Unfortunate: Jon Huber AKA Brodie Lee in AEW, Luke Harper in WWE, passes away at the age of 41, due to alleged non-COVID related lung disease
Firstly, I genuinely do feel bad to hear about this story, because Jon Huber was an extremely good wrestler, and it is always a tragedy to hear of a guy leaving the world this soon, especially when he’s leaving behind a wife and two kids. At 41 years of age, he’s not much older than me, and many of my current friends, which is also very harrowing to hear of.
I had a high opinion of Jon Huber, and it was a running joke between one of my friends and I that he was a picture-perfect future IWGP World Champion if he ever decided to cross the ocean and go to Japan, because the mold of the evil foreign white man that NJPW loved to use to have their heroes pursue for championships was basically built off of guys like him.
Instead, he went to AEW, where he briefly enjoyed a modicum of success, being unveiled as the leader of the Dark Order, having one World title shot at Jon Moxley which he lost, but then squashing Cody Rhodes for the TNT Popeyes Championship, before losing it back to him a month later. To my knowledge, that was his last appearance, and he never appeared again on television until the news of his passing.
Here’s the thing though: the news is still fresh, the grief among the industry and the fandom is still outpouring, but I hate to be the guy that wades through all the sadness to wonder just what really happened. From what I’ve heard, Lee passed away from an unnamed “non-COVID” lung issue, but I can’t help but feel all sorts of skepticism for these vague circumstances.
I feel like if he had died from emphysema, it would’ve been said he died from emphysema. If he died from COPD, it would’ve been said he died from COPD. There are all sorts of lung issues that are not COVID related and have actual names, and I can’t help but be curious to know whether or not there’s some intentional misdirection being given out here, because I’m sure most everyone who cared about the news, wondered if coronavirus had anything to do with it.
Make no mistake, the first three things that popped into my head before his wife came out and made a statement, was drugs, suicide or coronavirus, because as fucked up as sounds, the first two things are usually what are involved with a wrestler the age of Huber dies, and of course, COVID is on the tip of everyone’s tongues these days.
The thing is, I don’t know how Huber and his family leaned in terms of politics and ‘Murican beliefs, but if there was any sort of right-way leaning, then of course he couldn’t possibly have died from the Chinese Kung-Flu, and they will want everyone to believe that he didn’t die from coronavirus. But the fallacy to a lot of COVID-deniers is that coronavirus itself might not always be the party delivering the killshot, but it’s still more than capable of assisting other ailments do it all the same, and more than happy to revel in the end result regardless of the percentage of responsibility.
For example, I have a local acquaintance who had been unfortunate to have lost their father recently. The cause of death was listed as a kidney-related issue, I don’t know the specifics. What I do know is that they also had coronavirus, and in spite of the fact that it was not credited with being the reason of death, it doesn’t take a genius to understand that it probably did a number to his body to where the kidney issue could become more potent and lethal.
Who’s to say that Jon Huber didn’t have coronavirus, or had it at one point, and was suffering some of the known-lasting effects of the virus, especially to lungs and other pulmonary functions? AEW runs all their shows outdoors, even in seasonally dropping temperatures, has live audiences, as socially distanced as they may be mandated, and in the state of Florida, where the infection numbers have been substantially higher than many others.
The insistence of disclosing that it was non-COVID related makes me feel like the overcompensation is in fact giving credence that maybe it could actually have been. At this point, I would suspect that there’s a little bit of damage control in play by AEW, to try and quell any suspicion that it could’ve been COVID-related, because it would look really bad for the company, since they operate in the exact manner just described. And considering they’re still the #2 (out of 2) promotion in the country no matter how much they try to put their ratings wins over, any particular allegations of unsafe working conditions are most definitely not what they need to be tagged with.
I know this is a lot of my usual conspiracy-theory crafting here, and the timing is not particularly good. But I would appreciate more truth and transparency with things, and not have to feel like there’s any bit of business protection going on here.
It’s all still early and fresh, and maybe we will get some more answers. It’s also a shame that it’s come at the expense of such a quality talent, but I just have this suspicion that we’re not getting the whole story.
Well, regardless of what transpires in coming weeks, this is certainly one way that’s going to make AEW Dynamite interesting, for better or worse. I was never a fan of Brodie Lee the Exalted One leader of the Dark Order, because I frankly thought he was better than the entire faction, but it’s no longer his or anyone else’s problem anymore. This’ll be a mountain of a test for AEW’s creative process to write their way out of this one, because the faction’s leader just actually passed. How are they going to dig themselves out of this plot hole now?
