AEW star Alex Reynolds from the Dark Order recently spoke with the Front Row Material podcast to discuss a number of subjects, including how he thought the Dark Order was dead and buried after the infamous “botched punches” segment in 2019. He also says he pitched for the group to film a sketch at the Manson family ranch in California. Highlights are below.
Says he thought the Dark Order was finished after the botched punches incident in 2019:
So we join the group, here we are. Last Dynamite of 2019, Dark Order’s gonna close the show. Dark Order’s gonna beat up The Young Bucks, beat up SCU, here comes Cody [Rhodes], done, here comes Kenny [Omega], done, Dustin Rhodes, done. We’re brawling, us and all these creepers. We get off, ‘Man, we just closed the show. We closed Dynamite.’ A couple days later, the clip comes out of that dude not punching Dustin Rhodes and man, everybody just ripped us. We got like a text the next day, ‘Hey, you guys aren’t needed for TV this week. We’re doing just the recap.’ I’m fired, this is it. So then we kind of just did nothing and then was like, ‘Ouuu, The Exalted One’s coming.’ It’s like alright, let’s go into that and we got some stuff going and interest starting peaking. ‘Who could be The Exalted One? Is it gonna be Matt Hardy? Is it gonna be Brodie [Lee]? Is it gonna be this person or is it gonna be Raven?’ So interest started growing again and then the pandemic happened.
How he wanted to film a Dark Order sketch on the Manson family ranch in California:
But for a while it was like, ‘Oh, we’re this cult’ and then Brodie [Lee] debuts, now we’re this corporation but also a cult. So it was just very, very confusing. The only thing that I’m upset that we weren’t able to do and I wanted to do this when we were out to California, I wanted to do a vignette with The Dark Order on the Manson Family Ranch [Spahn Ranch]. I had just watched… what’s the [Quentin] Tarantino movie with Brad Pitt? Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I had just watched that and I was like, ‘Oh, this is the Manson Ranch. Oh, that would be so cool’ because when we joined the group, I started getting deep into cults. I was like, ‘Alright, what can we do?’ Trying to take little things. I wanted to do infomercials and things. Yeah, the Manson Family Ranch is the one thing that I wish we were able to do.
Says he and John Silver reached out to the Young Bucks when they heard AEW was being formed:
I remember it was like December of 2018… it was like 2018, somebody kinda just threw out something, ‘Oh, I think The Bucks and Cody are starting this new company’ and I didn’t really hear much about it but me and John [Silver] reached out to The Young Bucks and we’re like, ‘Hey, we’re not sure if these rumors are true but we would just love to work with you guys again,’ you know? And they just messaged us back like, ‘Yeah, cool man. Nothing’s set in stone but we’ll definitely keep in touch,’ and then like I think a month later after their first press conference, we messaged them again and just every couple months, started reaching out to them until they asked us to come to Philadelphia.
(H/T and transcribed by Post Wrestling)