10 Forgotten AEW Wrestlers You Totally Don't Remember
8. Mel
Do you remember The Nightmare Collective headed by Brandi Rhodes? The group could be considered one of AEW's worst ideas, certainly in terms of how it was executed on television. Brandi and Awesome Kong were joined by Luther and then Mel as members. Pretty much everything they did played before crickets.
Mel was indie veteran Melanie Cruise. She worked just 5 matches for All Elite in 2020, but debuted on Dynamite as an enforcer for the Collective at the tail end of 2019. Fans relentlessly bashed the whole thing online; it was clear to everyone watching shows that Brandi's stable just wasn't going to fly.
So, Mel bowed out with a squash match win over Red Velvet on the 25 August 2020 edition of Dark. She'd managed one Dynamite bout: A tag-team effort with Rhodes vs. Hikaru Shida and Kris Statlander on 15 January. This was a nondescript and unsatisfying flirt with the big time for Cruise, to say the least.
She hasn't wrestled since 2022.