10 Ways AEW Has Listened To Its Audience
8. Scrapping The Nightmare Collective
Much like the Dark Order, the Nightmare Collective was an instant channel-changer for many AEW fans during the early months of AEW Dynamite. In fact, Brandi Rhodes' group was actually an even bigger turn-off than the Dark Order - which, when considering how slammed the Dark Order was back then, says a hell of a lot.
Complete with awful vignettes, we saw Brandi leading Awesome Kong, Mel and Dr. Luther in a brooding, dark cult-like faction that had Rhodes carrying around a knife in order to cut off chunks of people's hair. Added to this, Brandi would then often be positioned as the babyface wife at Cody's side during these exact same shows.
It made no sense, it came across as hokey, and the group lost any semblance of slight interest when Awesome Kong departed. Even after Kong's exit, though, the Nightmare Collective was still a regular part of Dynamite and Dark for a good while.
Mercifully, the Nightmare Collective was quietly pulled from all AEW programming in February of this year.
In subsequent interviews, Brandi has revealed that the Nightmare Collective was never meant to be what it became. Originally, she was just to manage Awesome Kong. Once it became clear that Kong could no longer work a full schedule, the idea of Mel joining the group came about as a way to limit Kong's physicality. As for Luther? F**k knows...