Tired of losing? The Dark Order can help with that. On Wednesday night’s AEW Dynamite, a video aired featuring Brodie Lee‘s latest recruit, Preston Vance.
Billed as the favorite to win college football’s Heisman Trophy as well as an aspiring male model, Vance’s story begins with bad news as his girlfriend has just broken up with him over a voicemail. While listening to her message, a newspaper flashes on screen telling Vance’s story. Favored to win the Heisman and go highly in the NFL or NHL drafts, Vance’s career came to an end when he improbably tore both ACLs on the same dead ball play. He tripped over the football according to the Pontiac Times, doing so at a time when he had “everything going for him.”
I’ve gone unnoticed for far too long. So I wanted to say thank you to everyone who has been there over the years. But more importantly thank you Mr.Brodie Lee. https://t.co/FCQbUq1QXr
— Pres10 (@Pres10Vance) April 23, 2020
Reminiscing on this ultimate low and feeling down on his luck, Preston Vance next opts to take the next natural step by visiting jointhedarkorder.com and completing the recruitment form, noting he “had the whole world in his hands” but now needed help to get back on top. Shortly after, he’s in the midst of an interview with Brodie Lee who remarks to Preston Vance that he comes highly recommended by Evil Uno. Lee then begins to ask Vance several questions about his build and if he played college football, all of which very well could have been yet another dig from Lee to Vince McMahon, given the latter’s preferred type when it comes to the image and background of a wrestler.
At the end of the interview, Lee tells Vance he is one of them now and hands him his Dark Order mask making it official. Preston Vance is All Elite and he’s doing so as a member of Dark Order. Vance has since changed his Twitter handle from @vanillavance to @pres10nvance to reflect his new Dark Order name, 10.
“We are the lions of #AEW” – The #ExaltedOne Mr. @ThisBrodieLee.#AEWonTNT @AEWonTNT pic.twitter.com/QYgafDR0pB
— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) April 23, 2020
As things often go, art imitates real life, and such is the case with Vance’s backstory. While the 28-year-old never played college football at Central Michigan University where he attended for four years, Preston Vance was a former baseball and hockey player in high school. As for the part about being an aspiring male model, that’s true as Preston Vance, in addition to being a wrestler, is both a model and actor, having made appearances in TV shows including Macgyver and Kevin Probably Saves the World. The part about his ACL injury was partially true as well as in 2017, in the midst of his new wrestling career, Preston Vance tore one of his ACLs. It was actually during his rehabbing of the injury that he got into modeling as well as personal training.
But as Preston Vance tells it, it was pro wrestling that was always his dream career. So much so that Vance left Michigan the day of his last college class, headed to New Jersey and immediately began training with Danny Cage at Monster Pro Wrestling Factory in 2015. There, Preston Vance won the MPWF heavyweight title from Punishment Martinez and held it for 70 days.
In just five short years on the pro wrestling circuit, which includes over a year missed to injury, Vance, who wrestles out of Detroit, Michigan, has already made in-ring debuts for WWE, IMPACT Wrestling and AEW, as well as his role as an extra in a segment on Ring of Honor.
Known mainly for his time in Georgia Premier Wrestling, his current local indie and state that has been the recent home to AEW tapings, as well as MFPW, Vance has also been a finalist in both the Young Lions Cup for All Pro Wrestling and the King of BUSHIDO 2 tournament for Pro Wrestling Bushido. Vance has also worked for companies such as Evolve, Bulletproof Dojo, WrestlePro, Fusion Wrestling, Maryland Championship Wrestling, United Pro Wrestling Association and Premier Professional Wrestling.
Vance, also known as Cody Vance or Vanilla Vance, first showed up in AEW in January in a dark match alongside Shawn Spears against the father-son team of Billy and Austin Gunn and returned again in April to face Darby Allin in an exciting match for AEW Dark. In recent weeks he’s been connected with the Nightmare Family and in addition, he’s spent years working alongside QT Marshall in various companies. Now, it looks like he’ll be sticking around AEW as 10, the newest recruitee to the sinister cult known as the Dark Order.
Stay tuned to Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can catch AEW Wednesday nights at 8 PM ET on TNT and weekly on YouTube.
