WWE wrestlers honor Rochester native Jon Huber with Foodlink donations 

When members of the tag-team wrestling trio The New Day took to the ring Sunday in WWE’s 2021 Royal Rumble, they donned new outfits, embossed with the likeness of the late Jon Huber, a Rochester native and wrestler who was known as Brodie Lee and Luke Harper.

Now, the members of The New Day are auctioning off those outfits and planning to give all of the proceeds to Foodlink.

“When I saw the post last night, I was just blown away by it,” said Mark Dwyer, communications manager for Foodlink. “This was totally unexpected, and it kind of speaks to Jon’s impact here and what people thought of him.”

The New Day currently is made up of Kofi Sarkodie-Mensah, aka Kofi Kingston; Ettore Ewen, aka Big E; and Austin Watson, aka Xavier Woods. On Sunday evening, Ewen tweeted that the gear would be put up for auction to benefit Huber’s hometown.

Ewen has previously hosted similar fundraisers through Twitter, including a November auction of a jumpsuit to benefit organizations fighting food insecurity in his hometown of Tampa, Florida.

The city of Rochester meant a lot to Jon. @FoodlinkNY is a Rochester-based nonprofit that’s dedicated to feeding those in need in the area. We’ll be auctioning off our Royal Rumble gear with all of the proceeds going to @FoodlinkNY.

— Florida Man (@WWEBigE) February 1, 2021

The first piece of gear, the autographed entrance jacket worn by Sarkodie-Mensah Sunday night, was put up on eBay Monday morning. Around 2 p.m., the top bidder had offered $2,025 for the jacket.

Ewen also shared a direct link to Foodlink’s donation page when he tweeted about the auction. Dwyer said the site has seen an influx of donations from out of state, many sent with a note in honor of Huber. He said the donations were up a few hundred dollars after Ewen promoted FoodLink’s page.

“We’ve definitely seen a bump this morning,” Dwyer said.

A McQuaid Jesuit High School graduate, Huber started in the backyard wrestling circuit before breaking into several wrestling leagues throughout the Northeast. He made his WWE debut in November 2012, and stayed until 2019, when he signed a contract with All Elite Wrestling.

Huber died in December 2020 due to a non-COVID related lung disease. He was 41.

Gino Fanelli is a CITY staff writer. He can be reached at (585) 775-9692 or [email protected].