Brian Pillman, Jr. is the latest to express frustration about his creative direction in AEW.
Back in July of 2020, Brian Pillman, Jr. and Griff Garrison teamed up to form the Varsity Blonds. They would add Julia Hart to the group in May of 2021, and the trio enjoyed their fair share of popularity in the company.
However, in December of 2021, Hart was the victim of Malakai Black’s dreaded black mist, and she had to wear an eyepatch as a result. She soon adopted a dark and brooding persona, teasing that she might split from her teammates and be coerced to join the House of Black. While it didn’t happen until months later, Julia Hart finally joined House of Black at Double or Nothing in May of 2022.
During a recent appearance on Rene Dupree’s Cafe de Rene podcast, Brian Pillman, Jr. expressed frustration with having Hart removed from their group and even teased that the Varsity Blonds might no longer be a team in any form.
“I mean, its pretty plain as day what happened, you know what I mean. As soon as we lost her, we kind of lost our edge and our spark that made us a good group, a babyface group that could have got over, you know. A lot of what we were going to do with some different spots with her had a lot to do with her cheerleading background and playing to her strengths.
“But somebody came in and decided that they would do better with their group and then that’s just how it goes, you know. I definitely wasn’t happy with it to be quite honest, but it is what it is. It’s not my show. It’s business but I thought maybe that probably what really stopped us from really seeing the true potential The Varsity Blondes was we lost her before we even got going.”
Brian Pillman, Jr. continued, revealing that adding Julia Hart to the group was the first pitch that he got approved during his time in AEW. He also noted that Hart was integral to the group, and losing her from the group was difficult for him.
“Jacksonville and even in Texas when we first hit the road we were really a hot act, because we had her coming out and doing handsprings and stuff and she would do different cheerleading gimmicks with like the signs and then we did the spray tan thing with the Young Bucks. So she was a pretty integral part of our act. So you take that away, and then you just got a couple guys that you know.
“I just remember the first thing I got approved, my first big pitch was having her join us. I got that approved. It’s a great feeling when you pitch a creative idea and it’s greenlit, you know what I mean? Like the bosses are in, and they’re happy with it. So to sort of have that sort of taken apart was kind of rough for me at that point in my career. But I’m very happy with how it turned out. I’m really happy with the moment that she had at the pay-per-view. Very happy with just being in AEW in general.”
While the group was popular and easy to digest for audiences, Brian Pillman, Jr. doesn’t believe the Varsity Blonds was the fullest expression of his creative potential.
“I don’t think The Varsity Blondes was like the fullest creative extension of myself. I don’t think it was. It’s not like I didn’t give a lot of my effort into it. But it was definitely something easy that I felt the crowd would digest easily. And something like Griff could work with because it’s not like me and Griff we’re just going to turn into these evil, dark and mysterious kung fu masters.
“It just made a lot of sense for us to have like a cool generic like rowdy just like jock gimmick. Like just a couple of young guys are getting after it. And it made it easy for us to work with a lot of people and I thought we worked well with a lot of people.”
The House of Black has also undergone changes recently as Malakai Black requested his release from All Elite Wrestling. The star recently took to social media to issue a statement on his AEW exit.
h/t WrestlingNews.co