Sami Callihan has been more than the top heel for IMPACT Wrestling the past year. He has been more than “The Draw”. He has been more than a figurehead for the Ohio revolution in pro wrestling. Sami Callihan has been a catalyst for some huge moments in 2018. Love him or hate him (he actually prefers the latter), Sami Callihan has drawn attention like few others this year. The baseball incident with Eddie Edwards could have lead to a remorseful Sam Johnston, but instead Sami Callihan embraced it and launched into an incredible run this year as the worst possible human you could be – and fans ate it up. His feud against Pentagon Jr. for the bulk of this past summer has been memorable, with great storytelling and some brutal matches. His barbed wire match on IMPACT’s Twitch channel with running mates Dave & Jake Crist in OvE against LAX put both stables on the map this year. Him calling out Chris Jericho for not including IMPACT on his upcoming Rock N’ Rager Cruise drew attention and it became a reality, with several IMPACT stars heading to mingle on the mat with stars from Ring of Honor and NJPW.

Sami Callihan Calls Out Chris Jericho

EXPLICIT LANGUAGE: We caught up with @TheSamiCallihan outside of our Windsor tapings, and he wasn’t happy. He had some extremely inflammatory comments about @IAmJericho, @ringofhonor and the @Jericho_Cruise. pic.twitter.com/o1OhS3jDCc

— TNA Wrestling (@ThisIsTNA) June 2, 2018

Not only is Sami Callihan one of the faces of IMPACT Wrestling, he also appears on two other weekly wrestling show, on Lucha Underground on Wednesdays and Major League Wrestling (MLW) Fusion on Fridays. And in his spare time, he still runs the indie circuit, tearing it up for Rockstar Pro, All American Wrestling (AAW) and PCW ULTRA, and quietly won DDT Pro‘s top title, the KO-D Openweight Championship. This past weekend in Manchester, England for the IMPACT vs UK Twitch special, he faced his British counterpart Jimmy Havoc in a brutal and bloody affair that was a great showcase of mastering brutality with storytelling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwgAwFUU5i8

But then he went and did it. He found another bear to poke. Or rather, he poked a bear he’d already poked. He called out Chris Jericho himself in a video challenge issued in an interview with The Mirror in the UK that came out today.

“Jericho, if you’re listening to this, I’m calling your ass out. Whenever you’re ready to do it, let’s f***ing do this. Sami Callihan versus Jericho, one on one. I know I wanna see it, I know the people wanna see it, and I know you wanna see it.”

Could this be leading to Chris Jericho facing Sami Callihan on the Jericho Cruise at the end of October? There will be several nights of wrestling, as The Young Bucks have been confirmed for two matches on separate nights. The first is a tag match against IMPACT World Tag Team Champions LAX (Santana & Ortiz) and the other is The Bucks of Jericho (Chris Jericho & The Young Bucks) vs. Bullet Club (Kenny Omega, Marty Scurll & Cody Rhodes. Marty Scurll is also wrestling twice so far, answering Callihan’s initial open challenge first. If these two are going to have another match onboard, this wouldn’t be a bad option. Two of the best heels in wrestling going head to head.

And if this match is indeed going to happen on the Jericho Cruise, then that may dramatically increase the chances of seeing Chris Jericho at IMPACT’s Bound For Glory in a month. As Jericho showed at All In when he attacked Kenny Omega, he’s not shy about appearing with another company outside the of the WWE on US soil anymore. It’s possible the Jericho IMPACT debut could simply be making his presence known to Sami at Bound For Glory to accept the challenge and promote the match on the Cruise (much like what his Omega attack was for as well).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a4DFuRl_tg

With someone like Sami Callihan – much like Chris Jericho – social media is not wasted with him. It is not something to sit idly on and show photos of what they’re eating or sharing GIFs. They’re using it as part of their enter mystique. Nothing they say or do on Twitter is a wasted moment. It’s starting something. While it may or may not happen on the cruise, while it may not happen at Bound For Glory, Callihan calling out “The Alpha” is going to happen at some point now.

The question now is when and where?