Quote:
Originally Posted by Russ
I'm not sure I understand peoples' reactions to Jericho's suspension. Yes he's a heel (and a great one at that) and it's his job to get fans to hate him to the point they'll happily pay money to watch him get beaten up. But what he did was a crime in the country he was in at the time. I don't know whether part of the reactionary outrage is American fans thinking that American laws should supersede those of the country they're in but Jericho broke Brazilian law. It doesn't matter if the rest of the world thinks that to stamp on a flag is acceptable - it isn't in Brazil.
His suspension is clearly damage limitation as WWE wants to build good relations in South American countries so you can see why they went along with it. And this suspension won't harm Jericho one bit.
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Whilst it's something that was pretty stupid to do, it's a spot that's been done countless times in countless countries, I can understand why he'd just assume it'd be ok, after all heels have been doing the same thing for decades. It's probably pretty easy to not think too much about the legalities of it when you're used to the fact it's cheap easy heat.
Some of the blame has to also lie with Punk for bringing the flag into the situation in the first place, it's pretty obvious what the heel response to a face parading around with the local flag to get cheap pops is.
Plus, R Truth broke English law during the UK tour last year by smoking indoors. He wasn't suspended (Despite crowd chants of "that's illegal").