The duo of Matt Menard and Angelo Parker, also known in All Elite Wrestling as Daddy Magic and Cool Hand, were known as Ever-Rise in the WWE. After being released, however, the duo finds themselves now in the Jericho Appreciation Society at AEW.
During a recent appearance on the Swerve City Podcast, the duo spoke at length about how they joined AEW, and credit Chris Jericho with helping them get on their feet immediately following their exit from WWE.
“So we first met him when we were doing extra work for WWE at times, but like that’s about it,” said Menard. “Like Kevin would just be like ‘Oh, here’s my buddies,’ but after we got released from WWE, Kevin Owens reached out to him and just said ‘Hey, can you get my buddies on the podcast? Like they’re good dudes like they just need somebody, they need something.’ And it’s also the first thing we do after getting released, which is always a hot topic, right? Like everyone wants to hear the story. And we’ve never been on it. So it’s cool. And like he just said, ‘All right, I don’t know these people, but I trust you.'”
The duo went on to explain that after appearing on Chris Jericho’s podcast, the pair hit it off with the legendary wrestler. “So we do that podcast and like, we just hit it off. We do the podcast, then we sat around and shot the shit for a while,” Parker said. “And it was just like, oh, we get along, awesome. And it’s funny, because we did that podcast on a Monday. On Tuesday, we’re going to Jacksonville to our to do Dark for AEW. And then Wednesday was the homecoming where we ended up on on TV there. But so we finished the podcast and Chris is like, ‘Alright, what what do you have left on your no-compete clause?’ He goes, ‘I’m gonna see if I can get you guys some work.'”
From there, it was history, as the duo would appear on AEW during Jericho’s feud with Eddie Kingston, and soon find themselves acting as a “beatable group of guys” for some other superstars, a role they said they’re fine with.
“So yeah, I mean, he’s told this story a lot, too, from his view,” said Menard. “But, he was feuding with Eddie Kingston at the time. And since we started with the company, we’ve been in a feud with Eddie Kingston and Jon Moxley kind of just, always kind of coming together in some different ways, as well. So that’s how we started…they were kind of using us in as a little bit of a piece to bridge the gap between them.
“That was really our role for the first year like us and Garcia was just kind of like…beatable group of like, we can get beat and not be hurt. And we can help bridge the gap to lead to that. So bring these people to go to here, help them get wins to go here. And that was like, Oh, perfect. Excellent. Love this role. That’s great, we’re getting a ton of TV time. Like, it’s not a lot it’s not a lot. But, some people are complaining, ‘Oh, they’re getting really pushed.’ And like, we’re not getting pushed, we were just being utilized as a utility role, which is great.”
