Reinvigorated as a heel, Jericho soaks in the 'Appreciation'

The one constant in the 30-plus-year career of Chris Jericho has been change.

Forever reinventing his character and presentation, Jericho once again embarked on something new this past March in the formation of the Jericho Appreciation Society (JAS), a new heel faction that has embraced the “sports entertainment” aspect of professional wrestling, something that rankles the All Elite Wrestling fan base.

For Jericho, the new direction represented a logical progression of his character.

“I would like to say that I sit down with a pen and paper and write down a year’s worth of ideas and material and it’s all genius and it all comes together exactly the way I planned, but it’s not like that,” Jericho told TSN.ca. “You’ve just got to go with the flow and read the room and see where you’re at week by week and go where the story takes you. You let the story lead you, rather than try to lead the story.”

After a lengthy run as heels, the Inner Circle, the faction formed on the very first edition of Dynamite in 2019, turned babyface in the spring of 2021. By the end of the year and into the beginning of 2022, Jericho found himself feuding with fellow popular babyface Eddie Kingston. Friends with Inner Circle members Santana and Ortiz, Kingston began to tell the duo that Jericho was holding them back. As the feud progressed, it appeared as if Jericho and Kingston were going to have to join forces to take on the crew of Daniel Garcia and 2point0 (Montreal’s Matt Menard and Angelo Parker), who had started terrorizing the both of them.

Jericho confirms that it was indeed the intended plan.

“I saw Eddie Kingston, and much like I did with Orange Cassidy, MJF, Sammy Guevara or any of the guys I was working with over the past couple of