hooked on over the past few years, it's that feud. There was no title involved, which gave these men something personnal to fight over. The thing i loved about this feud was that nobody knew what would happen next. I mean, nobody predicted the whole 'Jeri-tron' incident, or the busted eye at The Great American Bash. But when Jericho punched HBK's wife in the face, you knew you were in for one hell of a personal match afterwards. As for Hardy/Punk, i never followed that feud very well. 2009 was the year i kinda tuned out of wrestling, just because i thought they went a little to PG half way through the year.