Cody Rhodes, AEW’s Executive Vice President, has revealed the original plan for the unveiling of the late Jon ‘Brodie Lee’ Huber.
When the artist formerly known as Luke Harper was granted his WWE release in 2020, it seemed inevitable that he would be unmasked as ‘The Exalted One’. The leader of The Dark Order who the group had been teasing since AEW’s inception.
The prophecy came true on the March 18, 2020, episode of AEW Dynamite in a video package in which he was revealed as the group’s leader.
However, plans – including the star’s debut – were meant to be very different with AEW’s scheduled show in Rochester, New York, cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic meaning that the way the company wanted to debut him – in the style of a popular American sitcom – had to alter completely.
Cody Rhodes joined Talk Is Jericho to discuss Jon Huber, how his entire AEW career was at Daily’s Place and the original plan for his big unveiling:
“That guy, his entire AEW career was in this building, in Daily’s Place. Think about that. He never appeared in front of a crowd except for our small crowds here. The one that really pisses us off is that Rochester show. I don’t know if anyone knows this, but he was going to come up out of the ramp like the monster in ‘The Munsters’.”
While Lee’s scheduled AEW debut was set to be more enigmatic than it originally played out, no one can deny that the video package which revealed him was also a job well done.
Jon ‘Brodie Lee’ Huber passed away on December 26, 2020, of a non-COVID related lung issue.
Credit for the interview: Talk Is Jericho
h/t for the transcription: Wrestling Inc.