10 Things That Didn't Go The Way AEW Wanted

3. The Debut Of Mr. Brodie Lee

The Butcher The Blade The Bunny Cody Rhodes AEW Dynamite
AEW

The late, great Mr. Brodie Lee will forever stand as a key player in the history of All Elite Wrestling, with him correcting the course of the doomed Dark Order, bringing a rarely-seen level of brutality to the company that legitimised the TNT Title, and his tragic passing and the handling of that sad situation being pivotal in CM Punk and Bryan Danielson signing with AEW.

While it was entirely out of everybody's hands, the AEW debut of Brodie didn't go how anybody in AEW had envisioned it.

That debut was meticulously planned to happen in the Rochester, New York hometown of the real-life Jon Huber on the 18 March 2020 episode of AEW Dynamite. Mr. Brodie would indeed debut as the Exalted One on that Dynamite outing, but this unfortunately took place in a completely empty Daily's Place in Jacksonville, Florida.

Of course, the initial plans for the big hometown debut of Mr. Brodie Lee were scuppered by the COVID-19 pandemic. By wretched coincidence, Lee's debut fell on the first Dynamite episode to take place in an entirely empty venue. The world was in shock and uncertainty about the unravelling pandemic, and AEW was left with no choice but to either a) completely cancel all future programming, or b) continue on but have to perform in front of zero fans at Daily's Place.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.