Chris Jericho revealed some of the inner workings of the formation of his Inner Circle faction on the latest Talk Is Jericho podcast.
Speaking with his Inner Circle stablemate, Sammy Guevara, Chris revealed that the original name pitched for the group by Tony Khan was not something that he was fond of as well as reviewing some of the originally pitched members for the faction.
"Tony's original name, I can't remember what it was. I didn't like it as much and then I came up with the idea of a fist which be five fingers form a fist. I just thought it'd be some cool merch," he began. "Tony didn't care for that one. I'd done something for BTE where I mentioned my inner circle and The [Young] Bucks were like, 'that's a cool name. What about the Inner Circle? And then one of the ideas was originally was the Lucha Brothers and I thought well they're too much [like] superheroes. I want killers and Santana and Ortiz [were] perfect."
Chris would go on to reveal that the spot given to Sammy Guevara was once pitched by Chris himself to go to Maxwell Jacob Friedman, MJF.
He continued, "Then, I suggested MJF. But it was like 'we should keep him on his own.' And then your name is mentioned, 'perfect. Sammy is great.'"
When it came time to decide who should be the big heater for the group, apparently it was originally pitched that Anthony Ogogo, the boxer that was signed by All Elite Wrestling as their first developmental project was pitched to be Jericho's heavy. Jericho rejected the idea feeling that he was not large enough and suggested Jake Hager instead.
"Now, we need a big guy. Who's it gonna be? And they wanted to use, they had just signed a boxer from the UK," said Le Champion. "And I was like, 'no, he is not big enough. [Jake] Hager's the guy.' So we got him. That's kind of whole the whole thing [came] together. It was very much each guy plays a role and has a certain part within the system of the circle."
Since forming on the first episode of AEW Dynamite, the Inner Circle has run roughshod over AEW. You can see them and the rest of AEW every Wednesday night at 8 PM Eastern on TNT.
If you use any of these quotes, please credit Fightful for the transcription.
