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.