Scrapped Name For Jericho Appreciation Society Revealed

Chris Jericho has received a lot more appreciation than originally planned.

Speaking about the formation of the Jericho Appreciation Society on Talk Is Jericho, The Wizard revealed he originally pitched for the group to be called The Citadel but he ultimately pivoted to the final name after a lacklustre response from Tony Khan.

"The original idea for this whole plan, the name of it was going to be The Citadel. I thought The Citadel was great. I said it to Tony and there was no pop for it whatsoever. I was like, 'The Citadel sucks. I need something better.' I was looking at the Art Appreciation Society or something like that, some weird email of 'if you like this, maybe you should check out the Art Appreciation Society in downtown Detroit.' Then, The Jericho Appreciation Society was just cheesy enough. It's pretentious," Jericho said.

The faction composed of Jericho, Jake Hager, Matt Menard, Angelo Parker, and Daniel Garcia formed on the post-Revolution episode of Dynamite earlier this year.

Jericho noted he originally planned to form a group with Eddie Kingston and Jon Moxley as part of his programme with The Mad King but he decided to form a new stable following Bryan Danielson's promo about wanting to recruit Daniel Garcia, Wheeler Yuta, and Lee Moriarty to his potential faction.

"I thought, 'This [Kingston bringing up Santana & Ortiz] is interesting, we can have some dissension here.' Then, the fateful moment where Daniel Bryan is going to align with Moxley and he goes, 'We can bring in Moriarty, we can bring in Wheeler Yuta, Daniel Garcia.' I was like, 'Is this a thing? If it is, we've built up these three guys who have beat-up Eddie Kingston and Chris Jericho and now they're going to break it apart? These guys have to stay together. They have to stay together with me! It's perfect,'" Jericho added.

"It hit me like, 'Holy s**t.' Eddie Kingston, Santana, Ortiz have history, they do their thing, I start a new faction with you three and Jake because Jake and I have always been together since day one and I need a killer. 'This could really work.' That's the original idea I pitched to Tony and said, 'What do you think about this? I know it's weird.'"

The Jericho Appreciation Society had their first pay-per-view match as a group at Sunday's Double Or Nothing show and they defeated the team of Eddie Kingston, Santana, Ortiz, Jon Moxley, and Bryan Danielson in Anarchy In The Arena.

H/T to Fightful