And now, we move to a slightly different edition of How Good of a Wrestler Were They Really? As we seek to honour the life of John Huber a.k.a Luke Harper & “Mr.” Brodie Lee, who sadly passed on the 26th of December, a couple of weeks ago. No scoring in this one, instead Brodie Lee is, for this week at least, respectfully top of the table with a “-1” score.
Don’t have a lot pre-WWE, so please recommend if you have them!
Favourite Matches/Moments
Brodie Lee vs. Tony Nese (Dragon Gate USA Uprising '11, Jun 4th 2011)
C. M. Punk & Daniel Bryan vs. Erick Rowan & Luke Harper (WWE Survivor Series '13)
The Wyatt Family turn Daniel Bryan (Handicap Tag, TLC: Tables, Ladders And Chairs '13)
Royal Rumble '14
The Wyatt Family vs The Shield (6-Person Tag, Elimination Chamber '14)
The Wyatts get SUPER CENA-D! (Wrestlemania XXX)
Harper & Rowan challenge the Usos for the Tag Titles at Money in the Bank, then better it at Battleground in a 2-out-of-3-falls underrated banger (WWE Tag Team Championship, Money In The Bank & Battleground '14)
Luke Harper is free of The Wyatt Family (yay), but joins The Authority (boo) earning his first Intercontinental Title and a place on the End Of Team Authority Or Cena’s Teammates Fired Survivor Series Match, featuring Sting! (Survivor Series '14)
Dolph Ziggler’s push simply can’t be stopped! vs Luke Harper (Ladder WWE Intercontinental Championship Match, TLC: Tables, Ladders, Chairs … And Stairs '14)
Royal Rumble '15
Everyone takes turns stealing Bad News Barrett’s Intercontinental Title! vs. Daniel Bryan vs. Dean Ambrose vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Luke Harper vs. R-Truth vs. Stardust (7-Way Ladder WWE Intercontinental Championship Match, WrestleMania 31)
Dean Ambrose vs. Luke Harper (Chicago Street Fight, Extreme Rules '15)
The Wyatts (Bray Wyatt & Luke Harper) & The Shield (Dean Ambrose & Roman Reigns) get back together for some reason! (to push Reigns) (SummerSlam '15)
The Wyatts featuring a debuting Braun Strowman vs. Chris Jericho & The Shield? (6-Person Tag, Night Of Champions '15)
Bray & Luke are fed to The Brothers of Destruction on Taker’s 25th Anniversary show! (Survivor Series '15)
The Wyatts vs ECW?! Dudleys, Rhyno & Tommy Dreamer (Tables Elimination Tag, TLC: Tables, Ladders And Chairs '15)
The Wyatts take out Lesnar during the Royal Rumble '16 WWE World Heavyweight Championship Match!
Lesnar destroys the Wyatts! (Handicap Tag, Roadblock '16)
Harper gets injured, returns for a pre-show match with Kane at Survivor Series, wins the Tag Titles via Freebird Rule with Wyatt and Orton who beat Rhyno and Heath Slater at TLC!
Harper turns face teaming with Cena against Wyatt and Orton! Which means he inevitably starts losing: Randy Orton vs. Luke Harper (Elimination Chamber '17)
Things are going well… Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royale (WrestleMania 33)
But at least Harper can beat his old tag team partner Erick Rowan before going off TV for a while because… (Backlash '17)
The Bludgeon Brothers form to squash Breezango! (Clash Of Champions '17)
Culimating in Rowan & Harper finally getting their Wrestlemania moment, defeating The Usos & The New Day for the Smackdown Tag Titles! (Triple-Threat Tag Smackdown Tag Team Championship Match, WrestleMania 34)
The Bludgeon Brothers defend against The Usos, The Good Brothers Gallows & Anderson, and even a returning team Hell No! throughout the spring moving into summer (Greatest Royal Rumble, Money in the Bank, Extreme Rules '18)
The New Day beat Harper & Rowan (who was injured) via DQ at Summerslam, only to win the titles for real two nights later! (WWE Smackdown Tag Team Championship, SummerSlam '18)
Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royale again, this time losing to Bray Wyatt via Broken Matt Hardy! (Wrestlemania 35)
Daniel Bryan & Roman Reigns vs. Erick Rowan & Luke Harper (Tornado Tag Match, Hell In A Cell 2019)
Luke Harper gets caught up in the Saudi Arabia flight delay scandal, all for a battle royal pushing Humberto Carillo, and is gone from the company within weeks.
Jon Huber tradmarks the Brodie Lee name, and shows up at the first “pandemic era” AEW Dynamite as “The Exalted One”, leader of The Dark Order (AEW Dynamite #24, 18/3/20)
After being undefeated for two months Mr. Brodie Lee gets a title shot vs champion Jon Moxley, a rematch of Extreme Rules '15! (AEW World Championship Match, Double Or Nothing 2020)
Mr. Brodie Lee shockingly defeats Cody Rhodes (AEW TNT Championship, “Saturday Night Dynamite” #46 Sep 8th 2020)
Cody regains the TNT in a war vs. Mr. Brodie Lee (Dog Collar Match, AEW TNT Championship, Dynamite #54 Oct 7th, 2020)
that shield / wyatts match is one of my all time faves. the ladder match with dolph was great too, people forget how over they both were at that point.
this was a really good match from when he was halfway out the door to aew
weird one, seemed like an absolute top lad, but never really got over in WWE other than that brief Ziggler feud Jamos mentioned, and, I guess Bludgeon Brothers although it was a very silly gimmick. Immediately did way better in AEW but tragically cut short, and I’ve heard good stuff about his earlier work but not seen much of it
I don’t know anything of his stuff prior to him joining AEW (bar an old Chikara match with Kingston that popped up on my Youtube the other day). Weird to think that his entire tenure was during the pandemic era. Not one match in front of a real crowd. Tragic. A real shame he didn’t get the home town debut they’d planned for him too.
But in a short period he had a few bangers and somehow got wrestling’s least favourite faction over. That’s not bad going. It’s just so very sad he didn’t get more time.
That angle with Cody on the stretcher was the most exciting part of the pandemic era for my money, nothing else has come close to the genuine shock or anything-can-happen feeling.
I don’t think he was just a big guy who could move, a lot of his matches had some great psychology you wouldn’t expect and particularly when he was really in shape during the later part of his wwe run he was one of the most underrated workers in the world. I was disappointed by the world title match in aew but looking back who knows if he was already being hampered by the early stages of his illness, so I’ll give him a pass. They did at the very least beat the piss out of each other. Also learning how much he did to feed ideas, little details and genuinely try and give the Dark Order personality quirks to help get them over is really sweet to hear, he obviously had been doing it in wwe previously too. I’d have put him at a generous 4 all things considered but, so much wasted potential.
Only saw the odd tag match as a bludgeon brother, so in no position to judge his work. Had a good look though and the regard in which his peers hold him seems to speak for itself.
ROH just posted this too, I remember back in 2009-10 the Age of the Fall stuff with Jimmy Jacobs and Tyler Black (soon to be Seth Rollins) was so ahead of his time. When Seth broke out for his big face run before leaving for the fed, the roster closing in slowly on the cult-leader Jacobs was a great story. Both Jacobs as a writer and Brodie himself clearly fed a lot of this stuff into the Wyatts a few years later, but this sort of stuff deserves its own accolades.
