Chris Jericho is recognized as one of, if not the greatest professional wrestler in the pro wrestling industry as he has been successful in every pro wrestling promotion he has worked for and he has even won championship titles in every major pro wrestling promotion. Chris Jericho was the biggest signing in AEW history when the promotion was established back in January 2019 and he was even the first-ever AEW World Champion.
During the inaugural episode of AEW Dynamite on October 2, 2019, Chris Jericho, who was the still AEW World Champion at the time, introduced The Inner Circle, which consists of himself, Jake Hager, Sammy Guevara, Santana and Ortiz. The Inner Circle, until now, is still known as one of the biggest stables in AEW as not only is it led by Chris Jericho, but they have been involved in the greatest matches as well as the greatest rivalries in company history.
Speaking with Stephanie Chase, “The Demo God” Chris Jericho revealed that there was a particular time when he did approach AEW President and CEO Tony Khan and pitch an idea of disbanding the faction, but Tony Khan dismissed the idea and said they don’t have to be together all the time, but they are still The Inner Circle. Jericho then revealed that he thought it was a good time at the time for them to go their own way, but they can still do that without officially disbanding the faction. Le Champion then said that in pro wrestling nowadays factions just come and go, so what they were able to do is a huge accomplishment.
This is what Chris Jericho said:
“Yeah, pretty much. My idea was for us to respectfully disband and go on our own ways, but Tony [Khan] didn’t want to do that. He said, ‘Why would you want to disband? You don’t have to be together all the time, but you’re still The Inner Circle.’ After this year, the whole storyline was based around MJF wanting to join the Inner Circle, Wardlow is in the Inner Circle, The Pinnacle, five-on-five, and that sort of thing.”
“It was a well-told year-long story with the five of us. It’s good for us to go our own ways and not be in each other’s business every week. It’s good that we’re still aligned. Like I said, for me, I thought it was a good time for us to go our own way, but we can still do that without officially disbanding the band…breaking up the band. I love the fact that we’ve been a faction since day one in AEW and really never had fights amongst us or anything like that. There have been a few minor things, but we never turned on each other. Half the group didn’t turn heel and half the group didn’t turn babyface and fight with each other. We never did that. I think that’s a pretty cool accomplishment, especially in wrestling because factions come and go quickly and it seems like they are put together just so they can break up and feud for two or three weeks.”
You can check out Chris Jericho’s comments in the video below:
