WWE Unforgiven, the latest pay per view churned out by World Wrestling Entertainment, was capped off by an unexpected turn of events that featured veteran performer Chris Jericho capturing Raw’s World Heavyweight Title from an opponent who was struck from the very main event in which the title was held up.

WWE Unforgiven wasn’t your average pay per view, that’s for sure. It’s not often that writers concieve and deliver a concept that allows a champion to lose his or her title without being defeated, but on this particular show it happened twice. Of the three big placemarkers in World Wrestling Entertainment, we’ve got two new champions and one retainee that was pretty much expected to retain.

Sitting results aside for one moment, the focus goes to none other than Chris Jericho and the surrounding story about him. After a very physically demanding performance with Shawn Michaels earlier in the night, Jericho was written in as a substitute for World Heavyweight Champion CM Punk in the Raw Championship Scramble match that headlined the show. Under alleged “inside” scrutiny and in danger of being buried in the midst of what seemed like a push to the top (sounds crazy, right…going six feet under and being elevated simultaneously? it’s a strange business), CM Punk started the night as champion in a match where he did not have to be beaten to lose…and somehow, lost before it all even began. In a match consisting of five wrestlers, wrestlers number one and two were to be chosen at random. Every 5 minutes another wrestler would enter, and whoever scored the last pin fall or submission when the 20 minute time limit was over would be the champion. Sparing the details of the match itself, here it is in a nutshell - CM Punk gets beaten down backstage and deemed unable to compete in his own title defense, gets replaced by Chris Jericho, and Jericho wins the match and the World Heavyweight Championship.

The story with Punk is an interesting one - but with Chris Jercho as your champion, things are going to take an interesting turn for he and his material. As previously noted here at Nightly, Jericho has been involved in something of an amazing storyline that has BY FAR been the brightest spot on WWE television this year. With the other half of this storyline (Shawn Michaels) seemingly dodging a really dangerous bullet for now, coming away from a triceps injury that was much less severe than most thought it to be, this material of theirs and all of its rich character depth now takes ahold of the World Heavyweight Title. As if this storyline wasn’t huge before, it is now a story with new motivations in tow. The volume on a scale of one to ten is about hit eleven between these two, with championship stakes now being raised up to stand alongside their personal issues.

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