There was a time in the not-too-distant past when Cody Rhodes was a full-time wrestler and EVP of AEW.
It all started well enough, with Rhodes and his Elite faction positioned as the babyface foils to Chris Jericho's villainous Inner Circle but after a self-imposed stipulation that would prevent the well-traveled hero from ever challenging for the AEW World Championship again if he lost at Full Gear 2019 – which he did – the EVPs had to get creative in order to find to keep “The Son of a Son of a Plummer” in meaningful angles.
Inter the Nightmare Factory, Rhodes' training school-turn-quasi-faction who took on a surprisingly large role in the promotion once the pandemic hit. Paired up with his real-life wrestling school partner QT Marshall, Rhodes, his brother, his students, and, occasionally, the actor Stephen Amell who played the Green Arrow on Arrow, Rhodes fought with MJF, with fought Lance Archer, and had the final match versus Brodie Lee before his untimely passing.
But all wasn't right in the Nightmare Factory. No, often overlooked, Marshall spun off The Factory into his own thing, and began to feud with Rhodes and students like Brock Anderson and Lee Johnson with his prised purples Aaron Solo, Nick Comoroto, and former Olympian Anthony Ogogo.
Now, on paper, this feud could have worked, Ogogo was positioned like a star and was placed on a massive stage in a match versus Rhodes at Double or Nothing that rapidly turned into America versus the UK, but when the angle tanked in a big way, it put a damper on what could have been a long-running angle. When the Rhodes-Marshall Four Corners Match was largely overshadowed by the debut of Malakai Black, who Rhodes briefly feuded with too, The Factory rapidly landed on the backburner, being relegated to Dark matches and comedic angles against folks like Hook… at least until recently.
That's right, in addition to clocking/producing Dynamite with Tony Khan each week, Marshall and his faction have found a new feud that is deceptivly cleaver and working out very well across multiple promotions; a feud that could single-handedly breathe new life into The Factory.
QT Marshall has taken his AEW group to NJPW Strong.
On the March 20th taping of NJPW Strong in Tampa, Florida, Impact Wrestling Ace Josh Alexander had a match against Karl Fredericks, the LA Dojo standout who won the Young Lions Cup in 2019.
Though the match itself wasn't anything particularly noteworthy, as the duo exchanged blows before “The Walking Weapon” took care of business in the middle of the ring, what took the bout up an notch was what happened after the 1-2-3, when QT Marshall, Aaron Solo, and Nick Comoroto hit the ring and offered the 31-year-old a spot in The Factory moving forward. Marshall gassed up his potential new teammate, gave him a tee-shirt and waited for a response, only for Fredericks to reject the offer outright with some backup from his fellow NJPW performers Clark Conners and Yuya Uemura
The feud, as they say, was born.
From there, the two factions took their beef to the ring, with Connors and Fredericks beating Solo and Comoroto at Mutiny, The Factory getting back the win with Marshall and Uemura inserted into the picture at Windy City Riot, and an eventual 10 man tag on Dark that saw Team NJPW Strong take down The Factory in a very fun match wtih cross-promotional implications on May 1st.
Had that 10 man tag been the end of the feud, this probably wouldn't be much of a story but on the June 10th edition of NJPW Strong, which was filmed on May 15th in Philadelphia's 2300 Arena, Marshall and Fredericks took to the ring once more, showcasing that there is still very much beef betwee the two parties. After securing the win, Fredericks was once again jumped by The Factory but this time he had help from an unknown force, as Christopher Daniels, fresh off of his first AEW win since May 28th, 2020, cleared the ring on his way to a nice moment with the victorious grappler.
Will The Factory continue to feud with the NJPW Strong roster heading into the second half of 2022? Will the insertion of Christopher Daniels into the story elevate the back and forths to new heights, with the 52-year-old finally returning to AEW programming in a more regular basis either as a tag team partner to or mentor for Karl Fredericks, who himself isn't particularly happy about being held out of the G-1 this yes? That would be cool too, but either way, it's nice to see that even without Cody Rhodes on the roster, QT Marshall has found a repurposed use for The Factory, especially if it draws a few more eyes to Strong on a weekly basis.
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