AEW's Original Plans For The Inner Circle Revealed
The stable would have looked vastly different...
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Dec 6, 2019
Since debuting on the first episode of Dynamite The Inner Circle have established themselves as one of the top stables in AEW, being composed of World Champion Chris Jericho, #1 ranked Tag Team Proud and Powerful, Jake Hager and Sammy Guevara.
Guevara appeared on the latest episode of Talk Is Jericho
and the two Inner Circle members discussed how they came up with the name for the group. Le Champion explained that he didn't like Tony Khan's original name, and initially suggested they base it upon a fist as it could lead to some: "cool merch."
However Khan did not like this idea. The Young Bucks then remembered that Jericho had discussed an inner circle in passing during an episode of Being The Elite, and they realised it would be a good name for the stable.
Jericho said: "Tony’s original name I can’t remember what it was, I didn’t like it as much. Then I came up with the idea of a fist which would be five fingers forms a fist and I thought it would just be some cool merch. Tony didn’t care for that one, but I had done something for BT (Being The Elite) where I mentioned my inner circle and The Bucks said “that’s a cool name, what about The Inner Circle?"
Jericho also discussed who the original members of the group were supposed to be. The group would have looked vastly different. Jericho mentioned the plan was always to have him involved with a faction, but AEW originally suggested the group be composed of The Lucha Brothers, MJF and Anthony Ogogo. The Painmaker didn't like this idea, however.
He added: "One of the ideas originally was The Lucha Brothers and I thought they were too much like superheroes. I wanted killers and Santana and Ortiz were perfect. I suggested MJF, but it was like we should keep him on his own, and then your name was mentioned. Perfect, Sammy’s great. Now we need a big guy…They wanted to use a boxer they had just signed from the UK and I was like "nah he’s not big enough."
"I said 'Hager’s the guy.' So we got him and the whole get together was very much each guy plays a role and has a certain part within the circle."
