Chris Jericho Has Violated WWE's 30 Day Rule

In life, rules are made to be broken. In professional wrestling, rules are made to be ignored when [...]

By Brandon Gnetz - March 18, 2017 01:57 pm EDT

In life, rules are made to be broken. In professional wrestling, rules are made to be ignored when the storyline deems it necessary. Such is apparently the case with Chris Jericho. Y2J successfully defended his United States Championship against Sami Zayn on the February 6th edition of RAW. He next defended it in a triple threat match against Sami Zayn and Samoa Joe at a WWE Live event in Canada on March 12th.

While this may seem fairly standard, Jericho's lapse between title defenses has broken one of the WWE's longest standing and nearly always enforced bylaws – the 30 day rule. The one that states a Champion must defend his title at least once every 30 days.

Shawn Micheals, Batista, John Cena, and Daniel Bryan have all had to forfeit their titles due to not being able to defend them within the vaunted 30 day period. The previous US Champ, Roman Reigns, was blasted for "never defending" the belt (and for carrying it oddly), yet he never broke the infamous 30 day clause. Yet, WWE has made nary a mention of Jericho's unforgivable sin.

Like the rematch clause after someone has lost a title—the 30 day clause is always enforced.

Well, except for when it's not. In the Rock N' Wrestling hey day of Hulk Hogan, the Hulkster could easily go months without defending his WWE Championship or even appearing on television (the pre-RAW days). And just three years ago when Brock Lesnar was your part time WWE Champion, he also failed to defend the strap between the Rumble and WrestleMania. No one seemed to mind.

We all expected the US Title to be at the center of Jericho's feud with Kevin Owens and I'm guessing no one would have even noticed the timely technicality had Naomi not been stripped of her Smackdown Women's Championship just a few weeks ago for the very same, sacred, kayfabe reason.

A Twitter user pointed out the violation to Jericho.