Sunday of WrestleMania weekend, and I couldn’t stop thinking about a match that I hadn’t even watched yet. It’s a match that took place away from the glitz, advertisements, and celebrities of the center-piece show. It was a match that I knew would have me in tears. A match that – checks the internet– went longer than any match or commercial on night one of Mania.
I was right. GCW: Joey Janela’s Spring Break X, Brodie Lee Jr. vs. Joey Janela got me. Right in the feels… Thrice!
Here’s when and why:
As a wrestling fan who, before the Janel Grant lawsuit, decided I could no longer watch WWE without feeling the ick. That malaise has often trickled into the appeal of the fringe festival of wrestling shows surrounding WWE’s biggest event of the year. The whole weekend for me has lost its luster. There are dream matches and amazing wrestling from a variety of companies. Sometimes incredible storylines to go with them. However, as I’ve gotten older and my life/career balance has shifted, I’ve become more selective. Essentially monotropic in my wrestling habits. At least for now. A sicko for my sins, time being a precious commodity.
What drew me in was personal and parasocial memory, and the desire for catharsis. For me, the best wrestling makes you feel. It makes you reflect not just on the sport, but on life. Wrestling can be a mirror that reveals much about our times, culture, and ourselves.
The unexpected death of Brodie Lee in December 2020 hit me hard. Harder than I expected. The stories of Jonathan Huber’s kindness, generosity, positivity, and devotion to the people who matter most in life made me evaluate myself. To consider how I could live my best life. Enjoy the limited time I have while uplifting and supporting those around me.
As evidenced by this match, I don’t think I was the only one to take that lesson to heart.
Misty Eyed: The Kid Stands 6 ft 7
The video package pumped me with adrenaline and laughs. The reminders of how the feud started with Brodie Lee Jr. eliminating Joey Janela from the Clusterfuck Battle Royal last year. Brodie Lee Jr. challenges Janela and insults him with language that makes my teacher instincts kick in-I want to give out a detention.
My partner, who watched the first few minutes with me, asked if Brodie Lee Jr. was really fourteen years old. She wasn’t being rhetorical. She’s a casual fan with little knowledge of wrestling besides the comic bits. No, I haven’t made her watch The Sandman vs. The Invisible Man… Yet.
Then came his entrance, and the mist descended. I wasn’t at Ric Flair’s level of streaming yet, but the entrance way, lined with Brodie’s fellow Dungeon trainees, the kid’s solidity and confidence from the curtain to ringside, where he knocks someone back into his chair… the hugging of a small fan with a sign for him… the swagger and commitment as he raised his arms in right angles and pumps the air: the crowd copies and chants.
This should be comic. I can picture Jim Cornette feigning heart palpitations as a child steps into this supposedly sacred ring. Gangly, built like a streak of bacon, with spaghetti legs and arms.
No, it’s anything but funny. It’s joyous. It’s history. The sheer presence and joy radiating from the kid robes him in muscles. The fourteen-year-old child in me marvels with jealousy at how natural this boy looks. That belonging gets the first tear rolling by the time they go through their first trading of pin attempts.
During a lock-up, Brodie is backed into the corner. On tiptoes, Brodie appears taller than Janela. 6 ft 7. It’s the first of many moments I see his dad’s spirit, competing again.
You Know What That Means
As proceedings start, the chants change. From “Brodie’s going to kill you” to “Fuck him up, Brodie,/ Fuck him up!”
The emotion came from a deeper place than the personal, universal and yet intimate story of a boy wanting to live his dream. Reality often creates stories that in fiction would seem unbelievable or too narratively perfect. Reality often reveals that the kayfabe stories we believe or perpetuate about real life, including wrestling, are just stories. But like lots of the best wrestling matches, something is tangibly real.
What I and others felt as fans is incomparable to the pain and challenges Huber’s wife and young sons felt and continue to live with. Through social media, we have seen Amanda Huber and Brodie Lee Jr persist and honour their husband/father’s legacy. This deeper, real story is greater than one any booker or creative team could pen.
This match is a starting point. This is history. You know what that means. More than a match, it’s collective therapy for Brodie, for Amanda, friends, family and fans. It’s a debut. The start of something incredible and life-long. Connecting father and son, teenager and generations of viewers, family and community.
It doesn’t matter if the sight of a fourteen-year-old hits a spear in the corner that looks as painful as a poke. A jumping elbow looks like a bug biting a bull or a clothesline from an arm that on TV seems dryer-line thin. The theatrical precision and the athleticism of the mechanics are crisp and on point. None of that matters when you see the smile from ear to ear on young Brodie’s face.
The kid is having fun. Have fun! Then the tears started again.
Tears: Growing into Big Boots
I gasp as Brodie hits Janela square in the face with a sickening, Bryan Danielson-looking impact of a running knee strike. I feel the tingling as Brodie slaps Janela across the face. When Brodie tells Janela, “Hit me harder”, I swear I heard a deep gruffness that perhaps forebodes the effects of upcoming puberty and another like his dad. A head scissors. Trash talk. A knowing and controlled look into the camera.
It’s taking a beat where I want to make an international call to report child abuse. The selling of a boot or elbow to the face. The contortion of Brodie’s spine as he lands after a backbreaker. The look of agony as Janela wraps and stomps a chair on Brodie’s ankle. The dead fish flop after a piledriver.
But he kicks out!
Veda Scott asks where Brodie gets his reserves from. His father… history… the community… his drive.
The kip up, that smile again. He remembers to sell the ankle!
Is the skill natural or innate? How much is a fourteen-year-old boy working me? Is a fourteen-year-old outperforming some of the Performance Center rookies?
The raw potential throughout the match, from the entrance to the spaces between moves. When early on, Brodie tells fans to move so he can step on the chairs, poise and rally his people, they obey.
There are tributes. The papers. Janela falls the F down for Brodie. A heatseeker. What a smart politician. Already angling for a shot at MJF! A reversal where Brodie cradles Janela, smiles and kisses Janela’s head before hitting a picture-perfect Sister Abigail. Crossrhodes. Not one, but two discuss lariats.
An incredible tribute, but one defined by the temporal perimeters. Pink and black gear pay tribute to his trainers and the Dungeon. A Nightmare Collective tracksuit. Other men’s big moves and finishers.
Brodie is not yet a man, let alone his own man. He’s fourteen, and I cry with parasocial pride and at the thought of what’s next, as much as the tribute to what has happened. It’s too early to fantasy book how Brodie Lee Junior will fill his father’s boots.
A Village Raises a Child
Great men don’t stand alone. His father stood out on the indies due to his performances against some of the indies’ best. In WWE, it was within the lamplight of The Wyatt Family. In AEW, it was the willingness of wrestlers like Cody Rhodes, who made The Chosen One a beloved monster. Yes, Jon Huber had talent, but through teamwork and collaboration, wrestling is at its best. Despite the bravado, grandstanding, and storylines, no one in wrestling or reality does anything alone.
In AEW, Kenny Omega put over Brodie Lee Jr in a special dark segment and put on arguably the best memorial wrestling show of all time. Even planting the seeds for a future rivalry with MJF! Training with WWE’s Natalya and TJ Wilson at the Dungeon, attending WrestleMania XL and receiving Cody Rhodes’ weight belt. Joey Janela was modest in sharing the praise rightly showered on him for being an incredible opponent. The company’s divisions haven’t stopped being kind. Before and after, Brodie shared the limelight with his fellow trainees.
Although wrestlers from across promotional lines have helped shape Brodie. Already, it seems Brodie has inspired others. AEW’s Will Washington posted on social media how his kids pressured him to take them to Las Vegas to support their friend. Tom Green posted how straight after the match, his son prepared by doing push-ups and mountain climbers! Younger brother, Nolan, too young to wrestle, post-match hinted to Janela that he’s next!
The impact will be cyclical, from tragedy, an entire community came together. In a business often characterized by darkness, criminality, and selfishness, we get actions and events that demonstrate the opposite. One match, many moments, shows that wrestling can be a force for good. So, I cried with joy because, as post-match, John Moseley calls it: “Pro wrestling is beautiful.”
