Since the premiere episode of AEW Dynamite on October 2, 2019, Chris Jericho has been aligned with Sammy Guevara, Santana, Ortiz, and Jake Hager.
Collectively known as The Inner Circle, the group has been at or near the top of the card for almost two years.
At AEW Double or Nothing, The Inner Circle put their friendship on the line in Stadium Stampede against The Pinnacle (MJF, FTR, Wardlow, and Shawn Spears). Had they lost, they would have been forced to disband.
"My idea was for us to respectfully disband and go on our own ways," Jericho said in an interview with Stephanie Chase. "Tony 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, 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. 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 or 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. There has 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. We never wanted to do that, we wanted to make it a long-term thing; five guys who like each other. We started as heels, we turned babyface together, and we all remain friends and on the same page. That's the way I'd like to keep it."
The Inner Circle were victorious in the bout, allowing their run to continue.
Jericho is set to team with Hager on Friday's AEW Rampage Grand Slam when they battle Scorpio Sky & Ethan Page.
Fightful will have live coverage of AEW Rampage Grand Slam beginning at 10 p.m. ET on Friday.
If you use any of the quotes above, please credit the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.
