For the longest time, Evil Uno of the Dark Order‘s motto has been some version of “everything is fine,” but at this stage in the game, one had to ask: is it, though? With the faction's biggest AEW advocate, “Hangman” Adam Page, out indefinitely after suffering a concussion so severe he had to have his match with Jon Moxley prematurely ended in order to be taken to the hospital, Anna Jay defecting to the JAS and both Stu Grayson and Alan Angels – now going by just Angels as part of Impact Wrestling's Violent By Design – out of the company entirely, one has to wonder if there's any real future for the four-man faction now-comprised of just Uno, Alex Reynolds, “The Meat Man” John Silver, and Preston “10” Vance.

Actually, scratch that, as the trio is now down to just three performers, as Vance, long the apple of La Faccion Ingobernable's collective eye, decided to defect from the group on the Black Friday edition of Rampage, throwing his hat in with Rush, Andrade, and Jose the Assistant once and for all in a brutal display that saw Uno's mask get ripped to shreds and Reynolds thrown through a table as young Brodie Lee Jr. watched on as his noted favorite wrestler turned his back on his father's faction. Before Rampage came to an end, Vance took off his mask, revealing a new beard that wasn't present before he formally joined the faction all the way back in the spring of 2020.

So what gives? Did Tony Khan simply want to trim down The Dark Order even further and turn the formerly 10-person faction down into a lean, mean trio featuring Uno, Renyolds, and Silver? Or could the group be quietly preparing to reach its end, with members of the faction either being spun off into other groups a la Vance and hopefully Silver, or released back into the indies to reinvigorate their act a la Angels before his new run in Impact? Considering all of the changes AEW has been going through over the last few months, watching Dark Order move over to the alumni section of the website – which isn't on the website yet but will probably have to be soon – would be a sad but sadly understandable end to a group that started off bad and then got very interesting for a time only for it to fall apart due to a true tragedy that no one could have seen coming.

Dark Order's current AEW status contrasts what Evil Uno expected back in May.

Though things really aren't looking good for Dark Order right now in AEW, back in May, Evil Uno was feeling optimistic about the group's future title chances, as he detailed to Steve Fall of NBC Sports Boston on his Ten Count show.

“I think every pro wrestler should want and every pro wrestler should try to be champion,” Uno said, as transcribed by Wrestling Inc. “Every pro wrestler should aim for more than what they have currently, but I am not the type who holds on to negativity so I'm very happy where I'm at and I'm very happy with The Dark Order is. I feel like we are very beloved, and I feel like we are practically the heart and soul of this company.”

Now, to be fair to Uno, his dream almost came true, as Dark Order beat out the odds and made it all the way to the finals of the AEW World Trios Champion Tournament at All Out with the help of the “Hangman,” but since the group failed to capitalize on the opportunity, they've been largely relegated to Dark and Elevation save their interactions with La Faccion Ingobernable. Still, it's hard not to look at just how far the Dark Order has come since debuting as a largely-unknown group who walked to the ring with nameless, faceless, voiceless followers who would form a human throne for the “Evil One.”

“When [The Dark Order] started, we were completely unknown,” Uno said. “So at Double or Nothing, we showed up, and we were met with, ‘Who are you?' chants. Which, completely, at the time, was justifiable. We had been in Canada for about eight years, and nobody knew who either of us was because we had changed names, changed characters. But that kind of was the goal was to come in and be a mystery and develop that mystery over time.”

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“Now, we're established characters, but we are so vastly different than what we were three years ago. I could have never predicted my course in AEW. There are so many things that have changed from the path of what I thought I was going to do. I am happy in the position I am in, definitely … If you're going to talk about the top ten wrestlers of all time, we have way more of them than we did before … So I am not upset if I do not make this PPV card, there are always other PPV cards. But I would lie if I would tell you I don't want more.”

Does AEW's future have a spot in it for Evil Uno and the Dark Order? Will the removal of Vance from the group serve as a momentary letdown before a bigger glow-up a la Austin Theory in WWE? Or could this be the end of one of the promotion's maiden factions? Only time will tell, but much like everything else the Dark Order has gone through over the past few years, it's clear any expectations will be proven wrong.