Chris Jericho Pitched For The Inner Circle To "Respectfully Disband" In AEW

Chris Jericho pitched for The Inner Circle to "respectfully disband" at Double Or Nothing 2021.

The Inner Circle were locked in a rivalry with The Pinnacle heading into the pay-per-view and both factions faced off in Stadium Stampede II.

If The Inner Circle had lost that match, they would have been forced to split up and Chris Jericho revealed to Stephanie Chase that he thought the group should "respectfully disband."

"My idea was for us to respectfully disband and go on our own ways. Tony [Khan] 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," Jericho said.

"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 have been together since the first episode of Dynamite in October 2019. The five members are still together but they are currently involved in different feuds. Chris Jericho and Jake Hager are locked in a storyline with Dan Lambert and Men Of The Year, while Sammy Guevara will challenge Miro for the TNT Title next week. Santana and Ortiz, meanwhile, have re-entered the hunt for the AEW World Tag Team Championship.

H/T to Fightful