A Detailed History of the ECW Dudley Boyz

This is a script for a video on my Youtube channel, which you can find here: https://youtu.be/tHUqfGk2Qhs

When I bring up the subject of the Dudley Boyz, I'm sure an image like this first comes to mind. Bubba Ray, D-Von and maybe Spike, but how much do you know about the original members of the group who only appeared in ECW, and it's unique backstory? In this video I'm going to take you through all of the original large wrestling family that Paul Heyman was involved with. Think of it as his training for the bloodline, with a lot less tye dye.

1 Big Daddy Dudley

Our story begins with the family's patriarch, the entirely fictional Daddy Dudley, who travelled the US presumably around the the 1960's and 70's given the age range of his offspring, working as a salesman. Think of him as a sort of Ray Croc figure, but spreading something else instead of milkshake machines. Big Daddy Dudley is said to have lived an interesting to put it one way life on the road, having fathered children across the US which we'll get back to in a little while.

This brings up many questions as to where the fictitious Dudleyville might actually be. Actually, a few things bring this question up, like why did Bubba Ray used to talk with a southern accent but later became as New York as they come? If you google this you find a few different answers like the actual town of Dudleyville which is in Arizona, and they were also at one point billed 'from the hills of Charleston Pennsylvania. I personally always assumed Dudleyville was supposed to be like Springfield in the Simpsons, in that it's geography just matches whatever is needed in that particular moment.

Despite the origins of each forthcoming Dudley being ambiguous, they are mostly linked by the same features. Glasses held together by tape, a love of tye dye and denim overalls. Many of the characters we're about to talk about have been credited to Raven, Tommy Dreamer and Taz, All of whom had influence behind the scenes in ECW.

2 Dudley Dudley

Now we get to the first of the real life Dudley's with Dudley Dudley, real name Jeff Bradley. Trained by Dean Makenko and his father Boris, Jeff has wrestled under many names such as Charlie Hunter, Man Mountain Kong and weirdly, a chef character called Evil Snack. He started wrestling in 1993 before joining ECW in 95, wrestling twice against Taz under the Evil Snack name before debuting as Dudley Dudley in his next appearance. 

Dudley was in storyline the only Dudley brother born within wedlock, and so considered himself the purest Dudley. Dudley. He wrestled seventeen matches under the gimmick, thirteen of which being losses before leaving ECW in October of the same year. From there Bradley worked as enhancement talent for WWE and WCW as he had also done before ECW, and wrestled a fair bit for Florida based IPW Hardcore for the next few years. Another interesting thing to note is that post ECW he was also a trainer at a wrestling school of Dean Makenko, and had a hand in the training of a young Glenn Jacobs who went on to be Kane, Molly Holly, and ECW star Tony Mamaluke. He also helped train the Johnson's, the skin coloured tights wearers from early days of TNA. You can't win em' all... Bradley's in ring career wrapped up in 2009, but as a nod to his trainers his final two matches in 2010 and 2013 would be battle royal appearances at an annual event held in honour of Boris Malenko.

3 Snot Dudley

Next we get to Snot Dudley, real name Michael Deek. Like Jeff Bradley Deek also entered wrestling in 1993, trained by former WCW and WWE wrestler Tim Horner. As you can likely guess by the name, there didn't seem to be much to the Snot gimmick, other than he would often be seen picking his nose. I wonder how much input Raven might have had in this, given that especially during his grunge era, one of Raven's trademark spots would be to use what he called a 'snot rag' as a weapon. Around this time the Dudley's were often used as lackeys for Raven before he later had a flock of his own. Before ECW Deek would wrestle mainly for Jim Cornette's Smokey Mountain Wresting using the name Anthony Michaels, but also as one of the Masked Infernos, sometimes as both on the same night. Hope you paid him twice Corny.

Snot would debut for ECW at Hardcore Heaven 1995, teaming with Dudley Dudley also making his in ring debut in a 6 minute loss to the Pitbulls. Unfortunately for Deek though, he would only wrestle one more match for ECW two weeks later at Heat Wave, this time a loss teaming with Raven to the Pitbulls and Tommy Dreamer. Following this Deek would be involved in a jet ski accident, though in storyline ECW claimed that the Pitbulls had injured him in the match.

Following his accident it would take Deek sixteen months to return to wrestling, spending the next few years working mainly in Florida, still using the Snot Dudley name and teaming with a wrestler called Schmuck Dudley, real name Jeff Roth who never actually worked for ECW so is technically a non canon Dudley. Bet you didn't know that was a thing did you? Kind of like all the fake Doink's that were also spreading like herpes in the 90's.

Anyway, Snot would drop the Dudley name in July of 1999, not long before Bubba and D-Von joined WWE. This may have been due to WWE trademarking the name, which annoyingly nobody in ECW thought to do, resulting in the name change to Team 3D when Brother Ray and Brother Devon (spelled differently for legal reasons, arrived in TNA in 2005. The former Snot wrestled as Anthony Michaels until 2013 on the indie scene, but would wrestle occasional matches until 2020 for Connecticut based Test of Strength Wrestling.

As best I can tell Deek's one and only match for a national promotion came on the March 13th 2007 episode of ECW on Scifi, when he and another wrestler would lose a thirty second squash match to Gene Snitsky.

4 Big Dick Dudley

Born in 1968, Alaxander Rizzo was the oldest of the Dudley clan, well the oldest real one at least. He entered wrestling in the late 80's, trained by WWE hall of famer and legendary enhancement talent Johnny Rodz at the same time as Taz. Rodz would go on to train many more successful wrestlers including Tommy Dreamer, Bubba Ray and D-Von Dudley.

Billed as 6"7 and 320 pounds, Rizzo would wrestle on East Coast indies under the name Alexander the Great before being recruited to join the Dudley clan in 1995. He would join the group in August and would gradually take an outside the ring leadership role after Dudley Dudley's departure. Later on when Bubba and D-Von became the stars of the group, Dick would always be seen in the background, assisting them in their many ECW tag title reigns. The three of them would come to be the figureheads of the heel version of the group once the more comedic Dudleys had gone. During his time in ECW Rizzo's highest profile match would be the only pay per view match in his career, incidentally on one of ECW's most beloved events ever, Heat Wave 1998. In the main event of the night Bubba, D-Von and Big Dick would lose in a street fight to Spike Dudley, The Sandman and Tommy Dreamer.

While on the surface Big Dick Dudley appeared content to stand behind his on screen brothers, in reality Alex Rizzo grew more and more unhappy at not getting any opportunities for himself. This would cause a dispute with Paul Heyman over the direction of his push, and in 1999 Rizzo would leave ECW over it. 

Perhaps in an attempt to further slight Heyman, Rizzo would join West coast based Xtreme pro Wrestling even becoming their World champion. XPW being the the massively controversial promotion owned by Rob Black, which had been born from Black's own story of feeling slighted by Paul Heyman. The promotion was in brief, an attempt to recreate and surpass what ECW was doing, thus Black would look to book as many Paul Heyman guys as possible, likely jumping at the chance to steal Big Dick Dudley, who continued to wrestle under that name until the end of his career.

Sadly in May of 2002 Rizzo would pass away in his own home at the age of 34. The cause of death was claimed to be Kidney failure, possibly brought on by an addiction to painkillers.

5 Dances with Dudley

I apologise for the abrupt shift in tone now as we move on, but the next Dudley on the list was one of the more comical of the group, the brilliantly named Dances with Dudley. DW or Chief Dudley for short was brought into ECW in 1995 to replace Snot following his jet ski accident. In canon he was the result of Daddy Dudley's exploits in Cheyanne Oklahoma which is where the fun and games end, as Cheyanne is commonly associated with the battle of Washita River in 1868, which makes for some fascinating but bleak reading by the way.

To be fair, the man who portrayed Dances with Dudley Adolfo Bermudez did also hail from Oklahoma. He debuted in wrestling in 1992 using the name White Cloud, teaming with a wrestler going by Dancing Wolf as the Sioux War Party. Dancing Wolf would go on to have a much longer career, still wrestling today as Prince Al Farat. In his ECW run Bermudez' would only wrestle on tv twice, and would twice challenge for the ECW tag titles, losing to both the Pitbulls and Mikey Whipwreck and Cactus Jack. He would allegedly leave ECW on bad terms following a dispute with Paul Heyman, and would continue to use the gimmick under the radar until his retirement. Right after leaving ECW he would complete a tour with Big Japan Wrestling, where he would even compete in some death matches.

In the latter years of his career Bermudez would work in smaller US indies largely in the New York area, before retiring from the ring in 2004. According to a 2020 article by Ring the Damn Bell, Adolfo now loves in Long Island and has works a city job.

6 Chubby Dudley

Next we have another of the more eccentric Dudley's, Chubby Dudley played by Bay Ragni. Bay had competed in Todd Gordons original Eastern Championship Wrestling, the precursor to Heymans Extreme version as EZ Ryder as early as 1992, and had debuted on the indie circuit a year earlier 

Seems to have only wrestled sporadically, and said on 'perched on the top rope' podcast last year that he left because he wasn't happy with how little he got to wrestle, and also claimed that Taz threatened him for using the Dudley name outside ECW.

Aside from his time in ECW, Bay Ragni had a hand in promoting Liberty All Star Wrestling from 94-2002, almost as long as ECW existed, while wrestling sporadically under the EZ Ryder name until 2005. I'd also like to draw your attention to Bay's fairly new YouTube channel, React and Chill with Chubby Dudley', where he reacts to old mostly ECW footage.

7 Sign Guy Dudley (Lou D'Angeli)

I promise you, Bubba Ray and D-Von are up soon, but this is an interesting one. Sign Guy Dudley, real name Lou D'Angeli, began life as a pro Dudley's plant in the crowd. He would dress like the Dudleys and carry signs before eventually being introduced as part of the family. Despite being in the background of many a famous Dudley Boyz promo, he would never ever speak a word, only communicating through his signs. The in storyline reason for this was that Sign Guy was born of Daddy Dudley's time in an insane asylum, according to Dudley Dudley.

Sign guy never actually wrestled as a Dudley but had 2 matches later in ECW as Lou E. Dangerously, a blatant parody of Paul Heyman hinting at his old WCW name Paul E. Dangerously. Post ECW not being an active wrestler Lou would make occasional appearance as a manager, but in a first for this channel my resource for his latter day career comes from Lou's LinkedIn page. He worked for a few years in WWE's marketing department before spending eleven years working for Cirque du Soleil. During this time not mentioned on his LinkedIn, he was also attached to Chicago based Resistance Pro Wrestling, the oft forgotten first attempt of Billy Corgan to get into the wrestling business. In an interesting turn of events, Lou currently works as vice president of marketing for Anthem entertainment, the company that essentially saved Impact Wrestling.

Joel Gertner

I know you're likely waiting for me to get on with it at this point, but there is another man who deserves to be acknowledged in this video. A man of many nicknames, the most relevant being Studdly Dudley. It is he, the quintessential studmuffin, Joel Gertner. Joel entered the wrestling business in 1992 as a heel ring announcer. According to Joel himself he took a few classes at a wrestling school but knew the in ring life wouldn't be for him, using them to get a foot in the door.

Gertner would arrive in ECW in 1995 as a ring announcer, notable for introducing luchador's in perfect Spanish. He would also make fun of some of the babyfaces in his introductions, and they would make him pay for it. At Barely Legal 97, ECW's first pay per view, While announcing for the Dudley's he would take the Eliminators finisher, total elimination, a leg sweep head kick combination. From this day on for the rest of his career Joel would wear a neck brace following this move. Joel would eventually become the personal ring announcer for the Dudleys, adding a whole new colourfully flavour to their presentation, announcing D-Von specifically as as slim, trim, buff, cut, rough, chiselled and jacked.

Joel was never afraid of saying the filthiest one liners he could, which eventually turned him face with the ECW crowd, none of which I can give examples of on YouTube. Once Bubba, D-Von and Big Dick left in 99, Joel joined the previously solo voice of ECW Joey Styles on commentary. The two played off each other in an interesting way, with Joey being the clean cut announcer while Joel tried his best to be funny. Joel also became known for insanely dirty limericks while introducing himself on ECW pay per views. Maybe his best work in ECW was his ongoing feud with Cyrus the Virus, now known as Don Callis, eventually leading to a match between the two at Anarchy Rulz 2000, where Joel would defeat the network's stooge.

Since ECW closed Joel has made occasional tv appearances but seems to have continued on the indie level. In the early days of TNA he managed a tag team called the Rainbow Express. A short lived clearly gay tag team designed to draw heat from the Huntsville Alabama crowds. Thankfully society has moved on since those days. Joel also appeared on ECW One night stand 2005, approaching Eric Bischoff in his skybox and begging for a job, only for Eric to reject him. Ever since Joel has continued to make indie appearances and has had a run in podcasting.

8 Buh Buh Ray

Alright, we're finally here. Bubba Ray Dudley, born Mark LoMonaco, who would become the Dudley to wrestle the most matches with over two thousand on record, and the only Dudley still actively wrestling as of this video being made.

Bubba Ray was trained by Johnny Rodz who I mentioned earlier in 1991, and pre-ECW would have a biker gimmick, wrestling under the name Mongo Vyle. In late 1995 he would receive a tryout for ECW, in which he would act as a bodyguard for Bill Alfonso, and would take a chokeslam from 911, a rite of passage of sorts in early ECW. From here Mark would be hired and a month later he would first appear as the stuttering redneck Bubba Ray, though his first ECW TV match would occur in January 96. His name came from the stuttering gimmick he debuted with, which he stopped doing later when the group would become more serious heels, but briefly brought it back in his early WWE run. The stuttering act is also why you sometimes see his name spelled phonetically as 'Buh buh' Ray, as the name was meant to be a pun on his stutter.

Originally the Dudleys were heel lackeys for Raven but they would leave Raven in early 1996. Bubba would come around at a time when they were more becoming fun babyfaces, and would even dance in the ring. Anyone who was surprised and confused by Bubba's brief dancing gimmick in 2002 WWE when he and D-Von separated by the draft clearly never saw his ECW early work. It does make me laugh to think back to how in storyline, Bubba reacted to the enforced split by becoming a dancer and D-Von handled it by becoming an evil reverend. Wrestling writers...

The fun, comical direction the Dudley's had grown into would be the set up for D-Von to come in and change the dynamic again. I'll talk more about this when I get to D-Von next, but I'd be remiss if I left out Bubba's God given talent for drawing hatred from any crowd he stood in front of with a microphone in the late 90's. Bubba would cross any line he could to goad fans into a frenzy in his pre-match promos. The most famous of these was at the Heat Wave 99 pay per view, where Bubba incensed the crowd with such a vulgar promo that many thought a riot might happen. I can't quote much of it here but the unedited promo still exists on the UK version of the WWE Network, so I assume it's on Peacock too. A lesser talked about promo from Bubba led to a fan actually jumping from the balcony of the Manhattan Centre to try and get to fight Bubba. Even back then the future Bully Ray knew how to win enemies, and certainly influence people.

9 D-Von

To quote another ECW icon Taz, the mood is about to change, as we now get to D-Von Dudley. Much like Bubba Ray, Devon Hughes would be trained by Johnny Rodz and would enter wrestling in 1991. He would begin his career using the name A-Train (not that one), even in his ECW tryout, a tag team loss to the Pitbulls in March 1996. One month later he would make his debut as D-Von Dudley, a character inspired by Samuel L Jackson's bible quoting hitman character in Pulp Fiction. A little bit of this persisted in D-Vons character through the years, Oh my brother, Testify.

Unlike his brothers, D-Von had no comedic edge to him at all and he appeared to be disgusted by his brothers' antics, which would lead him to feud with Bubba Ray through 96, culminating in a match at the November to Remember pay per view where Bubba would win. On the way to this match at an event called Fight the Power on June 1st 1996, D-Von would attack Bubba, as well as Chubby and Dances with Dudley, taking the latter two out of the group, and making Bubba into a more serious competitor.

On February 1st 1997 at Crossing the Line again, Bubba Ray would turn heel on the last remaining Dudley I haven't got to yet, forming the new serious heel version of the group with D-Von, Big Dick and their manager Joel Gertner. Bubba and D-Von would hit Spike with what would become one of the most famous tag team finishers ever, up there with Demolition Decapitation and the Road Warriors' doomsday device, the Dudley Death Drop, more commonly known as the 3D. Talking to Chris Van Vleit, Bubba Ray would claim that he was inspired by watching a WCW match between Dean Malenko and Rey Mysterio in which Dean launched Rey into the air, and that made him wonder what would happen if you added a Diamond Cutter on the way down. I'm paraphrasing by the way, he explains it much better. He also noted that Spike served as the crash test dummy for the move, taking it over and over in training until they perfected it.

While battling with Spike throughout the next two years D-Von and Bubba would also win a record setting eight ECW tag team championships between 1997 and 1999. The two would go on to win essentially every tag title they ever competed for over the next decade. In late 1999 just as ECW had gained it's TNN deal, the Dudley's and Taz were signed to WWE. Three of ECW's biggest stars who were very much missed once they left. I won't go into their post ECW career's here as this video could go on for hours, but their legend only grew after leaving ECW.

10 Little Spike Dudley (LSD, get it?)

Finally we get to the runt of the litter, Little Spike Dudley. Let's get this out of the way early on, Little Spike Dudley was not just the smallest Dudley, but also got his name as an acronym. I'll let you do the Steiner maths from there. 

Matt Hyson, born in Rhode Island and already working as a school teacher, would make the trek to California to train in wrestling with APW in 1993 at the age of 23. APW by the way is one of the promotions featured in the 1999 film Beyond the Mat, especially featuring a wrestler Hyson worked this, Michael Modest. He would train initially as a manager and referee presumably due to his size as wrestlers the idea that pro wrestlers should be as big as houses was still prevalent until the mid- 90's. Regardless Hyson soon began training to wrestle too, working mostly on California indies.

He would arrive in ECW in September 1996, immediately teaming with Bubba Ray, though his TV debut would come in December as part of a battle royal. As Little Spike Dudley he would enter ECW as a fan favourite, seen to be the runt of the litter, later referenced in his TNA name Brother Runt.

In February 97 things would drastically change for Spike, as Bubba would turn to the dark side of the Dudley's by joining D-Von and attacking Spike, leading to two years of brutal matches with Spike and various partners facing Bubba and D-Von. For one typical example of how brutal this feud got, search out the particularly violent match involving New Jack at Guilty as Charged 1999.

During this time when not warring with his brothers, Spike also gained a reputation as the Giant Killer, sometimes defeating much larger men than himself. Spike even earned a shocking victory over former ECW World Champion Bam Bam Bigelow. The two would also be part of an iconic ECW moment on September 23rd 1997 at an event called As good as it gets, where Bam Bam would gorilla press Spike above his head, and launch him over ringside into the crowd. Instead of carefully escorting Spike to the ground like good, caring citizens, the ECW faithful would proceed to body surf the 150 pound Dudley around the building.

Spike's giant killer reputation would eventually lead to a trilogy of the most aggressive ECW World title matches ever, starring at Guilty as Charged 2000 where Spike would challenge ECW champion Mike Awesome. The three World title matches were stunning, and I detailed them further on another video on this channel.

When Bubba and D-Von left in late 1999 Spike and new partner Balls Mahoney would get the final win over his brothers to prevent them from taking the ECW tag titles to WWE. Spike would stick around until the end of ECW, spending much of that time as the on screen commissioner while nursing a broken leg, though this didn't stop him from getting into the action every now and again.

When ECW closed it's doors in 2001, Spike was one of the ones left behind at the end. On the final ECW show from Pine Bluff Arkansas, Spike would lose in an ECW World title match against Rhino.two months later on the March 19th 2001 Raw, Spike would make his WWE debut, helping Bubba Ray and D-Von beat Edge and Christian for the tag team titles.

So that's all the original Dudley Boys. There were also some one time deals and knock off's such as the Bushwackers being honorary Dudley's, but I've talked about all the main ECW ones. Let's talk about the future now. As far as I'm aware, there are only two next generation Dudley's wrestling today, Terrence and Terrell Hughes, the sons of D-Von Dudley.

Terrence and Terrell (not really but they're D-Vons kids)

Terrence and Terrell were sometimes seen on AEW Dark during the pandemic era Daily's Place shows. Since then they have wrestled for indies under the name TNT, with their highest profile match being a first round Crockett Cup loss for NWA. They were trained by Bubba and D-Von at the Team 3D Academy, the alumni of which includes current indie stars Trish Adora, Parrow and Kilynn King.

Looking at their Cagematch stats they're somewhat active, wrestling thirteen matches this year which is about one every two weeks, more than the seven they had throughout 2022. They did it seems for a few years wrestle under the Dudley name but they seem to prefer going by their given names, making a future Dudley reboot unlikely, but maybe not impossible...

Are brand sponsored matches good or bad?

This is a script for a video on my YouTube channel. You can find the full video: Here

On Saturday a lot of my twitter feed was either laughing at or bemoaning the announcement of an upcoming AEW match sponsored by the Texas Chainsaw Massacre video game, including of all people Jeff Jarrett and Jeff Hardy. Why they haven't included Chuck Taylor, the man who originally introduced the chainsaw to AEW last year is beyond me. This is the latest in a recent trend of specific matches having sponsorships attached to them, with some being more successful than others. Brand sponsorships are no new thing in wrestling, with every Wrestlemania in recent memory being announced as 'presented by Snickers'.

At both Wrestlemania and Summerslam this year, WWE had some brand sponsored matches where the only real difference was on screen ads for the product, as well as ads on the LED barricades and ring apron. While these might have taken some getting used to, they are fairly harmless once you can focus on the match. They also kind of remind me of any time I've tried to watch Lucha Libre, and am completely distracted by adverts, usually for petrol it seems, playing on the big screen behind the action. Sometimes though the brand has more influence on the match itself, to some fairly mixed results.

Admittedly this was less of a brand deal and more a part of a match, but at this years Wrestlemania KSI entered wearing a giant Prime bottle costume for his mate Logan's match with Seth Rollins. One thing I couldn't stop noticing was that the fans behind KSI couldn't see the ring for most of the match as he largely stood in place waiting for his moment to interfere, leading to him showing some classic British politeness, by kneeling down so the fans could see better.

A more egregious example of a brand deal getting too involved came at Backlash 2201, when the Miz faced Damien Priest in a match sponsored by 'Army of the Dead' a film starring Dave Batista. With WWE shows still taking place in the Thunderdome, WWE could pull tricks that you couldn't necessarily in front of a live crowd. Before the opening bell an army of zombies arrived from all angles of the arena, trapping Miz, John Morrison and Damien at ringside, leading to the two opponents having to fight them off together. The match played out sort of like a reverse lumberjack match, where ordinarily the aim would be to throw the wrestlers back into the ring, while these Zombies would try and drag them out. Once Damien won the match, this apparently allowed the zombies into the ring, where they would devour a prone Miz. Suffice to say Miz wasn't out of action for long, therefore not selling his zombie attack injuries.

There have, to be fair been some occasions where a brand being involved in a match has worked out way better than anyone expected. One that sticks out in my mind being Sami Zayn versus Johnny Knoxville at Wrestlemania 38 night 2. While this match wasn't explicitly promoted as sponsored by the recently released Jackass Forever movie, it played out like a clear nod to many of the more famous aspects of Jackass through the years, even including comical weapons never before seen in a WWE ring that I won't spoil here as if you haven't seen this match you should for yourself. This match was regarded at the time to be one of the highlights of a Wrestlemania weekend that also featured the long awaited in ring return of Stone Cold Steve Austin. Thats high praise.

Of course, AEW has also had it's up's and downs with sponsorships. Perhaps the most infamous one being the barbed wire everywhere shark cage match from the July 20th 2022 episode of AEW Dynamite. The match featured Eddie Kingston and Chris Jericho settling their lengthy and violent feud, but members of the Jericho Appreciation society were also held captive in a shark cage in the crowd. Shark cages have had a long history in wrestling going back decades, in which usually a heel manager or ally of a participant in the match would be suspended over the ring or placed on the entranceway in a small cage to prevent them from interfering, but this was AEW's first and hopefully last try with the gimmick, which they were doing as part of promoting Shark Week, another Turner property. The match itself was a spectacle, but things fell apart when Anna Jay and Tay Melo attacked the keeper of the key Ruby Soho, lowering the cage to the ground and attempting to bail their faction out. The problem came when Tay couldn't unlock the door, causing the JAS to have to slip through the bars, nearly missing their cue and making the whole thing look bad. Thankfully this year AEW promoted Shark Week less gimmicky, by having a dude in a shark costume. Annoyingly though former WCW and TNA wrestler Shark Boy was backstage, but didn't appear on television. he could have at least made a cameo to give us a shell yeah or something.

AEW has had some fairly effective cross promotions as well to be fair. On the October 30th 2019 Halloween episode of AEW Dynamite, an episode weirdly sponsored by of all things Rick and Morty. The Best Friends would come out for their match with QT Marshall, a pre Dark order Alex Reynolds and John Silver in Rick and Morty costumes, being announced by co-creator of the show Justin Roiland. The crowd were also included in this, all being given Rick or Morty masks to wear. Given the eccentric nature of the Best Friends' personalities, with Trent at this time having a question mark in his name, so I guess it should be Trent? As this was essentially an enhancement match it and the cross promotion were largely inoffensive and never really referenced again.

In a similar but less comical way the August 17th 2022 edition of the programme would be tied in with HBO Max's House of the Dragon. The main event on this night was tied in with the American Dragon Bryan Danielson taking on the up and coming Daniel Garcia, in a match that Garcia would eventually win, and he continues to use the 'dragon slayer' moniker to this day. This is by far the least gimmicky of all the examples I have detailed, but it goes to show that a brand can have a loose association, and doesn't have to be too involved.

Which brings me to the extreme opposite of this, the Mountain Dew pitch black match, which took place at this years Royal Rumble event. I think the reason this match is so reviled by many but admittedly not all fans, is that it represents a bit of a letdown for what a lot of fans wanted from Bray Wyatt's comeback, which very much a whole separate discussion. This was to be Brays first televised match since rejoining the company, which in itself carried a lot of expectation, but despite the best efforts of he and his opponent LA Knight, many weren't impressed by the result. Going into the show WWE didn't inform us what a Mountain Dew Pitch Black match actually was, leaving us all to speculate. What it became, was a hardcore match with some sort of UV light effect, with Wyatt wearing luminous body paint to stand out and Knight wearing neon glowing ring gear. I saw the match live but I honestly couldn't tell you if it was good or not because my only memory was being distracted by the lighting. WWE has never learned that nothing good comes with messing with the lighting during a match, from Sin Cara's mood lighting to the early Fiend matches being almost unwatchable. It didn't help that the post match angle included a botch for the ages, as Knight who was laid on essentially a large box in the crowd was supposed to be driven through it by an air bound Uncle Howdy, only for fan footage to show that Howdy completely missed Knight, who had to awkwardly roll into the hole. The only slither of silver lining from all of this seemed to be that LA Knight was applauded for his role in it, which may have played a part in building the wave of popularity he seems to be riding right now.

It seems to me looking at all of these examples that brand sponsorships can have a place, but they can also look bad when incorporated into the match too much. If a product or brand is idly present while a match is taking place it seem like a win for the promotion and the brand, and no loss for a viewer. As a gamer myself, I had no idea a Texas Chainsaw Massacre game was even in development, so for anyone like me it's fair to say this cross promotion was in some way successful, because now I am. I see the Jarrett vs Hardy match ending up just being a typical hardcore match with faction members brawling everywhere and Hardy at some point doing something crazy. Hopefully not jumping off a tall thing though as I'd rather not see him do that anymore. Although, Jarrett did in his promo tease that Leatherface might show up, so I guess we should still be a little worried that we might have another Robocop in WCW on our hands.

Given how they are clearly lucrative at not much financial cost, I don't see brand deals tie ins going away. I also don't see it as a bad thing, as long as promotions don't take it too far. Have I missed an example I should have considered? What do you think of these brand sponsored matches? Let me know in the comment section.

Rebuilding the Dark Order

This is a script for a video on my YouTube channel, you can find the video version here: https://youtu.be/jFRl5DuZnro

Like them or not, The Dark Order has had one of the more interesting histories of all of AEW's stables. The group started with just Stu Grayson and Evil Uno as a heelish cult that recruited disenchanted losers to do their bidding. Early in their run the group was almost scrapped entirely after one disastrous angle with the Elite which nearly killed the entire gimmick. On the final Dynamite of 2019, the group and their masked goons known as creepers would attack the Elite, Cody and Dustin Rhodes. The lowest point would come when fan footage would show one creeper throwing the worst worked punches ever caught on camera making the group look even worse. According to Evil Uno on AEW's Unrestricted podcast these creepers were local trainees, and often weren't up to the task of performing on such a big stage.

After a rethink of what the group should be, their fortunes would be turned around by the addition of Mr. Brodie Lee. The Exalted One's presence seemed to spark a new life into the group, even achieving the groups one and only championship to this day when the group would destroy Cody for the TNT championship. After Brodie's passing the group embarked on a babyface run, even being an important part of Hangman Page's rise to the World championship, but nowadays the group seems to have fallen off the radar a it, and has also lost several of it's members.

In order of their Dark Order rankings, number two Stu Grayson was released, rehired, and defected from the group to join the Righteous in Ring of Honor. Number 5 Alan Angels was released and is now in Impact Wrestling. 8, Colt Cabana hasn't been seen with the group since last August. 10, Preston Vance  is now in Los Faction Ingobernales, and number 99, Anna Jay is with the Jericho Appreciation Society, or she still is while I'm making this video at least...

Currently the group only consists of Evil Uno, Jon Silver and Alex Reynolds, but in a recent interview Uno teased that they might be looking to expand their ranks very soon, perhaps leading to a Dark Order 2.0. With that said I'm doing another fantasy booking list of a few wrestlers who I feel could breathe some new life into the Dark Order. This time though I'm going to include some wrestlers who aren't in AEW and some more unlikely choices, and I'd love to know who you would add whether from AEW or not and why in the comments below.

1. The Calling

MLW to me is one of those promotion that I'd love to follow more closely if I had time, but one group that has taken my interest as of late has been The Calling, a group not that dissimilar to the Dark order to begin with, but with more of a violent edge to it. Led by Raven, the main wrestlers of the group so far are indie veteran Rickey Shane Page and Akira. Page in particular has worked enhancement matches for AEW in the past, even wrestling Paul White on an Arthur Ashe stadium episode of Dark Elevation. Page is 20 years into his wrestling career, and has wrestled all over the independent scene in that time. Akira has spent much less time at only 5 years into his career, but has wrestled for many promotions, with his biggest exposure probably being MLW and GCW. Both Akira and Rickey Shane Page are no strangers to death matches, giving the group it's violent tendencies.

The group also includes Ring of Honor mainstay and former booker Delirious. With twenty two years of in ring experience Delirious is the most experienced active member of the group, not including it's leader who doesn't wrestle anymore. Known for his babbling incoherent promos and going crazy when the opening bell rang, Delirious entered Ring of Honor in 2003, and stayed with the company throughout until it's 2021 closure. Speaking of Ring of Honor, we could maybe even include the Calling's newest member, former ROH trainee Mandy Leon. Rounding out the group is the mysteriously masked Doctor Cornwallis, who also wrestled under the name Dax. He was trained by Jay Lethal and is as best I can tell the least experienced member of the group. The five are all capable wrestlers who could really create a different feel to the Dark Order than we have seen. Evil Uno has in promos implied that losing so many members has made them soft. We also know he considers Hangman a traitor to their family, so what if he decided to go back to the groups more vicious recruitment style to make sure nobody leaves again?

I mentioned Raven before and theres a little bit of history to him and the Dark Order too. Back in early 2020 when AEW were teasing the arrival of 'the exalted one' who turned out to be Mr. Brodie Lee, where were a few rumours about who the ominous Dark order would be. Some were woven into AEW storylines such as Christopher Daniels playing off his old Fallen Angel character and the long held rumour that he was at one point intended to be the Higher Power of the WWF's Corporate Ministry back in 99. Other rumoured names were simply just that such as Matt Hardy who at the time was believed to be joining the company soon, and actually did on the same episode as Brodie Lee. AEW also made an effort to swerve viewers with easter eggs, one of which occurred on the February 19th 2020 episode of Dynamite, when Raven could be seen sitting in the crowd watching the show, much like he would in his WCW days as leader of the Flock. Maybe Raven could tie back into the Dark Order after all this time, or maybe RSP and Akira, neither one a stranger to death matches, could take the group darker than they ever have been before?

2. Harley Cameron

In past videos I've joked that I'm not a fan of the QTV gimmick but one part of the act that I like is Harley Cameron. The first time I paid any attention to her was an online video where she is sitting in the QTV office slacking off work until QT Marshall calls her. Also the group were recently on an episode of Talk is Jericho, and Harley's story in particular is an interesting listen.

Harley has been wrestling for about a year and a half having been trained at Flat Backs, the school run by Shawn Spears and Tyler Breeze. She has also shown exceptional talent as a singer, and is clearly a talented performer. Her gimmick so far though has been implying that she isn't good at these things, similar to Jillian Hall in early 2000's WWE, which is where I got the idea for how she might join the Dark Order.

In recent promos she and QT have been teasing that she will soon be playing more of an in ring role, but what if supposing she isn't half as good as they are telling us? What if Harley has vastly over-exaggerated her in ring ability, and goes on a lengthy losing streak. What if she finds a new home in the Dark Order in a similar way that Silver and Reynolds did, looking to turn her fortunes around? This would be similar to the way Anna Jay joined the group, a young unproven talent who had dubbed herself 'the star of the show', only to be on the losing end of matches.

3. The Righteous

Maybe the safest choice in this video, and one I nearly didn't include. I'll admit here that I don't know much about the scary looking group other than that they formed in the latter days of the old ROH, but around the time they showed up in Tony Khan's Ring of Honor Evil Uno was hinting that the Dark Order would be changing direction a bit. After weeks of teasing who he would choose Stu Grayson would leave not just the Dark Order, but Uno, his tag team partner of about twenty years to join the Righteous, stating that his former teammates had gone soft, leading to a very violent affair on the recent Death Before Dishonor pay per view where Uno, Silver and Reynolds proved that they haven't.

It was this story that made me rethink including them, until ROH released a segment filmed after the match, where Vincent begins to imply that they were looking to draw that aggression from the Dark Order, before Uno interrupts thanking Grayson in particular for the match. Could this be the catalyst for a union between the groups, and a new aggressive direction for the six men? Maybe they could be a new Darker Order, or maybe they will become more righteous?

4. Parker Boudreaux

In general I'm not really in favour of passing wrestlers from faction to faction to faction, but this is an exception. Parker is an interesting case in that he impressed people before he actually entered wrestling. He show up looking like the long lost relative of Brock Lesnar. I know those comparisons are tired and Parker looks different now but just look at the evidence here. It's kind of astonishing that he could be signed by WWE, and let go so quickly. I'm not going to say he was misused in his role as Harland as to be fair, he wasn't given much time in the character. The official reason behind his release was a budget cut, but it was also said at the time that he wasn't progressing as quickly as NXT coaches would have liked. Without throwing shade at other wrestlers, there are a few main roster WWE stars right now who spent many years in NXT before getting the call up, and one main roster member is according to the news sites seemingly begging to go back to NXT, so this reasoning isn't impossible, but would imply that Parker was really, really not getting it.

Regardless, it wouldn't be long until the former Harland whose surname I'm clearly trying to avoid saying again would arrive in All Elite Wrestling, back under his real name and not exactly presented with the best start. Parker was brought in essentially to be a bully for Ari Daivari's ill fated Trustbusters group who seemed to be all over AEW Dark for a while with their cool Jane's Addiction inspired song.

Eventually Parker would be repackaged under the umbrella of Mogul Affiliates, a group headed by Swerve Strickland, and was seemingly going to be paired with another big tattoo'd guy called Trench who apparently is no longer with the company. Things would get messier when Swerve would merge his group with original ROH stable The Embassy, who already has their own big scary dude in Brian Cage. As best I know Parker is currently out of action due to injury, so what better time to rethink how to use him?

If you've made it this far through the video you'll know where I'm going with this. For his entire pro wrestling career Parker has been a lost soul looking for a home. He's also a big intimidating presence, and could easily fit in with the Dark order in the spot left by Preston Vance. He doesn't have to talk, as the group mainly uses Uno as it's mouthpiece though Silver and Reynolds also do promos.

5. Colt Cabana

I know Colt was a member before, but as I also said it'd been over a year since he last appeared, and if a certain t-shirt tells us anything it seems like Wednesdays are safe for him to return to work if he wants to... Colt was an interesting addition to the group as he was seemingly brought in for a specific storyline involving Brodie Lee that wasn't able to be completed due to Brodie's passing. Colt entered AEW with some early wins but got into a losing streak, and was eventually convinced by Brodie to join the group. It seemed like the story would conclude with Colt gaining his confidence back in a similar way to Hangman's friendship with them would play out. For a while Colt would continue to appear with the Dark order out of solidarity, but CM Punk's arrival in Summer of 2021 would seem to stop that too. Aside for some matches at GamesCom to promote the Fight Forever game teaming with Evil Uno last August, Colts last AEW match came in November of last year against Chris Jericho who was Ring of Honor World champion at the time. Colt has also since wrestled a few matches for Tony Khan's Ring of Honor also.

Every pitch I've made so far has been for a heel, and in some cases more sinister version of the group, but what if Colt Cabana returned to remind the group of their babyface values. You could even tell the story of a power struggle between Colt and Evil Uno, both twenty plus year veterans looking to take the group in different directions.

Over my years of watching wrestling, I've always found cult like groups fascinating, from Raven's Flock to the Ministry of Darkness, with one of my favourites being the Age of the Fall in Ring of Honor. In the early days of AEW it felt like I might have been the Dark Order's only fan, back when they were taking email applications and producing strange vignettes. Since then the group has gone through many changes, some out of anyones control, but Uno, Silver and Reynolds have endured all of them. I'd love to see the group bounce back with new members. Until then thank you for watching this video. If you enjoyed please let me know your thoughts in the comments, consider subscribing and Join the Dark Order.