Brodie Lee was in the hot seat as a guest on Chris Jericho's Talk is Jericho podcast. Lee revealed a number of intriguing tidbits about his professional wrestling career, including why he left WWE to continue his wrestling journey in AEW as "The Exalted One."
Lee, formerly known as Luke Harper during his tenure within the WWE, famously announced his WWE release via Twitter account in April of 2019. Since then, he's never talked about the reasons behind that decision until now. He told Jericho that there was a point during his time with the WWE where he felt at odds with Vince McMahon when it came to his gimmick, including even his voice.
Lee explained, "[McMahon] saw a backwoods hillbilly who talked in a Southern drawl, [but I'm] from Rochester, New York, and being somewhat eloquent, he didn't understand. It just didn't compute with him."
"I remember going into his office and him telling me, 'Hey, I want you to do a Southern drawl.' And I was like, 'Sir, I'm from Rochester, New York. I think it's gonna sound really, really fake.' And he goes... 'do me a favor and try it.' And I did it for him and he goes, 'Yeah, I don't like that.' And I literally walked out and thinking, 'Well that's gone. That's never gonna come up again.' And then next week in the script it was like, specifically, 'Luke Harper do a Southern accent.'"
Noting wrestling legend Arn Anderson as one of them, Lee also stated that he had supporters, "just not... vocal ones." But even still, he continued to pitch a number of ideas and angles for his character, including being a "collector," due to his personal fascination with serial killers, and a "smart monster, almost like a Bruiser Brody." However, with no one supporting him and no one in creative listening, Lee began to doubt himself and his skills.
Considering frustrations with his gimmick, longstanding time off TV and little to no chances to provide creative input, Brodie was eventually granted his wish for release from the WWE in December of 2019. He says that he finally decided to ask for his release after the opportunity to debut on Smackdown and perform as Sami Zayn's heater was cancelled, following multiple attempts to talk to McMahon about his status and career in WWE.
After speaking with his wife about the situation and formally resigning, Lee took two 20 minute conversations with McMahon, who he noted is, in general, "almost, robot-like in ways, but when you talk to him it's just... he's a good person, almost." And yet, even though he was offered more money and a bigger push, Brodie refused, simply stating that he wanted to leave.
And even then, Triple H -- WWE's Executive Vice President Of Global Talent Strategy and Development -- didn't want the big man to leave. "Hunter even told me later," Lee Recounted, "'We can't release you. It's gonna make people [look like they] are jumping off a sinking ship.'" But Lee departed all the same, saying he didn't want WWE to "control [his] narrative anymore."
And while he didn't look back, Brodie's eventual move to AEW Dynamite was not entirely seamless, emotionally, as the professional wrestler still felt anxious about his performance for the promotion.
"You now have this opportunity and people have told you 'Hey, you're good at this' and now it's like 'Well, I better be now or it's on me'... that's the stress of it all," Brodie explained to Jericho. "All these people believe in you. Chris Jericho believes in you. Tony Khan believes in you. Cody Rhodes believes in you. And these are people that texted me and told me this. And it's like, 'OK, well I don't want to make them look bad.' So then the stress of 'Can you do this anymore? Can you still go?' We'll see."