Max Caster and Anthony Bowens have found a lot of success in AEW as The Acclaimed.
It turns out AEW had been considering using The Acclaimed named for Chris Jericho’s faction, the Inner Circle.
“(Tony Khan) apparently had this idea for a tag team called ‘The Acclaimed’ for a long time,” Caster said to The Sports Generals. “I also heard that it was almost the name of the Inner Circle in AEW. Where he pitched to Chris Jericho, ‘Hey, what if it was Chris Jericho and The Acclaimed, kind of like your band or whatever?’ Because, you know, Chris is a rockstar. They didn’t go for that and Tony, I guess, wanted a tag team called ‘The Acclaimed’.
“And from there, that was just up to us. He goes, ‘Max Caster, Anthony Bowens, you are The Acclaimed’. And we go, ‘Oh great. What’s that?’ And so we sat back and we realized that it makes perfect sense. We are both highly acclaimed professional wrestlers in our areas on the independents. Both me and Anthony had 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’.
“And that’s something that always frustrated us because, you know, it sucks being told, ‘Hey, you don’t belong here, even though you’re the best.’ And actually, we proved everyone right. We got on TV and became everyone’s favorite tag team.”
H/T to Wrestling Inc for the transcription
