Erick Rowan Reveals Why He Didn't Want Anything To Do With The Dark Order

In a recent interview with NBC Sports Boston's "Ten Count," Erick Rowan had quite a bit to say about his friend Brodie Lee and paying tribute to his legacy through AEW. The 41-year-old Lee passed away on December 26, 2020, from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a rare lung disease. AEW's Appreciation Night for Lee was held four days later, and Rowan remembered how difficult it was for staging a public memorial at that particular time. 

"You've got to remember everything was still basically on lockdown," he said. "There was no public funerals, no one's getting together, and this is the time when we needed each other. People need to be around those that they love."

Rowan had been released by WWE earlier in the year and was wrestling on the independents as Erick Redbeard. In becoming part of the AEW's memorial for Lee, he found himself reunited with "people that I'd spent so much time with for so many years. For something like this to happen, and to be around those people, it was very emotional. And to see how emotional everybody was there — it just made it very therapeutic in a way."

Despite Rowan's participation, he acknowledged there was never a plan for him to join Tony Khan's roster on a long-term basis. "It was never a conversation," he said. "I was doing and pursuing my own things and ... it was never a thing."

But he also observed that his work with Lee –- who, as Luke Harper, he teamed with as members of the Wyatt Family during their time in WWE — would only reinforce the loss of his friend at that particular time, which was among the reasons that, if AEW was an option, he would not have wanted to join the Dark Order. "That's his legacy," he said of Lee's role as the group's leader. "He made it and created that in such a quick amount of time ... I wanted nothing to do with that. So, even if there was a conversation, I wouldn't have seen myself having a spot there."