Who is The Exalted One in AEW?

Even though this week’s AEW Dynamite will take place without any fans in attendance, the company is still moving forward with The Dark Order’s storyline by having the faction reveal who their leader, The Exalted One, is. There have been dozens of hints over the past month as to who it will be, and while many fans think they know the answer, there’s always the possibility that the answer could be a swerve. Let’s run down the list of possible candidates.

By far and away, the leading candidate is Matt Hardy. Even when he was still under contract with WWE, the Dark Order’s segments and Evil Uno’s Twitter account. There have been too many hints to count, but one of Hardy’s most recent tweets pretty much spells it out for the fans (taking the first letter of each word and spell it backwards = Exalted)

Hardy has been teasing a character change on his “Free The Delete” YouTube series for months, and mere days after his WWE contract expired he had The Young Bucks arrive at The Hardy Compound and bury him in a coffin. He announced on Wednesday that the final episode of the series would air on Wednesday night, the same night The Exalted One is supposed to be revealed.

For what it’s worth, AEW hasn’t announced whether or not Hardy has signed a contract as of this writing.

One other possible candidate is former WWE star Luke Harper, who will likely be going by his old indie wrestling name Brodie Lee. The former Intercontinental Champion was reportedly supposed to make his AEW debut this week (the show was originally booked to take place in Rochester, Lee’s hometown), and he’s got a history of being in a sinister faction.

One person that The Dark Order has tried to convince people is part of the group is Christopher Daniels, though he’s repeatedly denied it. Along with claiming that The Exalted One isn’t real, Daniels has challenged Evil Uno to a match on Dynamite tonight.

Leading up to Wednesday’s show, Uno has been tweeting out a list of people who aren’t The Exalted One. That list includes himself, Stu Grayson, John Silver, Alex Reynolds, whoever is reading the tweet, Daniels, Tom Nook, video game critic Jim Sterling, Josh Smith, Harry Styles, Kevin Sullivan, L. Ron Hubbard, Jim Ross, Marko Stun, Danhausen, Ryback, Max Headroom, Leva Bates, Chris D’Elia, Macaulay Culkin, Wale, Ron Funches and Adam Page.

Who do you think The Exalted One is? Sound off in the comments!