John Silver On Who Originally Was Going To Be Exalted One
“Who is The Exalted One?” was a constant topic of discussion among the fans from November 2019 until Brodie Lee made his AEW debut as the character. There were several guys who the Internet Wrestling Community thought could be the Exalted one.
John Silver has revealed that the first person, that he came to know, who was going to be the Exalted one was, in fact, Matt Hardy. Silver revealed this when he joined Chris Van Vliet’s podcast.
“Initially, they told us that there is going to be an Exalted One and he is going to be your leader. Originally, I think the first one was Matt Hardy. Broken Matt Hardy Gimmick. I thought it would be really cool because we have ideas that we can get like thousands of people in mask, doing something in compound or something. I thought it sounded amazing and it was really cool. That was the first name that we were told.”
Marty Scrull was having contract talks with ROH at that time and was one of the prime candidates to join AEW. Matt Hardy was also leaving WWE, and with his Broken Matt character, was thought to be fitting the bill, especially after The Young Bucks made an appearance in his videos.
John Silver said he did not came to hear about Marty Scrull as the Exalted one.
“I don’t think it was ever going to be Marty(Scrull). I know people thought it was going to be Marty at one point. The first that we talked to The (Young) Bucks, they were like they mentioned it was Matt Hardy. I don’t think Marty fits. At least to the first to my knowledge, it was never going to be him. They also mentioned it could also be Brodie. I know that there were more into Matt Hardy at that point. But they also did mention that it could be Brodie Lee. It was definitely going to be Matt or Brodie.”
John Silver mentioned that Broken Matt as the Exalted One was problematic. The character would have to turn heel but it was too popular at that point. Silver added that Brodie Lee worked right into the character.
“I thought either would be super cool and different. But I think with Brodie, it made the most sense.. just the way the character went and what we were. Like Matt was a face really. You have to make the Broken Matt a heel again. But I think he was too likable at that point. So, it would have been a weird dynamic. But Brodie came in just like a douchebag, bad**s cult leader boss and I thought it works really well.”
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