On the latest edition of Talk Is Jericho AEW superstar and former world champion Chris Jericho spoke on a number of different topics, including hyping his 10-man tag matchup at Sunday’s Double or Nothing, and revealing what the original name was going to be for his Jericho Appreciation Society faction. Highlights from the interview are below.
How the Jericho Appreciation Society ended up being formed:
“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.’ It hit me like, ‘Holy shit.’ 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”
Says the group was originally going to be called The Citadel:
“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.”
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)