When Chris Jericho and AJ Styles stepped into the ring across from each other the night after the Royal Rumble, some people felt that it was a poor idea to put them in the ring one-on-one so quickly. Why not wait for the next PPV? Or the show that ended up becoming Roadblock? Better yet, why not spend the time building to it and run their first ever singles match at WrestleMania?

That was not the plan and it turns out that the best-laid plans actually may indeed have been implemented. They had a rematch soon after on Smackdown that saw Jericho pick up the redeeming victory. The Miz was sprinkled in to add a common foil for both men and help move their story forward.

While Jericho was doing many things that felt like a tease for a heel turn but the trigger was never pulled — until Monday. After a stellar Championship contest that saw Y2/AJ suffer defeat at the hands of the WWE Tag Team Champions, the former six-time World Champion showed his true colors and hit Styles with three Codebreakers much to the ire of the crowd live in Chicago.

For weeks leading up to Monday night, Jericho said and did a number of things to foreshadow the turn. He was also far too accepting of his loss to Styles at Fastlane. In fact, his incredible enthusiasm to team with the guy he said he simply did not like was very suspect. That t-shirt they wore to the ring for their match was pretty lame as well. It felt like a prop made specifically to throw off people who may have been expecting the betrayal. No thought or effort was put into the design of that shirt, which felt like the final dead giveaway that AJ Styles was going to be eating another Codebreaker sooner rather than later.

Now before we go too far off track, it’s important to mention that in no way is it a bad thing that WWE provided so many indicators alluding to Jericho doing what he did. The clues weren’t perfectly straightforward and obvious, so many people surely didn’t see it coming (or at least figured that their rivalry was over after having 3 matches). It was simply a case of good storytelling.

They have had three matches more or less based on sportsmanship (or one-upmanship) and competition, but Jericho has been getting frustrated. Now they are going to have a grudge match, and that will be the match that fully legitimizes Styles, as he defeats Chris Jericho at WrestleMania.