AEW Grand Slam numbers were great, but they lost to WWE in a key demographic. Also, Tony Khan convinced Chris Jericho to keep The Inner Circle going.
AEW Grand Slam Numbers
In the end, Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite Grad Slam edition from the Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York City scored 1.273 million viewers and a .48 rating in the18-49 demographic. It ended their two week streak of topping RAW in the key demographic.
RAW was just slightly higher with a .49 in the key demo. Still, it was another big episode of Dynamite for AEW.
The show opened with Bryan Danielson vs. Kenny Omega going to a 30 minute draw. Other highlights saw Sting score a tag team win and Britt Baker kept her title to close the show.
— B/R Wrestling (@BRWrestling) September 23, 2021
AEW Grand Slam numbers saw them at the top of Cable Top 150 this week. It is the fifth week they have been number one on Wednesday nights.
With NXT being on a different night, it has opened AEW to more fans. They will look to continue that momentum with the second half of Grad Slam during tonight’s Rampage.
Talk Of Disbanding The Inner Circle
When AEW debuted on TNT, many thought The Elite would be the top stable. Instead, they had Chris Jericho lead the top group.
The first episode of Dynamite concluded with a new heel faction standing tall. The Inner Circle began as villains, before turning into faces.
Although, their leader, Chris Jericho, wanted to disband the group. It took Tony Khan to convince him that nothing should change.
“My idea was for us to respectfully disband and go on our own ways,” said Jericho to 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.”
Chris Jericho Impressed With The Inner Circle’s Longevity
“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 stable still exists, but they seem to be going in different directions. Feuding with The Pinnacle might be over as MJF and Jericho look for other programs.
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