When Brodie Lee made his All Elite Wrestling: Dynamite debut, he certainly got people talking. Revealed as the Exalted One and leader of the Dark Order, it took no time at all for him to put his WWE career behind him, but during a recent interview on Busted Open Radio, he explained how his debut on March 18th very nearly didn't happen.
"March 18th was my debut, and I am from Rochester, New York. And the AEW show on March 18th was slated to be in Rochester, New York," he explained. "So, on the 11th? I was at the gym while the show is happening and I watched everything kind of go down. The NBA cancelled the season, and I was one week away from debuting in my hometown in front of an AEW crowd. so it was, it was soul crushing for a minute."
Explaining that AEW President Tony Khan offered to delay his debut, Lee revealed that he said "I’m like a caged animal here I need to get out," in response (WWE kept him on the shelf for a long time).
"So, there was no hesitation at all for me to jump on the opportunity, to do it in front of a closed set and to jump in front of it," Lee added. "But I yearn for that AEW crowd, we all do. We all want them to be back. But we also understand that we’re performing for a television audience at the same time, and the internet audience."
"We [the talent] understand that the live crowd is not the only crowd that we’re in front of. So, The other part of it is? I’m in front of my peers to which, to get the respect of them is a huge deal to me. So there’s a lot of layers to that where of course I want that back and I look so forward to be in front of AEW crowd. But, at the same time it’s a really cool environment and surreal to a point."
With any luck, Lee will soon get the crowd response he deserves, but it's currently unclear when it will be safe enough for that to happen. In the meantime, he continues making a huge impact each week on Dynamite.