DaParty will live on forever.
Austin Creed (Xavier Woods), Adam Cole, Cesaro, and Tyler Breeze formed a bond during a time of uncertainty in the year 2020 that will live forever, and in the process, they entertained audiences around the world all while playing a universally beloved card game.
Coming to be known as DaParty, these four would play UNO on the UpUpDownDown YouTube channel from May 2020 until Adam Cole would leave WWE in September 2021. Along the way, inside jokes were formed, many dad jokes were told, laughs were shared, and somehow, these four men got their own UNO deck.
Speaking on the Out of Character podcast with Ryan Satin, Cesaro reflected on the authentic nature of the friendship and explains how their UNO deck came to be.
“When we first started this was obviously last year during the pandemic and it was kind of one of those like, ‘Hey, you know, we need some more content, because that's what people were just watching content. You know, content is king nowadays, right? That's the official moniker for everything. So we were like, ‘Okay, we want to do something fun for UpUpDownDown because we cannot film in the locker rooms anymore on the road like we used to,’” Cesaro recalled. “If you watch the first one and look at how far it's come, it's crazy. We all got better equipment because we nerded out. and it was just one of those. Okay, we're just the four of us playing UNO and seeing what happens. We were talking so much about like, ‘God, we just hope people like it, because we love it so much and we will probably still be doing it. Even if people can't watch it. Do you know what I mean? Because it became like, ‘Okay, let's talk for an hour before we start playing and then we start playing and we're just going crazy with weird, obscure references that people enjoy and picked up. So we just had such a blast. Then, to see how people reacted to it, and how gravitated to it and how the following grew. We ended up like -- it's something so special and we are so beyond grateful for it, and then see how people were like, ‘Oh, we are looking forward to it. It helped us get through last year.’ They made our days when we felt that.”
Cesaro continues,” That's what it became. It was like, okay, me and my friends play UNO and people can relate to it, because they play UNO with their friends and family. It's the same thing. One guy gets hot and sends another guy, allegedly, a glitter bomb in the mail. Stuff like that happens all the time,” Cesaro joked. “We had so many good times and so many good laughs and the best part is back something that showed everybody that, the true us, like how we are and that we are a bunch of nerds as well for different things. I feel like I was a huge wrestling you're growing up. I mean, I was afraid to tell people I like wrestling because they're like, ‘Oh, that's stupid. ’Now, look at me, who's stupid now, right?”
When it comes to the gang getting their own deck, Cesaro says that he was actually part of the formation of that partnership.
“It was one of those you know, we started playing and then it was kind of like I know it'd be cool if we had our own deck, you know, what rules will we have and whatever. Actually, a buddy of mine introduced me. Joshy G from Deadboys Fitness actually introduced me to one of his friends that worked for Mattel. Then I introduced him to someone connected with UpUpDownDown, and a long, long, long story that was like, for a while in the works. Even then it was like, well, you know, who knows? Something [looks like it's going to happen] and it doesn't end up happening. So, you never know. But we were all like, ‘Dude, that'd be so cool.’ Then like, we got it and it's like, holy crap. This is like an UNO deck. Like it's UNO, we all played it as a kid I played in Switzerland, Breeze played it in Canada, Cole and Creed played it in the States, this is universal. This is like, real. This is awesome. We were so pumped for it and then we're like, ‘What colors do we want? It was great... So it was so surreal. Again, so much fun for us. In a weird way, we were very happy to give back a little bit of like, this is the joy that we had. So we have something to share with everybody that watched it, you know, for the last year.”
The UNO deck sold out quickly and shortly thereafter, Adam Cole would end up in AEW and DaParty would bid him farewell for now. See the touching farewell here.
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