This year has been very challenging on everyone. For many people, their families have been affected. More than anything, it’s taken a psychological toll on all of us.
Even if you didn’t know someone personally, you aren’t feeling the same as you were before. We’ve all heard sad stories of tragedy and been moved to tears. Emotions are running high as we draw closer to the conclusion of 2020. A day away from the final one until a New Year, there still are so many things to get down about.
Some of it isn’t all due to the pandemic. There’s a misconception that every death is because of the virus. It isn’t true. I’m here to tell you that there are deaths every day. The truth is life is precious. We must appreciate every moment. You never know.
I’ve read some things recently that really upset me. Even if I didn’t know them personally, it doesn’t change how I feel. Just a week ago, I read about a 24-year old woman who committed suicide. She had battled anorexia since age 17. Unfortunately, even with getting help, she was in too much pain to continue on. Instead, she wrote a letter for her family and friends to read following her tragic death. It’s heartbreaking. I wish she could’ve held on.
Mental health has never been more important than the present. If you are struggling with it, please reach out to someone close and get help. It’s your inner circle of family and friends that you can count on to be there for you. I know from experience with my own personal battles with anxiety and depression how hard it can be. Sometimes, we need a timeout. I use my writing, musical appreciation and loved ones to deal with how I’m feeling. It’s worked. Thank God for that.
When it comes to life and death, you never know when something bad will happen. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found myself attending more wakes for friends. One took their own life. That was hard. The first real one that hit home was in May 2010. He was only 20. It was a car accident. The enormous shock I felt along with sadness was humbling. I didn’t know him that long. But that one year felt like an eternity due to how caring, considerate and unselfish he was. You can feel that way about a person even if you don’t know them too long.
Here’s the point. A popular wrestler just suddenly passed away at 41. His name is JonathanHuber. He leaves behind a family that includes a loving wife and two sons. In the wrestling business, he was known in the WWE as LukeHarper and in the AEW as BrodieLee. When the official All Elite Wrestling account put it up on Twitter, I didn’t want to believe it. Nobody did. It had to be a work or some angle. He was nursing an ankle injury. Nobody knew he was sick.
When I first searched for more information online, I didn’t find much regarding his untimely death. There was still hope, or so I thought. Then, as more and more tributes were posted by Huber’s close friends in the wrestling community on Twitter, I realized it was really true. He was gone. Especially when his grieving wife Amanda posted a heartfelt message on Instagram. It confirmed our worst fears. A great family man was taken from us at a young age. He had recently turned 41 on Dec. 16. He passed away on Dec. 26 after Christmas.
To say I’m heartbroken would be an understatement. I still cannot believe it. Maybe I don’t want to. How can a professional wrestler I never knew or even met have this affect on me and so many other wrestling fans. Because if there’s one thing I know, the wrestling community is a close knit family. We love what these performers do and how well they do it. They are on the road constantly away from family, sacrificing themselves in body and mind daily. All to support their loved ones.
For a long time, I didn’t understand the sport of wrestling. I followed it for years. But when you’re younger, you don’t realize how much commitment and dedication they have to a mentally taxing industry. At times, it can be unforgiving. We’ve seen plenty of tragedies before. Most were under bizarre and strange circumstances. It hasn’t happened to an active wrestler in the mainstream here in a while. That’s why it is so shocking. It was unexpected.
We may have knew Jon Huber as Luke Harper or Brodie Lee. By his stage names for two great gimmicks. First, as the evil Harper in the Wyatt Family alongside Bray Wyatt and ErickRowan as a successful faction in World Wrestling Entertainment. They won the tag team titles and Luke had a run as Intercontinental Champion. They also recruited Braun Strowman into the family. With Bray Wyatt as the ringleader of the Wyatt Family, they were entertaining heels. But eventually, they were broken up.
That lead to Huber leaving WWE for new brand AEW. Rowan was also released due to WWE making cuts during the pandemic. Or perhaps due to the lack of sincerity from Vince McMahon. He really has no soul despite all the success he’s had.
For Huber, it was a unique opportunity to move to AEW and pitch a new character that would become the unquestioned leader of The Dark Order. I didn’t realize he came up with the name Brodie Lee due to the underrated Kevin Smith movie MallRats. He used Jason Lee’s funny character Brodie and combined his real last name for Brodie Lee. That’s insane. Kind of genius too. It tells me that the big man from Rochester, New York didn’t take himself too seriously. He had a lot more personality and talent than what he was allowed to portray as Luke Harper in WWE.
Even though he was still a heel with a larger than life personality when he was introduced to AEW last March 18, 2020, you started to understand the method to his madness. Calling himself The Exalted One, he quickly built himself up as a great heel that was over with fans. He went undefeated for a long time until he challenged then AEW heavyweight champion Jon Moxley and lost at pay-per-view Double Or Nothing.
Eventually, with Lee recruiting new members for the Dark Order including veteran Colt Cabana, he easily went over Cody Rhodes for the TNT Championship on AEW Dynamite, finishing off the younger son of legendary Hall of Famer Dusty Rhodes with his signature lariat. An awesome old school finisher for the big man.
One of my favorite Dark Order characters is Evil Uno. He wears a mask like some of the faction and has a funny gimmick. You can tell they have fun taping segments and wrestling. Don’t believe me? Go watch Being The Elite on YouTube. The last one is an emotional 😢 watch due to the loss of Brodie Lee. In it, they show behind the scenes stuff that didn’t make it to air. His personality really comes out. No matter how funny the scene, he never broke character. But he would always joke around with them during tapings and make each laugh.
JohnSilver definitely had a strong bond with him. Seeing some of the skits and him speak about what Lee meant is hard to watch. You can tell he cried a lot. He laughed to keep from breaking down when remembering his close friend. Silver isn’t the biggest in stature, but what a giant heart he has.
This is the photo that @CodyRhodes shared on the post-show when Brodie bought the crew lunch at the Norcross tapings.
What really is hard is knowing that after Cody Rhodes beat Brodie Lee in a rematch which was a brutal dog collar match for the TNT Championship, we never saw him again. That date of Oct. 6 was his last match. An injury then kept him sidelined. The truth is his family knew there was something wrong. With them and the company coming to a mutual understanding, they kept it under wraps. Some things should be that way. Especially when it comes to someone’s health. That’s serious stuff.
Little did we know Jon Huber was dealing with a serious lung problem. It’s sad that he lost his battle this past Saturday 😪. A few days later and it still is hard to believe. There was so much outpouring of support from everyone in the wrestling industry. It might be a business, but wrestlers are like a big extended family. They clearly loved him. Especially those who got to work with him. Seeing the heartfelt message Bray posted was tough.
This is clearly a terrific person who got it. He might be gone, but he’ll never ever be forgotten. The #BrodieLeeTribute show AEW put on tonight was overwhelming. They even had oldest son Brodie II there along with a teary eyed Mom as they presented him with the TNT Championship. What Cody said and then AEW owner Tony Khan did was unprecedented. They even signed Brodie’s son so he could become part of the faction. He wore a mask like he was his Dad and even got involved in an entertaining six man tag match by decking MJF to lead to Silver doing Brodie’s lariat and getting the pin. There were tears when he knelt to the mat. It was amazing.
They concluded the two hour show by doing it the only way they could. With a touching video tribute which Jesse Davin posted on her Twitter account. I almost broke down. The video is beautiful. I got no more words.
What they did was something truly remarkable. It’s clear that AEW is a much more tight knit, family oriented environment. That is a great thing. They definitely look like they’ll help the family of Jonathan Huber in any way possible.
In what’s been a long, emotional year that feels like it’s lasted forever, this is quite a touching story. Whether you remember him as Brodie Lee or Luke Harper or by his real name, he will never be forgotten. The way the wrestling community reacted tells us everything about what they thought about the man. A great family person who was terrific at his job. My heart goes out to his family.
The Pretty Reckless are still less than two months away from the official release of their fourth album, Death By Rock And Roll. However, they’ve teased some of it on social media platforms courtesy lead singer TaylorMomsen. The blonde stunner stars in the epic new video for “25.” It’s fantastic.
Having already heard the song itself, the video is wonderfully done with Momsen starting out in a long red dress, looking beautiful. You have a kind of James Bond theme at the start as she’s sitting at a bar in a darker outfit with a bartender nearby. Almost as if contemplating her life from 1 to 25. As the numbers increase, so does the intensity with which she sings along with her band that plays so well together. There’s a perfect symmetry.
It feels like a dramatic buildup to numbers 21, 22, 23 and 24. They roll off Momsen’s tongue along with the feverish pitch count, “One. Two. Three. Four.” At 25 and still alive she beckons. There’s a uniqueness to it like that fancy drumbeat at the cool conclusion once she’s finished singing. It slowly fades out and you’re left wondering what else happened.
There just isn’t much great rock music played and sang with this edge. It’s meaningful. You find yourself hanging on every lyric she sings. All the while enjoying the way it meshes together. Yeah. It’s worth the wait. The production and editing prove it. This isn’t some pop act that keeps churning out albums like candy. They’re more complex and have more substance. Especially in light of the tragedies that affected Momsen and the band.
The music is meant to continue. It’s a release on all the emotions and emptiness that’s been felt over the losses of close friend and rock star ChrisCornell and band manager KatoKhandwala. They came a year apart. It had an obvious impact on Momsen, who battled depression over the deaths of her best friend Khandwala and idol Cornell, who they had opened for on that final night before he took his life. I can remember seeing the video of him performing and looking withdrawn. It was sad.
I’m glad that Momsen decided to return and finish the record. They put too much work into it to not continue. The music can be a way to cope with loss and be used as a tribute to the fallen. That’s always how I’ve used it when I’m down or struggling. The older you get, the harder it gets. We all experience loss. It doesn’t get any easier.
February 12 can’t come soon enough. The album has 12 tracks. It will be excellent.
HITTING BACK 