A sinister cult turned loveable goofballs, The Dark Order faction has been a staple of AEW television since their debut in 2019, with several members of the group finding popularity with the fans. One of the most unexpectedly popular members of the group is John Silver, who often competes in the tag division alongside partner Alex Reynolds.
Seemingly short yet hilariously muscular, John Silver won over fans via the weekly Being The Elite YouTube series with his silly personality and some choice skits. With his increased profile, Silver is a wrestler worth knowing about, so let’s cover the essentials of his career, from in-ring stuff to some of the reasons he gets so much love from AEW fans.
10 Trained By Mikey Whipwreck
Hailing from New York, John Silver found training via a fellow New Yorker in Mikey Whipwreck. A legend of ECW, Whipreck was a Triple Crown champion in the promotion, holding the World Title, Tag Team Title, and TV Title, and had a hand in training a number of wrestlers from the area, including Matt Cardona, Brian Myers, and Tony Nese. Silver made his debut in 2007, wrestling for NY indie New York Wrestling Connection (NYWC).
9 Wrestled for CZW
In 2013, John Silver started performing for notable indie Combat Zone Wrestling, where he made numerous challenges to the CZW Wired Championship and had bouts with names like Rich Swann, Ethan Page, Shane Strickland, Drago, Matt Riddle, Lio Rush, and even future AEW coworker MJF.
In April 2019, Silver defeated David Starr to capture the CZW World Heavyweight Championship, kicking off a 153-day run with the belt. In September, he’d drop the belt to Joe Gacy in a three-way match with Conor Claxton.
8 The Shard
Like many indie wrestlers, John Silver wrestled for the nerdy, comedic, and now-defunct Chikara, often wearing masks and/or working gimmicks that were specific to the promotion. In Chikara, Silver donned a mask to portray The Shard, an evil version of the masked Jigsaw as part of an invading heel staple called The Swarm.
Eventually Jigsaw would align with The Shard, and the two would form a tag team called Pieces of Hate. The duo had a tremendous 2013, capturing the Chikara’s tag team title, the Campeonatos de Parejas Championship, for a 413-day run, as well as winning the Tag World Grand Prix tournament.
7 Tag Team With Alex Reynolds
Shortly after his debut, John Silver wrestled fellow Mikey Whipwreck trainee Alex Reynolds, and the two continued to clash in various singles matches and tag bouts in the years following. In 2011, the two would finally team up, often using the name The Beaver Boys or The Slophunters.
Performing as a duo for various indies including EVOLVE, Beyond Wrestling, and even Ring of Honor on one occasion, Silver and Reynolds would capture titles in NYWC, CZW, and Pro Wrestling Guerrilla.
6 Feuded With Alex Reynolds
The break-up of The Beaver Boys happened in 2017 when, during an encounter between John Silver and future NXT 2.0 star Joe Gacy, one of Gacy’s masked underlings was revealed to be Alex Reynolds. From there, a feud ensued, with the two interfering in one another’s matches and choosing opponents for one another in Pick Your Poison scenarios.
Finally, the two would have an intense main event ladder match in September 2018 at Down With The Sickness, with Silver’s victory making him a credible main eventer.
5 AEW
All Elite Wrestling is no stranger to hiring indie wrestlers to lose squash matches to signed talent, so it hardly seemed out of the ordinary when Silver and Reynolds showed up in the early days of Dynamite in 2019. Over the following months, the duo would lose bouts to the likes of Santana and Ortiz, Best Friends, and Jurassic Express.
While the squashes functioned to make the winning wrestlers look strong, fans soon found out that these losses also had an effect on Silver and Reynolds.
4 Joining Dark Order
After one loss too many, a video segment would air featuring The Dark Order mysteriously contacting Reynolds and Silver through a TV screen in their hotel room, asking them if they had enough of losing. Soon enough, the duo would be fully-fledged members of the group during its initial heel incarnation.
Appropriate to the angle, Reynolds and Silver would flourish in the Dark Order, gaining a higher profile than they likely would have had on their own. Before long, Silver and Reynolds would start racking up wins — enough to get a shot at Tag Team Championship in 2022.
3 “Johnny Hungee”
Part of what made John Silver a fan favorite was his various appearances on Being The Elite, a weekly online series that follows the exploits of various AEW stars via comedic skits. The Dark Order were a regular presence on the show, with leader Brodie Lee routinely frustrated by his goofy underlings.
Silver in particular was a highlight, and in one notable segment ogled Wardlow so hard that he coined the phrase “Johnny Hungee,” which soon became a catchphrase on regular AEW television.
2 “Budge”
With the departure of Adam Cole from WWE for AEW came Cole’s return to Being The Elite, where he was killed on-screen. Back in the fold, Cole had a recurring segment with John Silver, who made outrageous recommendations for Cole’s character based on rumors of what WWE planned for him.
Silver urged Cole to cut his hair, become a manager, and change his name to something like “Budge.” “Budge” became a meme for AEW fans, with the gag making its way to AEW television through a short rivalry between the two.
1 Became A Meme
As established, John Silver’s antics on Being The Elite have earned him popularity with AEW fans, but in 2022, he managed to break out of pro wrestling circles to become a full-on meme. In Feburary 2022, the Twitter account @good_faces_bot — which posts images of amusing expressions from video games, cartoons, and beyond — posted a screencap from an episode of BTE where Silver was bothering an annoyed Anna Jay. The image quickly went viral as users began adding captions to it, turning it into a new version of the “Bro Explaining” meme.