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ALEX REYNOLDS UPDATE, THE STORY BEHIND AEW'S BIG MUSICAL NUMBER, TOP FLIGHT FEMALE STAR TO DEBUT ON AEW DARK & MORE

By Mike Johnson on 2020-10-22 11:43:00

For those who asked about Alex Reynolds, it was obvious last night on Dynamite that he had his bell rung during a spot with Private Party.  We are told that he was up and OK by the time the show went off the air and didn't seem to have any issues backstage.  It was a scary looking scene, to be sure.

Leyla Hirsh, a great female talent from New Jersey, was at last night's taping and will be appearing on AEW Dark next week.

For those who asked about the MJF and Chris Jericho musical number, it was a version of Me and My Shadow by Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr.  AEW went out and secured a license to use the song, but as it turned out, there was no instrumental version out there that was suitable for what AEW used.  AEW's music guru Mike Rukus set out to rerecord the music himself, playing all the instruments by ear and then received approval from both the original publisher of the song and the Frank Sinatra Estate to use his reconstituted version of the music.  The actual shoot for the segment was taped over a few hours with a few versions shot and completed at 2 AM on Tuesday night/Wednesday AM.  One source believed the post-production editing and mixing ran about ten hours total and the final edited version was completed less than an hour before it actually aired.

That set the stage for this:

The segment has gotten a LOT of good and bad feedback online.  To me, it was a certainly unique way to get over the relationship between the two and has never been done before in pro wrestling, although purists will certainly jump and say there's a reason for that.   It all depends on how you look at pro wrestling and what you want it to be, but to me, if you weren't losing your mind years ago over WWE having their entire roster doing a West Side Story knockoff for their Royal Rumble commercial, you can't be mad at AEW for doing this now as a way to get over the obnoxiousness of two heels.  As someone who worked in the Broadway world and who knows how hard it is to create and produce that sort of material, I was amused personally and thought it was very, very different.  I don't know that tonally, it makes sense to do it for pro wrestling, but my gut is that the very visceral reaction it received guarantees we see a similar segment down the line at some point. 

While everyone knows Jericho's musical background, MJF was heavily involved in musical theater and even had an accapella group in High School.

Alex Boniello, who won a Tony Award for producing the amazing Hadestown, went on Twitter to say he'd gladly hand his Tony over to Jericho and MJF:

John Silver will be on a Shot of Brandi.  It's been something watching Silver get to show his personality finally on AEW TV.    Jim Ross praised Silver's work:

 

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