After being revealed as The Exalted One on the March 18 episode of AEW Dynamite, Brodie Lee's character has seemingly gone in a different direction. The Dark Order looked to be a cult of sorts as they gathered new members, but Lee has been portrayed as a mob boss of sorts with similar mannerisms and hangups as Vince McMahon.
In Lee's first vignette as The Exalted One, he ate steak and chastised a Dark Order member for sneezing around him, which immediately drew comparisons to McMahon and his history of steak-eating and sneezephobia.
Despite the similarities between Lee and McMahon, AEW Co-Executive Vice President Cody is adamant that AEW is not spoofing the WWE boss.
"I can never tell you the original plan and I don't even know if there ever was an original plan," Cody said on Busted Open Radio. "Very unlikely on AEW will you ever hear the name 'Vince McMahon' said. If you do hear me say it in interviews, in general, I always speak very highly of Vince because A. he's Vince McMahon. B. I was a WWE guy to start. I didn't come from anywhere else. I came up through their feeder system and they are the house that built me. When it comes to some of the parallels, I don't want to be vague or coy, between Brodie's style of leadership, there are a lot of unique parallels. But I don't think it's particularly a spoof of Vince McMahon. Maybe we'll see how it develops in the next few weeks. I think Brodie has a very power boss, animal kingdom type approach to the Dark Order and I think that falls in line with some of Vince's quirks. But it is not an outright spoof on the legendary Vince McMahon."
Cody did praise Lee as a talent and welcome addition to the AEW roster.
Lee was in action on Wednesday's Dynamite, defeating Lee Johnson in singles action.
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