TORONTO — Chances are you have seen Brandon Cutler’s work, even if it hasn’t been in the ring.
Besides being an active member of the AEW roster, Cutler is also the main videographer for the Being the Elite vlogs.
Of course, the Being the Elite videos aren’t centered on the Young Bucks any longer, as they now go by Matthew and Nicolas Jackson, Executive Vice-Presidents of AEW.
“It doesn’t fit the character,” Cutler told SlamWrestling.net backstage at a special fundraiser in Toronto on Tuesday, February 6.
Cutler sees the transition to featuring the Dark Order — a faction currently made up of Evil Uno, Alex Reynolds and John Silver — as a “pivot.”
“The Dark Order, of course, were a big part of that show. So they’re like, ‘Well, we don’t want it to stop. Can we just pick it up?’”
The work for Cutler is identical on Being the Dark Order, just pointed in a different direction.
“I still do the exact same it was just instead of filming the Bucks now I film Dark Order, and still film it and edit it, bounce ideas off the guys,” he said.
For the record, Cutler never studied film in school or anything. He’s been a hands-on learner.
A long-time friend of the Jackson/Massie brothers, who learned to wrestle with them in a backyard setting, Cutler found himself on many shows with the Young Bucks, and they eventually just asked him to help film Being the Elite.
Cutler recalled saying, “I’ll take it off your hands.”
Nick Jackson had been the one editing the segments, and then he and Cutler took turns.
“I just started looking up a lot of videos on editing and filming,” said Cutler. He was self-taught, with help. “I always say the University of YouTube, I looked everything up on, like, What’s this color? What’s this? How do I use this program? And so I learned how to do it. And then from there on, I just kind of took over completely on filming and editing.”
You won’t find Cutler frantically editing in his hotel room or in a taxi, though. “I’ll film it all on the road. And then I’ll leave that as a job; Alright, when I get home, that’ll be my home job.”
Cutler’s other job, as a pro wrestler, isn’t quite as busy. He has had plenty of matches in AEW, but not always on the featured show, Dynamite. He’s been in two matches so far in 2024 — one in Ring of Honor, one on Dynamite teaming with Colt Cabana (more on him in a moment.)
How does the 6-foot-2, 180-pound man born Brandon Bogle stay sharp?
“I work out twice a day. One workout is usually just like I say a vanity workout, where it is just working out a muscle group, to try and look good,” he began. “The other workout I usually do is more cardiovascular and trying to do movements that I would be doing in a wrestling ring to try and keep my body somewhat sharp. … You want to keep wrestling so that you always have those calluses. Because anyone that hasn’t wrestled in even two or three weeks, you start feeling like, ‘Oh my god that hurts so much more now.’”
When the ring is set up, he likes to hit the ropes and roll around, do some chain wrestling and reversals with others. He finds himself jealous of colleagues who have access to wrestling rings when they are off the road, maybe where they initially trained locally.
You won’t find Cutler on a myriad of indy dates.
“Honestly, the main thing is if it just works for my schedule of what weekend it lands on,” he explained.
The Reena Rumble, at The Warehouse at Downsview in Toronto, was on a Tuesday night, so he just left a day early. Normally, he flies out to AEW Dynamite on the Tuesday, and gets home on Thursday.
On the show, which was a fundraiser for the Reena Foundation, Cutler teamed with Colt Cabana, against The Backseat Boyz (Tommy and JP Grayson). The promoters claimed the match winner would get the “first-ever” Jewish tag team championship. It was a wacky bout, in front of a crowd filled with kids, where a rabbi blessed the belts, kosher salt came into play, and Cutler and Cabana won.
Cutler, who has two kids, aged five and seven, loved the family-friendly atmosphere. As for his own children, “they kind of get that I wrestle and stuff, but I don’t think they know fully what it is,” he said. “I kind of still keep them a little bit away from it.” When they’re older, he’ll be explaining the pre-determined nature of pro wrestling to them.
Family factors in too with their mother/Brandon’s wife, who has long made the outfits for the Young Bucks — at least until they went corporate. “She did all the Young Bucks gear since this whole AEW run,” he confirmed.
As for his own tracksuits? That’s all online ordering, and he looks for the “ugly, bright and colorful” ones. “I always loved the ’90s and like Saved by the Bell color schemes and stuff. So I’ve always just looked for that, ‘Oh, yeah, let’s just do something bright and wacky.’” Cutler and Cabana had matching tracksuits, for the record, as they held up the Jewish tag team titles.
The 36-year-old Cutler has been around AEW since the very beginning when Tony Khan started it all. Fans can see it’s a bigger company, with talent coming and going, but what might they not know?
“Man, that’d be hard to answer, looking back at day one to now, because it is like anything over time, it just slowly changes. You don’t notice the changes while you’re in them,” he mused. The roster is bigger, obviously. The travel isn’t all that different for him, since he’s always pretty well been a part of the Wednesday crew, not the Friday/Saturday Rampage/Collision team.
“The great thing is that Tony still keeps a light schedule on everybody, we could do indys,” praised Cutler. “Everything has been pretty good overall.”
Even his core group has stayed mostly the same. “I hang out with a lot of the same guys. I’ve been there from the beginning, Dark Order, Best Friends, Orange [Cassidy], all those guys,” he said. “My circles have been around the whole time.”
The Bucks have remade themselves as corporate egomaniacs. Cutler has been considering what is next for him.
“I do like reinventing myself,” he said, noting he went from a dragon-inspired fighter to a stooge for the Bucks. He has loved being able to incorporate personal interests, like Dungeons & Dragons, into his act. “Like I say to my wife, I’m kind of like a character actor, I like playing characters. I don’t want to be just the generic, ‘I’m the best wrestler.’”
Cutler may not be seen every Dynamite, but when he is there, he is tough to miss.
He summed it all up: “There’s a wrestler that wears this bright, funny stuff and dances and is goofy.”
TOP PHOTO: Brandon Cutler at the Reena Rumble on Tuesday, February 6, 2024, at The Warehouse in Toronto, Ontario. Photo by Steve Argintaru, Twitter: @stevetsn Instagram: @stevetsn
RELATED LINKS
- Brandon Cutler socials: Twitter * Instagram * YouTube
- Being the Elite on YouTube
