When Brodie Lee debuted in AEW in April, some of his early segments as the Exalted One of the Dark Order were interpreted as him portraying a parody of Vince McMahon. For example, he was a corporate leader of the Dark Order who scolded underlings for sneezing in his presence.
Lee has previously denied that the intention of those segments was to become a parody of Vince McMahon. This week he appeared on The Wrestling Inc. Daily podcast and took it one step further, explaining that he wanted to immediately get away from that perception once he realized it was catching on:
“Obviously there [were] a couple of little Easter eggs and things that people could very easily pick up on. But as a whole, the character was never meant to be a Vince McMahon parody. But there was definitely a couple jabs his way, in the early going. Once I realized that that was everything that people were going to talk about, I wanted to get away from that as quickly as possible. ‘Cause I want it to be more about me, more about my identity, and more about my journey to where we’re going. I just didn’t want to be seen as that bitter ex-employee. I didn’t want that label on me whatsoever.”
Lee and AEW made the right call in moving away from those sketches, even though some of them were pretty entertaining. As Lee implied, his ceiling in AEW was going to be limited if he was latching on to someone else for recognition, rather than establishing his own identity and story.
Mr. Brodie was rushed into an AEW championship match against Jon Moxley in May at Double or Nothing 2020. The match was a big hit, and we really haven’t seen any ambiguous Vince McMahon parody segments since then. Lee’s spot on the card was recently solidified when he squashed Cody Rhodes and won the TNT championship in the main event of Dynamite a few weeks ago.
The Exalted One wanted to quickly get away from those comparisons to Vince, but he still enjoyed hearing that his jabs at Vince ruffled a few feathers in WWE management:
“I have no problems with that whatsoever. I rather enjoy that. The thought of me, little ol’ me, affecting someone there? That’s okay with me.”
What do you think of Brodie Lee’s current run in AEW?