Brodie Lee On Why He Left WWE, Which AEW Star He Wants To Face
Brodie Lee is happy with the opportunity he has in AEW.
After being used as a heavy for most of his time in WWE, Lee debuted in AEW as the real leader of The Dark Order. Lee appeared on Busted Open Radio to talk about working for AEW. Lee said he is ready to prove he deserved the opportunity to be a top performer.
"That's the main reason why I didn't want to be in WWE anymore, it's because I knew those opportunities weren't coming," Lee said. "No matter how hard I scratched and clawed, no matter what I proved, they weren't coming. I wasn't one of the chosen ones. Now here I am, I'm proving it myself. But now, it's like I know I'm great at professional wrestling. I know I deserve these spots, but now I have to show up and prove that to other people. So now there's a certain pressure on me because there is no one to blame anymore.
"So now here I am in these spots, I'm in the main event last night, I'm in the main event next Saturday, and the pressure is there because now I have to prove it, but I know deep down I can prove it. I know deep down that I belong there, and it's a wonderful, very freeing feeling to be in that spot."
Lee said it's great to share the main event with Jon Moxley, someone he's wrestled for the better part of a decade during their ascent from CZW to WWE.
Lee was supposed to debut for AEW in his hometown of Rochester, but his debut was derailed by the coronavirus pandemic. Lee still made his scheduled debut, just he did it without a crowd. Lee said it was frustrating moving his debut away from Rochester, but that he was itching to start wrestling again.
"March 18 was my debut," Lee said. "I'm from Rochester, New York, and the AEW show on March 18 was slated to be in Rochester, New York. So, on the eleventh I was at the gym while the show was happening, and I watched everything kind of go down. The NBA cancelled its season. So I was one week away from debuting in my hometown in front of an AEW crowd. It was so frustrating for a minute.
"At the same time, Tony Khan called me and said, 'Look, if you don't want to debut now we will wait. You don't have to do anything, we'll wait.' Being in a hotel room for the past eight months now, I'm like a caged animal here. I need to get out. 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. I yearn for that AEW crowd. We all do, we all want it back, and we also understand that we are performing for a television audience at the same time, and an internet audience. So we understand that a live crowd is not the only crowd we are in front of."
Lee said wrestling in front of his peers was an interesting dynamic, noting he's getting more comfortable in the environment the more he works in it.
Lee will challenge Moxley for the AEW World Championship at Double Or Nothing. While Lee has wrestled Moxley many times, the AEW roster provides fresh match ups for him. Lee said the list of AEW talent he wants to wrestle is long.
"The list is so long," Lee said. "A guy like Kenny Omega, Darby Allin, Jungle Boy, Cody Rhodes now. The list is so hard, even (Proud) And Powerful, Jericho, all those guys. Sammy Guevara.
"It's crazy to say. I don't want to come off like, 'Everybody,' but literally almost everyone on the roster is a fun match up to me. It's all fresh, it's all new and it's very cool. But a guy like Kenny Omega is probably at the top of the list to have that crazy, big time match up."
You can listen to the entire episode of Busted Open Radio at this link. If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Busted Open Radio with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.