Evil Uno & Stu Grayson On Thinking The Dark Order Was Done After Infamous Punches On AEW Dynamite, Original Plans For Segment

In a recent interview on Talk Is Jericho, Evil Uno and Stu Grayson discussed The Dark Order minions, the infamous punching segment on AEW Dynamite, and much more. You can read his comments below.

Evil Uno on the challenges of using the Dark Order minions in AEW: “Whatever they did is attached directly to us. Dean [Malenko] opened my eyes about two or three TVs in and he said, ‘You really need to take care and make 100 percent certain of everything they do. Whatever they do, it doesn’t matter if it reflects bad on them, they’re not coming back. You are sticking around.’ The first few months, those mistakes really hurt us as far as image.”

Stu Grayson: “Even though we would talk to them over and over, we would ask them, ‘Are you trained? How long have you been wrestling? Can you throw a punch and a kick? No? Then choke.’ I suppose most of them were not being fully honest because once they were in the ring, it could be stress or anything because you’re on live TV, but what they said they could do, was not for real. When we’d see them punch the floor or walk around and trip, I was like, ‘Jesus Christ, we should have asked if they can walk properly.’ Some of them were too nervous to say they were really green because they didn’t want to be cut. I understand that, but you have to honest. If they had said, ‘I’m really nervous and really green,’ no worries, we’d get them in the back and they don’t have to do much. We just need numbers. We’d make it work, but some of them were not completely honest.”

Evil Uno on the infamous punching incident on Dynamite and the original plans for the segment: “We thought we were done after that, to be honest. Even in the lead up, we were a little nervous because originally that wasn’t the plan. We didn’t know we were going to end the last Dynamite of the year with a big beatdown on all the faces. When we came in that day, they told us that was the plan. We were really nervous because we weren’t really a hot act. We were really growing and thought if we were given a couple more weeks to build it up, it could work. We never considered ourselves a main event angle. We had no direction for the top. Our original plan was to have the losers from the show. That’s why we were getting Alex [Reynolds] and John [Silver] because they had lost a minute on the first two shows. If we get them, we have people who know what they’re doing and they can have matches that are longer. We had no great reveal other than that. We weren’t very happy with the segment happening to begin with. On top of that, we knew the reaction was flat and as soon as we came to the back, the phone is blowing up and they picked up on all the side stuff instantly. Most of the local guys didn’t understand that the camera is on at all times. They mistimed a lot of our timing. Some interactions were cut short.”

If using any of the above quotes, please credit Talk Is Jericho with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.