Chris Jericho introduced his new faction, The Inner Circle, back in October 2019 during the early days of AEW Dynamite. Consisting of himself, Jake Hager, Sammy Guevara, Santana and Ortiz, the group has been a thorn in the side of The Elite ever since, helping Jericho retain his AEW World Championship several times and attacking the likes of Cody Rhodes, The Young Bucks, Kenny Omega and Jon Moxley. While Jericho has offered various people (and a drone) a spot in the group, nobody has officially joined outside the original five. “Le Champion” said this week he plans on keeping it that way, unless a storyline calls for it.
“It depends on what happens in the storylines,” Jericho told Sportskeeda. “To me, everything is based on the story, the story that we’re telling, what fits, what doesn’t fit. I think one of the downfalls of the original nWo was when they started having Virgil and guys like that in there. It kind of takes some of the exclusiveness and cool factor.”
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“I’m not opposed to it, but I’m not actively searching for new members,” he added.
Jericho attempts to get babyfaces like Moxley and Matt Hardy to join the group have always come up fruitless. The closest he ever got to adding a new member was when Ring of Honor’s Jeff Cobb was brought in as his “hit man” for a match with Moxley.
While the New World Order is considered one of the greatest wrestling factions of all time, many fans will argue that it became too bloated when more than 40 wrestlers joined the group.
Jericho revealed in an interview back in January that he was offered a spot in the group prior to leaving WCW, but turned it down.
“I never really wanted that [to be in a faction],” Jericho said at the time. “I remember back in ’98, one of the suggestions was for me to be in nWo and I was like absolutely not. There’s 15 guys in the nWo. They don’t need me and I don’t need them.”
“I think it’s a group of five guys, who were all chosen for their specific personalities and their specific wrestling styles,” he continued. “Everyone has become a much bigger star because of the Inner Circle, including me, because you have a very exciting faction that there’s a reason for. You’ve got a great tag team of street thugs. Sammy Guevara, who’s got that quality about him that people don’t like. He’s also a great looking guy that the girls like-he’s the bad boy, super talented in the ring. He’s become my co-pilot when it comes to promos and stuff. Then you got Jake Hager, who’s an undefeated MMA fighter at this point. We’ve pushed them that way.”
This week’s AEW Dynamite will feature the two semifinal matches in the TNT Championship tournament — Cody Rhodes vs. Darby Allin and Dustin Rhodes vs. Lance Archer.
