Max Caster Says ‘The Acclaimed’ Was Originally Pitched To Be Chris Jericho’s Group Name

Plans quite often change in professional wrestling.

Max Caster, alongside teammate Anthony Bowens make-up the second-ranked tag team in All Elite Wrestling, The Acclaimed. However, Caster and Bowens’ team name was originally pitched to be Chris Jericho’s group name, which of course ended up being The Inner Circle.

“This is another Tony Khan idea,” Caster confirmed when appearing on the Sports Generals podcast. “He apparently had this idea for a tag team called The Acclaimed for a long time. I also heard that it was almost the name of The Inner Circle in AEW where he pitched to Chris Jericho, ‘what if it was Chris Jericho and The Acclaimed, like your band,’ since Chris is a rockstar. They didn’t go for that.”

Caster would then delve into how he and Bowens ended up getting the name after Jericho wasn’t interested.

“Tony, I guess, just wanted a tag team called The Acclaimed,” said Caster. “From there, it was just up to us. ‘Max Caster and Anthony Bowens, you are The Acclaimed.’ ‘Oh great, what is that?’ We sat back and realized that it makes perfect sense. We are both highly acclaimed professional wrestlers in our area on the Independents, me and Anthony have very similar paths, which, a lot of people would tell us, ‘You guys are incredible wrestlers, but you just need to be on TV. You don’t fit in on the Independents.’ That’s something that always frustrated us because it sucks being told, ‘You don’t belong here if though you’re the best.’ We proved everyone right. We got on TV and we became everyone’s favorite tag team. We’re highly acclaimed wrestlers and we’re highly acclaimed outside of wrestling. Me with my music, Anthony is a model and actor, he’s in a lot of commercials and he’s a YouTuber. We’re highly acclaimed in multiple fields and that’s really what The Acclaimed is at its core. Now, people want to hear what I say and want to see Anthony superkick people in the face and they want to see me drop the elbow and win.”

The Acclaimed last appeared on AEW programming on the 1/19 edition of AEW Dynamite where Caster and Bowens came up short in their bid to defeat Sting and Darby Allin. However both Caster and Bowens have appeared on several episodes of both Dark and Dark: Elevation since their last appearance on Dynamite.