By Brian Argabright
This week’s column was supposed to be a look back at what I felt were the best pro wrestling matches of the year.
Then the world of pro wrestling lost one of its brightest stars.
Jon Huber, better known to WWE fans as Luke Harper and most recently AWE’s Brodie Lee, passed away Saturday at the age of 41. According to his wife, Huber passed away due to a “non COVID related lung issue.” He had been off television for the past few weeks after being involved in a feud with Cody Rhodes for AEW’s TNT Title.
Huber was a star in independent wrestling before signing with the WWE in 2011. After a two-year run with the company’s developmental brands, Huber made his main roster debut as Luke Harper, a member of the dangerous Wyatt Family.
Harper’s run in the WWE was far from perfect. Though he would go onto win the Intercontinental Championship and later the Smackdown Tag Team Championships with former Wyatt Fmaily member Erick Rowan, Harper was often seen as one of the most talented, but underutilized wrestlers on the WWE roster.
He remained with the WWE until December 2019 when he was released from his contract. He stayed away from a wrestling ring until the spring when he debuted in AEW as Brodie Lee, who was the Exalted One, the mysterious leader of the faction The Dark Order.
While he spoke very little as Luke Harper, Huber’s run as Brodie Lee gave him a chance to show audiences the intelligence and the passion Huber had for wrestling. His promos were immediate hits and his vignettes with members of the Dark Order, a collective of odd and relatively unknown wrestlers, painted Lee as an intimidating force with a penchant for throwing papers at his underlings but who generally cared for his charges.
His last match in AEW was Oct. 7 where he dropped the TNT Championship back to Rhodes in a dog collar match.
He is survived by his wife, Amanda, and their two sons.
For more on Huber’s life before and during the WWE, visit YouTube and watch here or search “Luke Harper Documentary.” The first selection is a WWE-produced mini-documentary of Huber.
