John Silver On Who Could Be AEW Dark’s Next Breakout Star

AEW's John Silver sat down with Inside the Ropes to talk about both AEW and Being the Elite. A star on the latter show alongside his Dark Order stable, Silver talked about some of his most famous bits, including the origin to "Who the f**k is Griff Garrison?!" According to Silver, he had the line in his head, but he wasn't sure why.

"Right off the bat, I'm not sure," Silver said. "Most of it is pretty much improv. It's usually 'Hey, this is the gist of it... and go.' So most of it is improv. The only thing, actually, is 'Who the f**k is Griff Garrison?' as a sentence was not improv, I had that in my head. For some reason, I had that in my head ready to go. I don't know why but I remember pitching it to him."

Garrison, who got engaged just a month ago, ultimately went along with the bit. What cracks Silver up about the whole thing was Garrison's stoic reaction to it all, in contrast to everyone else.

"So this is why I think Griff Garrison is a weirdo," Silver said with a laugh. "Because I pitched it to him and he was just like '...Yeah. OK.' So I'm like 'All right, so we're gonna do this.' So we film this bit and even during it, we're all laughing. After, we're all hysterically laughing. The only person not laughing after and before was Griff Garrison. I

"I mean, I was in the bit and I'm off camera trying to not laugh and he's just stone-faced! Then after we're done, he just walks away like nothing happened. I'm like 'Yo, Griff Garrison might be a serial killer because he didn't laugh at any of this.' Brodie was laughing, I was laughing, Alex Reynolds) was laughing, we were all hysterical. So if he becomes a serial killer, I called it right here!"

Silver then circled back to Being the Elite. As he hinted at earlier, the key to the show's success is the loose, improv nature the show has adopted.

"Pretty much everything you do is very much improv because that's just how it works," Silver said. "Sometimes I'll just have a phrase in my head and then I might use that but for the most part, it's like 'Hey, what are we doing this week? Well, we're having a slumber party. All right, what's going to happen at the slumber party?' We might have like an end to it so we don't just keep on rambling but for the most part, we just go and we start doing whatever. So pretty much the whole thing is improv, there's not a lot of script going into it."

Late Silver was asked about AEW Dark. Alongside AEW Dark: Elevation, the show serves as a potential springboard for lesser known talent and Silver talked about what it takes to stand out on the Tuesday evening show.

"Everyone has potential," Silver said. "When it comes to coming up, you have to find yourself. There's some people that are fantastic wrestling-wise, absolutely great, but you have to make sure that the crowd relates to you in a way. That's a big thing of it. If the crowd doesn't want to cheer you or boo you or care if you're wrestling, even if you're having great matches, that's not gonna work."

AEW has benefited greatly from Dark over the past year, discovering talent such as Powerhouse Hobbs, Red Velvet, Bear Country and others. As to who may be the next breakout star, Silver name dropped a talent who recently returned to Dark after suffering an injury in June of last year.

"The first one that comes to mind is John Skyler," Silver said. "Most people don't know this but when I wrestled Skyler on Dark, that wasn't supposed to be the match. It was supposed to be myself and Alex versus John Skyler and the wrestler, an independent legend, B-Boy. So right in the beginning of the match B-Boy actually tore his Achilles, so the match stopped and they decided to put me and Skyler in a match with obviously very little preparation.

"We just kind of went out there, we did the match and everything he did was great. I think the match went very well. He's also been around a long time, so I've been on shows with him on the indies. But to be prepared for a match and have an injury happen, unfortunately, and then have it switched and still be ready to go is a great attitude to have. I think the first name I'd say is Skyler, but I gotta also mention my buddies who we've wrestled. I gotta say VSK, Eric James and I gotta say Milk Chocolate [Brandon Watts and Randy Summers] as well."

You can watch the full interview below.